MoMita is the child of a larger exhibit “Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement” presented at the MoMA

    You’ve heard of MoMA, New York’s Museum of Modern Art but you probably haven’t heard of MoMita, Casa Familiar’s newest housing project translated into an exhibition at the facility’s The Front located in San Ysidro.

    The show features two progressive architectural designs: “Living Rooms at the Border” or “El Salon” and “Senior Housing with Childcare” also called “Los Abuelitos”. Both are one of eleven projects selected Worldwide as exemplary for there social engaging designs procuring alternative housing density and affordability in undeserved communities. This project in particular also carries awards for being one of the most sustainable living proposals.

    MoMita is the child of a larger exhibit “Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement” presented at the MoMA last October through January of this year. The main exhibit included other proposed projects for places like Bangladesh, Paris, Chile, Rio de Janeiro and South Africa amongst others. The project for Casa Familiar was designed over a ten-year span by Architects David Flores and Estudio Teddy Cruz, owned and operated by Teddy Cruz, also a professor in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD.

    In talking with David Flores during a special tour, he expressed “the way we see humans isn’t only measured by the problems they bring along, we see a bigger picture. We see a person in need of the arts, education and a safe place to live.” This is exactly what they will accomplish in providing once the projects are put to ground. Flores is excited to see the construction through, during the walkthrough of the “El Salon” showcase, his eyes lit up every time he moved over from describing one of the settings to the next.

    After all, this isn’t the first time a designed project he works on for Casa Familiar gets ready to come to life. In 1998, he saw “Las Florecitas” the first first-time homeownership project realized. If all goes as envisioned “El Salon” will be just a block south of “Las Florecitas” and “Los Abuelitos” just 400 feet over.

    Each of the two complexes will have a personality of their own. “El Salon” aims to enrich families by offering a stimulating array of artistic opportunities. It will include twelve affordable housing units. The church that now sits on the property, the first to be built in San Ysidro back in 1927, will be turned into a community center where residents will have the option to create on their own or through an alliance with UCSD students and professors willing to share their insight through workshops at the center. The church’s attic will serve as Casa Familiar’s offices. A minimalist designed garden will be the connecting element between the units and the center, also serving as a community link to public events.

    “Los Abuelitos” will bring two generations together under one roof. This project is specifically for Grandparents whose grandchildren are under their full custody. “With ‘Los Abuelitos’ we keep the same idea of service integration as with ‘El Salón” explained Flores. “During community forums held at Casa Familiar, one of the most resonant needs came to light from seniors whose sons and daughters were away in prison, ill, working all the time, or gone for good leaving their children behind with the grandparents who live in studios or small one-bedroom apartments and can’t afford to rent a larger apartment to live in better conditions with the grandchild” shared Leticia Gómez who has been working at Casa Familiar for the past five years. The 13-unit project seeks to give those grandparents that opportunity, it not only offers affordable housing it also comes with a daycare facility and will be built with easy access for both senior and child.

    Solar panels make the project energy efficient which in turn also helps keep costs down. The projects are still undergoing certain city permits but should begin construction by 2012. Casa Familiar is one of the first local non-profit organizations making a strong effort to shift cultural demographics caused by immigration within many mid-city neighborhoods and whose primary goal is to aid families not simply through affordable housing but by creating social engagement within those housing projects.

    MoMita will be at Casa familiar’s The Front through July 31, 20011. If you’re interested in exploring the rest of the projects in Small Scale, Big Change they are: Primary School, Gando, Burkina Faso (Diébédo Francis Kéré, 1999–2001); Quinta Monroy Housing, Iquique, Chile (Elemental, 2003–05); Red Location Museum of Struggle, Port Elizabeth, South Africa (Noero Wolff Architects, 1998–2005); METI – Handmade School, Rudrapur, Bangladesh (Anna Heringer, 2004–06); Inner-City Arts, Los Angeles, California (Michael Maltzan Architecture, 1993–2008); Housing for the Fishermen, Tyre, Lebanon (Hashim Sarkis A.L.U.D., 1998–2008); $20K House VIII (Dave’s House), Hale County, Alabama (Rural Studio, 2009); Metro Cable, Caracas, Venezuela (Urban Think Tank, 2007–10); Manguinhos Complex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Jorge Mario Jáuregui, 2005–10); Transformation of Tour Bois le Prêtre, Paris, France (Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton, and Jean Philippe Vassal, 2006–11); and Casa Familiar: Living Rooms at the Border and Senior Housing with Childcare in San Ysidro, California (Estudio Teddy Cruz, 2001–present).

Willie Mills drives the truck from community to community, setting up the food distributions.

TIERRA DEL SOL, CA

— The tiny towns in the borderland of East San Diego County —Campo, Boulevard and Tierra del Sol— mark the road north for hundreds of migrants as they cross the border and travel on. Hardly any migrants stay — just those who die in the crossing. Instead, for the people who live here, some with roots going back for generations, these tiny communities are home to growing hunger and poverty.

    The border fence is the main feature of the landscape, as it passes through the desert between the U.S. and Mexico, two miles south of Campo. A big Border Patrol station sprawls across several acres just outside this tiny town. Hundreds of people try to walk though the mountains here every month, and many die as they attempt to cross the border. The potters field graveyard in Holtville, a few hours away, is filled with hundreds of graves of those found dead in these hot dry hills.

    Up the road from Campo is Boulevard, another tiny town on the border highway. Near it sits “Camp Vigilance,” home to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a rightwing anti-immigrant militia. The camp became notorious after Shawna Forde, recently sent to death row in Arizona for murdering a nine-year-old Mexican girl and her father, stayed there on her way to the shooting.

    Until fed-up locals recently stopped it, the Blackwater security company planned to open a clandestine training facility nearby as well. It presumably would have focusing on paramilitary action against the poor farmers and workers making the trek north from Mexico. When company mercenaries were charged with murdering civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, however, the training camp proposal was quickly shelved.

    Its little wonder that national media describe this section of the border as immigration ground zero, where border enforcement both by the official authorities, and border violence by right wing militias, is the big story.

    But for the people who actually live here, the real story is not having enough to eat. East San Diego County shares with other border communities, from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to the Imperial Valley just hours east on the highway, the distinction of being the poorest communities in the United States.

Impoverished families living near the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico receive food from a truck that sets up a food distribution every two weeks. Ken Koppin fixes up old houses as a way of earning a place to live, and provides a place for the food distribution.

   Every week, Ken Koppin leaves his shack here on Tierra del Sol Road, where an American flag in the window shades the interior from the sun’s intense heat. He drives up to Highway 94, and there puts out a signboard telling his neighbors that the food pantry will be handing out bags that afternoon.

   Around two o’clock a large white truck with murals painted on its sides pulls into the open area beside Koppin’s shack. Willie Mills, an African American driver, pilots it from one border settlement to another, from the suburbs of San Diego itself, through these mountain hamlets, to the border of Imperial County. Koppin says that it was hard at first to find a place for the truck to make its stop in Tierra del Sol, but his landlord finally agreed to let it park here.

   Mills and Koppin call for volunteers among the people leaning on their cars or sitting smoking and talking in the shade of a solitary tree. Soon folding tables are set up, and the area’s residents begin parceling out food from bins into bags. Then they all line up, and each person gets whatever the truck is holding that day: oranges, canned milk, potatoes, bread or hot dog buns.

   Off to one side sits Jesus Rodriguez. He says he doesn’t know exactly when he was born, but he’s lived his entire life here on the border, over 80 years at least. “My family has always been here,” he says. “We were probably here when this was Mexico.”

   This land became part of the U.S. in 1848, after the U.S. army defeated the Mexicans, and General Santana signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving up what’s now California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado and Utah. It was only Mexico for 27 years — until Mexican independence in 1821 Spain claimed it as its colony.

   But long before the Spanish conquistadores and their friars arrived in the 1700s, native people occupied the land for 10,000 years. The Kumeyaay and Cocopah Indians were its original inhabitants, as late as 1880 Indians resisted outside settlement. Fifteen were massacred that year by ranchers in nearby Jacumba. Today a number of small reservations are scattered through east San Diego County. The Manzanita Band of Diegueno Mission Indians has its tribal office in nearby Boulevard, and sometimes tribe members also get food from the truck.

   A Spanish-speaking neighbor has brought Don Jesus, as she calls him in respect for his age, down to the food distribution. “He needs the food, of course,” she says. “But he also needs to get out and see people. He gets depressed living alone by himself, so I make him come. The food feeds his body, and the people here feed his soul.”

   Nick, another old man, also comes down to get food, even though he’s also a food producer. He has a small pig farm that actually abuts the border fence itself, down Tierra del Sol Road another three miles. “He’s really too old anymore to slaughter the pigs himself,” Koppin says. “So every now and then I’ll go work with him, and in return I get some of the meat.”

   There are no official statistics on hunger specifically in these border communities, but in 2007, 15% of families with children depended on food programs nationally, 20% of Latino and Black families, and a third of families headed by single women. In San Diego County as a whole, over 300,000 people went hungry, and more than twice that didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from. In the current recession, all those numbers are unquestionably higher.

   But to Willie Mills, numbers don’t tell the story. “I can see that even though there are fewer people living here than in urban San Diego, they need this food even more,” he explains. “That’s why I drive the truck out here every week. If I didn’t come, I don’t know what would happen to them.” The truck is a project of the San Diego Food Bank and Feeding America, a national food program.

   In some ways, the story of the migrants crossing the border and the hungry local residents is much the same. Koppin says, “We see the people coming up the road, or more often, walking cross country from the border. It’s not hard to see how hungry they must be too.  We see women walking through, and even children. I hope they find what they’re looking for. It’s very hard to be poor and hungry, whether you live here or you’re just passing through.”

    While the criminalization of undocumented people in Arizona continues to draw headlines, the actual punishment of workers because of their immigration status has become an increasingly bitter fact of life across the country. The number of workplace raids carried out by the Obama administration is staggering. Tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of workers have been fired for not having papers.

    According to public records obtained by Syracuse University, the latest available data from the Justice Department show that criminal immigration enforcement by the two largest investigative agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has increased to levels comparable to the highest seen during the Bush Administration. Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that almost 400,000 people were deported last year, the highest number in the country’s history.

    But deportations are only part of the story. Much less visible is the other arm of current immigration enforcement policy — the firing of workers.  The justification is brutal — if immigrant workers can’t work, and therefore can’t eat, pay rent, or provide for their families, they’ll have no alternative but to leave the country.

    In a recent action DHS pressured one of San Francisco’s major building service companies, ABM, into firing hundreds of its own workers. Some 475 janitors have been told that unless they can show legal immigration status, they will lose their jobs in the near future.

    ABM has been a union company for decades, and many of the workers have been there for years. “They’ve been working in this industry for 15, 20, some as many as 27 years in the buildings downtown,” says Olga Miranda, president of Service Employees Local 87.  “They’ve built homes.  They’ve provided for their families. They’ve sent their kids to college. They’re not new workers. They didn’t just get here a year ago.”

    Those workers are now faced with an agonizing dilemma.  Should they turn themselves in to Homeland Security, who might charge them with providing a bad Social Security number to their employer, and even hold them for deportation?  For workers with families, homes, and deep roots in a community, it’s not possible to just walk away and disappear. “I have a lot of members who are single mothers whose children were born here,” Miranda says.  “I have a member whose child has leukemia. What are they supposed to do? Leave their children here and go back to Mexico and wait?  And wait for what?”

    Miranda’s question reflects not just the dilemma facing individual workers, but of 12 million undocumented people living in the United States. Since 2005, successive Congressmen, Senators, and administrations have dangled the prospect of gaining legal status in front of those who lack it. In exchange, their various schemes for immigration reform have proposed huge new guest worker programs, and a big increase in exactly the kind of enforcement directed at 475 San Francisco janitors.

Rhetoric vs. Policy

    President Obama condemned Arizona’s law that tries to make being undocumented a state crime, saying it would “undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.”  But then he called for legislation with guest worker programs and increased enforcement.

    While the country is no closer to legalization of the undocumented than it was 10 years ago, the enforcement provisions of the comprehensive immigration reform proposals have already been implemented on the ground.  The Bush administration conducted a high- profile series of raids in which it sent heavily armed agents into meat-packing plants and factories, holding workers for deportation, and sending hundreds to federal prison for using bad Social Security numbers. It set up a new Federal court in Tucson, Arizona, called Operation Streamline, where dozens of people are sentenced to prison every day for walking across the border.

    After Obama was elected President, immigration authorities said they would follow a softer policy, using an electronic system to find undocumented people in work- places.  People working with bad Social Security numbers would be fired.  As a result, last September, 2000 seamstresses in the Los Angeles garment factory of American Apparel were fired, followed by a month later by 1200 janitors working for ABM in Minneapolis. In November, over 100 janitors working for Seattle Building Maintenance lost their jobs.

    Ironically, the Bush administration proposed a regulation that would have required employers to fire any worker who provided an employer with a Social Security number that did not match the SSA database.  That regulation was then stopped in court by unions, the ACLU, and the National Immigration Law Center. The new administration, however, is implementing what amounts to the same requirement, with the same consequence of thousands of fired workers. Meanwhile, the Operation Streamline court is still in session every day in Arizona.

    “Homeland Security is going after employers that are union,” Miranda charges.  “They’re going after employers that give benefits and are paying above the average.”  While American Apparel had no union, it paid better than most Los Angeles garment sweatshops. Minneapolis janitors belong to SEIU Local 26, Seattle janitors to Local 6 and San Francisco janitors to Local 87.

    President Obama says sanctions enforcement targets employers “who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages-and oftentimes mistreat those workers.” An ICE Worksite Enforcement Advisory claims “unscrupulous employers are likely to pay illegal workers substandard wages or force them to endure intolerable working conditions.”

    Curing intolerable conditions by firing or deporting workers who endure them doesn’t help the workers or change the conditions, however.  And despite Obama’s notion that sanctions enforcement will punish those employers who exploit immigrants, at American Apparel and ABM the employers were rewarded for cooperation by being immunized from prosecution. Javier Murillo, president of SEIU Local 26, says, “The promise made during the audit is that if the company cooperates and complies, they won’t be fined.  So this kind of enforcement really only hurts workers.”

    ICE director John Morton says the agency is auditing the records of 1,654 companies nationwide. “What kind of economic recovery goes with firing thousands of workers?” Miranda asks. “Why don’t they target employers who are not paying taxes, who are not obeying safety or labor laws?”

    Union leaders like Miranda see a conflict between the rhetoric used by the President and other Washington, D.C. politicians and lobbyists in condemning the Arizona law, and the immigration proposals they make in Congress. “There’s a huge contradiction here,” she says. “You can’t tell one state that what they’re doing is criminalizing people, and at the same time go after employers paying more than a living wage and the workers who have fought for that wage.”

    Renee Saucedo, attorney for La Raza Centro Legal and former director of the San Francisco Day Labor Program, is even more critical. “Those bills in Congress, which are presented as ones that will help some people get legal status, will actually make things much worse,” she charges. “We’ll see many more firings like the janitors here, and more punishments for people who are just working and trying to support their families.”

            Increasingly, however, the Washington proposals have even less promise of legalization and more emphasis on punishment. The newest Democratic Party scheme virtually abandons the legalization program promised by the “bipartisan” Schumer/Graham proposal, saying that heavy enforcement at the border and in the workplace must come before any consideration of giving 12 million people legal status.

            “We have to look at the whole picture,” Saucedo urges. “So long as we have trade agreements like NAFTA that create poverty in countries like Mexico, people will continue to come here, no matter how many walls we build. Instead of turning people into guest workers, as these bills in Washington would do, while firing and even jailing those who don’t have papers, we need to help people get legal status, and repeal the laws that are making work a crime.” 

What Do We Want?

            First, we want legalization, giving 12 million people residence rights and green cards, so they can live like normal human beings. We do not want immigration used as a cheap labor supply system, with workers paying off recruiters, and once here, frightened that they will be deported if they lose their jobs.

            We need to get rid of the laws that make immigrants criminals and working a crime. No more detention centers, no more ankle bracelets, no more firings and no-match letters, and no more raids. We need equality and rights. All people in our communities should have the same rights and status.

            We have to make sure that those who say they advocate for immigrants are not really advocating for low wages.  That the decision-makers of Washington, D.C. will not plunge families in Mexico, El Salvador, or Colombia into poverty, or force a new generation of workers to leave home and go through the doors of furniture factories and laundries, office buildings and packing plants, onto construction sites, or into the gardens and nurseries of the rich.

            Families in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, or the Philippines deserve a decent life, too.  They have a right to survive, a right to not migrate. To make that right a reality, they need jobs and productive farms, good schools and healthcare. Our government must stop negotiating trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA, and instead prohibit the use of trade and economic policy that causes poverty and displacement.

            Those people who do choose to come here to work deserve the same things that every other worker has. We all have the same rights, and the same needs-jobs, schools, medical care, a decent place to live, and the right to walk the streets or drive our cars without fear.

            Major changes in immigration policy are not possible if we do not fight at the same time for these other basic needs:  jobs, education, housing, healthcare, justice. But these are things that everyone needs, not just immigrants. And if we fight together, we can stop raids, and at the same time create a more just society for everyone-immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

Is this possible?

            In 1955, at the height of the cold war, braceros and farm workers did not think change would ever come. Growers had all the power and farm workers none. Ten years later we had a new immigration law protecting families and the bracero program was over. A new union for farm workers was on strike in Delano.

            We can have an immigration system that respects human rights. We can stop deportations. We can win security for working families on both sides of our borders.

            Yes, it’s possible. ¡Si se puede!

This article first appeared in Race, Poverty & the Environment http://urbanhabitat.org/node/5826

    As the marimba band rolled out its sounds and the marigolds honored the departed at a recent Day of the Dead annual celebration in El Paso, visitors to the lively festivity at Centro Mayapan were greeted by a petition and a flyer. In part, the flyer read:

    More than 28,000 people have perished in Mexico’s drug war since 2006

    Since 2005, armed vigilantes known as the Minutemen have perpetuated fear in the region

    Tea Party members recently told two border Congressmen from Texas to “go back to Mexico.”

    Excluding San Diego, the 2000 mile border is the poorest region in the United States

    Border women have had enough!

    The statement from El Paso’s La Mujer Obrera (LMO), the founding organization of Centro Mayapan, announced a hunger strike in front of the White House on Monday, November 8, to protest economic and security conditions in the US-Mexico border region.

    Spearheaded by 12 women hunger strikers, the action seeks less emphasis on military and law enforcement solutions to the border’s problems and greater attention on addressing pressing social needs, especially for women residents. Concretely, LMO is demanding the formation of a border development commission.

    “Women workers have a right to community development,” said Lorena Andrade, Centro Mayapan coordinator, in an interview with Frontera NorteSur. Despite President Obama’s past experience as a community organizer, Andrade said her group wasn’t sure border women were on the White House’s radar screen.

    While the El Paso activist credited federal stimulus monies for helping community colleges and other institutions, she said many other layers of society were being ignored by the government rescue.

    “We’re invisible. That’s why we have to go to Washington, because nobody’s turning around to look at our community,” Andrade added. “We’re not asking for handouts. We’re asking for investments in our ideas, in our communities.”

    LMO’S upcoming hunger strike follows a recent wave of news reports on how El Paso has fared relatively well during the Great Recession. For instance, an October 31 story in the El Paso Times cited the ongoing expansion of Fort Bliss, the construction of the Texas Tech Medical Center and reinvigorated trade with Mexico as among the reasons for El Paso’s good economic performance.

    Yet women workers, including many who were in the ranks of the Texas border city’s estimated 40,000 garment and other manufacturing workers displaced by the North American Free trade Agreement and other international trade pacts, have not generally benefited from the new capital infusions, according to Andrade.

    “We have women that are older and who worked in the factories, but we also have young women who have been dropping out of high schools, or even they leave the high schools they can barely read and write,” Andrade said. “It’s been a struggle to find stable jobs ever since the factories left. Before, you could get a job and you could be there since you were 16 until you retired. Those kinds of jobs don’t exist anymore.”

    Overall, El Paso’s unemployment rate of more than 10 percent is above the national average. Many of the workers impacted by global trade shifts are immigrant women from Mexico.

    Representing displaced workers, LMO is attempting to create an alternative local and regional economy. In addition to the 18-month-old Mercado Mayapan, the ambitious initiative encompasses a daycare center and micro enterprise incubator among other projects.

    Built in an old clothing factory, Centro Mayapan is an example of the vision LMO has for reviving border communities, Andrade said.

    “We are able to pick up our heads from that machine and plan for the future…and that’s worth defending, because as women we’ve never that opportunity,” she added. “We were meant to be behind a machine in that building, not having a Day of the Dead celebration and learning about our culture and our history.”

    In an October 21 letter announcing the Washington hunger strike, LMO Executive Director Irma Montoya said her group has additional plans for schools, housing, senior services and links to farms. “All for real security, jobs and community self-sufficiency,” Montoya wrote.

    As part of its campaign, LMO is calling for a border economic summit where non-governmental organizations, private foundations and government agencies can sit down at the table to chart an investment path.

    Meanwhile, the Washington hunger strike, which is expected to last at least a week, is planned to include daily programs, press conferences and other activities in the shadow of the White House.

    The action has received the endorsement of several national and regional organizations and communities. According to LMO, the initial endorsers include the Piscataway Indian Nation, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Washington, D.C. branch of the Gray Panthers, Tierra del Sol Housing Development Corporation of New Mexico, and the Las Cruces-based Colonias Development Council.

    “It’s not just about La Mujer Obrera in El Paso, Texas,” Andrade affirmed. “It’s about all women on the border, and our right to a better future for our community.”

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico.

    The United States and Mexico share a 2000-mile border where a population of 9 million is growing more than twice as fast as the populations of U.S. and Mexico.

    Despite this growing population, the border region is confronted with many environmental health issues because of the lack of clean drinking water and proper health care. Even more, five out of the seven poorest communities in the country is in the border region. More than 35 percent of its population is living in poverty.

    The living conditions in the area are in dire need of help. From weak social communities to inadequate building infrastructures, where there is no running water, sewage systems or electricity, the U.S.-Mexico border region faces many detrimental environmental health issues that cannot be fixed with the shortage of health care professionals or the stigma associated with the area.

    “Almost everywhere you go in this world, there are people or groups of people that experience environmental injustices,” Paula Stigler said. “They are often low-income and people of color who do not have a voice and therefore are exposed unjustly to contamination in both their community and their workplaces.”

    Stigler, who is the environmental program manager and tribal liaison for The San Diego Foundation, has been working on environmental issues, like water monitoring, with indigenous communities in San Diego County and Mexico for about ten years. 

    She has worked with various people including tribal health community promoters in remote tribal communities in Baja CA Mexico, local San Diego tribal environmental programs, communities in Cañon de los Laureles (Goat Canyon) in Tijuana and elsewhere.

    Currently, Stigler is earning her doctorate in global health at UCSD/SDSU. She is currently interested in studying how climate change and its policies will affect susceptible populations in the border region.

    The severity of the environmental health problems parallels those found in Third World countries. In addition to the underrepresented communities in the border region, many other residents are living in poor conditions. In some cases, there is no clean water for food, like drinking and cooking, or for hygienic purposes like bathing and washing. Even more, there is no basic sewage system to maintain wastes.

    Because of this, residents have a much higher chance of catching waterborne and infectious diseases, such as salmonella infections, mosquito-transmitted malaria, measles and tuberculosis. Considered as a place where many people from different countries pass through often, about an average of 1.6 million per day, the health of those living in the border region confronts a national concern.

    According to Stigler, some of the border cities do not follow safe air standards. Hazardous waste is a big problem as the border region becomes more industrialized.

    New River, which runs down the inland region of Southern California, is the most polluted river in the United States. It has more than 100 industrial chemicals and 76 million liters of raw sewage passes through the river each day.

    The rate of tuberculosis is twice the national rate. The rate of Hepatitis A is three times the rate of United States’ and two times the rate of Mexico’s. Salmonella and shigella dysentary is four times the rate of U.S. and Mexico.

    Stigler develops workshops and speaks at community meetings on how residents can protect themselves from harmful contaminants in drinking water and in the environment. At these workshops, she calls attention to problems like poor drinking water.

    “When looking at exposure to poor drinking water, it’s often a concern for waterborne pathogens and dehydration from gastrointestinal problems,” Stigler said. “This is especially problematic for children and the elderly. Since environmental health deals with so many different issues [like] air, trash, food, water, there are many health concerns [such as] cancer from exposure to dangerous chemicals, asthma from poor air quality [and] lead poisoning from exposure to lead in homes.

    Stigler said that the current methods to solve the problem of poor water resources are not enough.

    “Drinking water infrastructure was brought to communities in Mexico, however after assessing the decrease in gastrointestinal problems within the communities, my research found that the water was still contaminated due to unsafe storage practices in the homes and a lack of disinfection in the system.”

    Stigler has formed the Tribal Environmental Health Collaborative, which is made up of tribal representatives, tribal NGO’s and universities that are assessing the top priorities for tribes in San Diego on environmental health and also trying to find funding to address their problems.

    She said that, with the San Diego tribal environmental health collaborative project (TEHC), it’s difficult to measure the success of the drinking water infrastructure.

    In addition, there is the issue of cultural competence in environmental health initiatives.

    With the services that help tackle the issue, there are cultural conflicts in language and views on how to interpret natural elements, like water, which is considered sacred and represents nature.

    “Cultural conflicts arise often due to a misunderstanding of how different communities and governments operate. When working binational there are language and communication barriers as well as cultural differences that can make the work challenging,” Stigler said.

   “One thing I noticed was that while in the US we are accustomed to accomplishing many tasks via email and non-personal contact, in many other communities the face-to-face method is obligatory and works best for them,” Stigler said. One aspect of the language barrier involves the different approaches to communication that make it difficult to maintain regular contact.  “Recognizing this is critical to having successful projects.”

   Besides the language barriers, Stigler also comes across other communication challenges because of what technologies are used to communicate and how the political hierarchies work in the community. Understanding and respecting tribal sovereignty is very important.

   “Politics is always an issue. Communication is probably the second biggest issue whether it be that calling internationally is not always easy or the same language isn’t spoken is a huge challenge.” Stigler said. “Also, a lack of understanding about the issues, the politics around those issues and no resources to address the problems. Many people are stretched so thin in addressing these problems and the resources are so slim that it can be really difficult to keep projects going.”

   Despite the cultural challenges, the attempts to address and solve the environmental health issues have made some impact.

   “Many tribes are now more aware of health and environmental concerns and beginning to address them through their tribal governments, which is a huge step in the right direction.”

   Stigler will continue to work as a program manager to bring environmental awareness to local tribes.

   “I hope to continue to work with non-profits who are fighting environmental injustices in our region and globally,” she said.

   Those who are interested in helping can volunteer or donate to numerous organizations who are working on the issues, such as Environmental Health Coalition and the Native American Environmental Protection Coalition.

   “There are many projects and groups that advocate for environmental injustices. I have worked with the US and Mexican governments both to help bring clean drinking water to communities in Mexico and have also received funding from foundations to organize tribes to assess and advocate for addressing environmental health priorities in their communities.”

Regina Ip is a public information intern with the Comprehensive Research Center in Health Disparities (CRCHD) and is majoring in Communications and Biology at UC San Diego.  The CRCHD is a partnership of organizations focusing on community health and health disparities research. This publication was supported by the UC San Diego Comprehensive Research Center in Health Disparities Grant # 5 P60 MD000220 from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health.

    A Mexican national who died after a confrontation with US border agents has become the latest symbol of the crisis surrounding US-Mexico relations and migrant affairs.

    Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, a 42-year-old father of five US-born children, died in a California hospital May 31, following a violent encounter with US Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego three days earlier.

    “We are deeply concerned about the incident,” Andrea Guerrero of the American Civil Liberties Union’s San Diego office told Frontera NorteSur.

“We are calling for a transparent investigation of the incident.”

    According to US Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Jacqueline Dizdul, Hernandez became combative and ignored orders to stop fighting after he resisted deportation.

    Unidentified witnesses quoted in the Mexican and US press tell a different story, alleging Hernandez was assaulted, shocked with a Taser gun multiple times, and then repeatedly kicked and hit by as many as 20 officers even as he was screaming and writhing on the ground. Reportedly, personnel from Mexico’s National Migration Institute witnessed parts of the altercation.

    Quickly lapsing into unconsciousness, Hernandez was transported to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead. The San Diego coroner’s office ruled that high blood pressure, physical contact with the officers and the presence of methamphetamines were contributing factors to Hernandez’s death.

    The death of the 20-year US resident drew criticism from the office of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and Tijuana Archbishop Rafael Romo Muñoz. Numerous videos and angry messages were posted on Twitter, You Tube and the websites of Mexico’s major news organizations.

    Expressing an “energetic condemnation,” President Calderon’s office criticized the “excessive use of force” by US federal agents. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry also sharply condemned Hernandez’s death, announcing it was forming a legal team to monitor the outcome of the case.

    With a diplomatic tussle brewing, US Ambassador Carlos Pascual and Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary John T. Morton spoke out at a Mexico City press conference last week. The high-ranking US officials said the Obama administration was very concerned about what Morton called a “very tragic death.”

    Pro-immigrant groups mobilized rapidly to protest Hernandez’s death. On June 1, about 50 members of the Mexicali Civic Front briefly blockaded a border crossing to the US, where they also called for a boycott of Arizona because of the SB 1070 law that criminalizes undocumented immigrants.

    Civic Front leader Sergio Tamay said his group would work towards establishing a common front between pro-immigrant forces in Baja California and California.

    On the US side, the Raza Rights Coalition and American Friends Service Committee organized a June 3 rally of more than 500 people at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Garnering gestures of support from many passing motorists and pedestrians, the event included the participation of members of Hernandez’s family.

    “I ask for justice, not money,” said Maria de la Luz Rojas, Hernandez’s mother. “My son came to seek life and not death here.”

    The Raza Rights Coalition’s Adriana Jasso also took aim at the Obama administration, criticizing the White House for not changing US immigration policy and failing to legalize undocumented residents of the US.

    “We are all Anastasio,” chanted the demonstrators.

    In a statement released prior to the protest, the Raza Rights Coalition and American Friends Service Committee blasted Hernandez’s death.

    “The killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas by Border Patrol agents is a clear indication of the climate of hate and repression that is being fomented every day against migrant communities and is tied to the current genocidal and murderous government policy,” the two groups charged. “Our silent protest will help expose the cruelty of a militarized border that is built upon a foundation of hate and repression.”

    Hernandez’s death is currently under investigation by the San Diego Police Department’s homicide unit.

    While acknowledging it did not have all the facts at hand, Amnesty International said the Hernandez incident should be an occasion for reviewing the use of Taser guns by the Border Patrol and strictly regulating their use. The international human rights organization urged a complete investigation of Hernandez’s death, including the publicizing of the autopsy report as soon as possible.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

Por Mariana Martinez  

    Las luces amarillas apenas iluminaban levemente el bulto que era el cuerpo y era difícil saber si estaba sangrando o cubierto en sudor.

    Segun recuerda “Juan” un migrante de 62 años quien pidió no revelar su identidad a los medios, Anastasio Hernández Rojas, de 35 años de edad iba en el camión con otras 14 personas.

    Todos estaban esposados y tristes.

    Juan y otros cuatro hombres fueron repatriados primero.

    Los agentes de emigración mexicana (INAMI) les indicaron que podían hacer una llamada y fue al estar haciendo fila para llamar a su familia en Guadalajara, que Juan escuchó los gritos de un hombre, se asomó por la reja y vio a seis agentes golpeando a Anastasio.

    “Lo golpeaban con saña” cuenta, “Todos corrímos a la reja y podíamos ver como llevaban a Anastasio arrastrando, le daban con todo: patadas, codazos, macanazos, se sentaban arriba… en un punto, lo arrastraron atrás de un camión del estacionamiento, como para esconderlo, porque ahí los podía ver mucha gente, entre agentes, migrantes, personas que venian del otro lado de compras…”

    Juan recuerda que una mujer gritaba —los americanos están mediomatando a un muchacho—los transeúntes con sus celulares grabando, un agente del INAMI grabando también con la cámara de su teléfono y hasta un miembro de la marina Mexicana lamentó no poder entrar al otro país, a solo pasos de donde estaban todos viendo, escuchando la golpiza.

    “Luego llegaron más y más, llegó el momento en que erán como 20, pegándole todos, había de todos los uniformes; verdes (Patrulla Fronteriza) azules (CBP), azul marino con las siglas ICE, incluso los de gris, que manejan los camiones que nos avientan a México, todos le estuvieron pegando” recuerda Juan.

   “Le pusieron la pistola de electricidad y salía volando el cuerpo, se revolcaba y aunque no se estuviera ni moviendo no le dejaron de pegar….los gritos eran horrendos, se escuchaban por el pasillo que lleva a Tijuana y ahogaba el sonido de la puerta de metal que suena, clank clank, clank, clank.”

   Anastasio, dejo de respirar y los agentes realizaron maniobras de resucitación cardiopulmonar, luego llegó la ambulancia para transportarlo al hospital Scripps de Chula Vista.

   Otro de los testigos, que llamaremos Víctor, estaba cruzando hacia Tijuana luego de un día de trabajo cuando escucho el alboroto.

   “Me atrevo a decir que fueron sanguinarios” dijo Víctor, “el hombre estaba ahí sin moverse durante 30 minutos hasta que fue levantado, se veía como si ya estuviera muerto.” Veinticuatro horas después los médicos lo declararon con muerte cerebral.

   Su esposa y sus cinco hijos —dos de ellos gemelos de 4 años—, sólo supieron del paradero de su padre cuando fue a buscarlos un detective de la Policía de San Diego quien les dijo las condiciones de salud pero no el motivo de sus heridas.

    Anastasio, había vivido 25 años en San Diego, había sido deportado el martes pasado y estaba intentando regresar a su vida en California.

    Al ver que no había remedio, dieron permiso para retirarlo del respirarador que lo mantenía palpitando.

   “Sentimos que a nosotros tambien se nos acaba la vida” dijo la prima de Anastasio, Verónica, “porque se deja una esposa, cinco hijos, no hay razón para que haya sucedido algo así, que se haga justicia por favor, es lo que nos queda.”

   Las preguntas sobre el caso fueron rapidamente remitidias a la Agencia de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza (CBP),—agencia a la que pertenece el agente que presuntamente uso la pistola eléctrica en contra de Anastasio—, por lo que la vocera Jackeline Dizdul asegura que según los oficiales quienes estaban a cargo de la repatriación, Anastasio se había tornado violento.

   ”A pesar de que se le pidió en repetidas ocasiones dejar de pelear, el sujeto continuo con su actitud por lo que un agente sacó una pistola eléctrica para controlarlo y preservar su seguridad” explicó la vocera, “fue atendido por personal de emergencia y llevado a un hospital local, por lo que el incidente está bajo investigación.”

   El caso ha sido tomado por la Policía de San Diego para determinar si hay evidencias de abuso de fuerza pero esto ha sido tomado con reserva por observadores de los derechos civiles y humanos.

   “En un momento en el que el debate migratorio se ha intensificado y polarizado al país, es aún más urgente que nunca  que los agentes federales sean entrenados para hacer valer la ley pero tambien respetar los derechos humanos” dijo Cristian Ramirez, director nacional del Comite de Amigos Americanos, “Esto no hubiera sucedido con una ley migratoria justa, con entrenamiento para los oficiales y un proceso transparente de investigación de quejas.”

   Y es que el publico fronterizo aún no recibe las conclusiones del último caso de abuso de fuerza en la frontera, la muerte de Oscar García Barrios un migrante de 22 años, con documentos que trabajaba de mesero en San Diego y fue asesinado en San Isidro el 18 de mayo del 2006 por la Patrulla Fronteriza cuando se dirigía a Tijuana.

   Tampoco han sido publicados los datos de la investigacion de Guillermo Martínez fue asesinado por la espalda en diciembre del 2005 de un balazo cuando regresaba a territorio nacional ni de otros casos similares.

   “En este último caso no sabemos de una sanción ejemplar, ni siquiera de una sanción como tal: simplemente al agente fronterizo lo cambiaron de adscripción y ese es el temor, que vuelva a suceder en este caso”, dijo Heriberto García García, ombudsman de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos en Baja California.

   Hasta el momento, la investigación policial arroja que Anastasio y su hermano habían sido detenidos unas horas antes, bajo sospecha de haber ingresado de manera indocumentada a Estados Unidos y había sido procesado en la estación de emigración de Chula Vista, casi de manera inmediata.

   Su hermano Pedro Pablo, —quien sigue bajo custodia federal—, dijo a los policías que su hermano estaba latimado, luego de que un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza le golpeara la pierna donde había sido operado y en la cual todavía tenía clavos de metal.

   El recién publicado exámen toxicológico de Anastasio arroja que tenía restos de metaanfétamina en su organismo.

   “Habra primero que corroborar este dato, porue no hay claridad sobre si él tenía un problema de adicción, pero esa no es la pregunta legal” según dice Andrea Guerrero representante de ACLU en San Diego.

   “La pregunta legal es si hubo uso excesivo de fuerza y lo preocupante en este caso es el grado de opacidad con que se realizan estas investigaciones” agregó la abogada y activista, “es decir ¿cuales fueron las circunstancias que llevaron a la muerte de Rojas?, ¿quién hace las investigaciones, lo hará de manera justa?, ¿quién vigila a los que nos vigilan? porque si esto puede estar pasando frente a media centena de personas, ¿que sucede a puerta cerrada?”

   En la cámara de Diputados de México se ha planteado ya llevar el caso a la Corte Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos y activistas de ambos lados de la frontera plantean seguir muy de cerca el procedimento del caso, ya que temen que este nunca llegue a ver un juicio público en el que se conozcan todas las pruebas y se castigue a quien resulte responsable.

   “En la frontera hay demasiada impunidad”, lamentó Ramírez, “estos casos siguen acumulándose como inconclusos, como muertes que no son esclarecidas como nos merecemos todos”. 

ACTUALIZACIÓN: 

   La oficina forense de San Diego, determinó el Miércoles como homicidio la muerte del hombre mexicano que fue golpeado y  le aplicaron descargas electricas mientras estaba en custodia de agentes de E.U.

   Anastasio Hernandez Rojas murió de un paro cardiaco, reveló la autopsia, pero también fueron factores contribuyentes el abuso de metanfetaminas e hipertensión arterial.

   El gobierno de México condenó los hechos y ha demandado a través de canales diplomaticos una investigación exhaustiva.

    “I saw how the hill was sliding down, the authorities came in yesterday to take us out of our homes, they told us the hill was collapsing. At 5 am Monday my house collapsed completely” said 54 year old Juan Sandoval just one of the dozen homeowners who lost their homes this week in Tijuana after a hill collapsed underneath their homes at Fraccionamiento Monterrey.

    According to Sandoval, they noticed the earth moving about two weeks ago.

    Rosa Pedraza, another neighbor, had to be evacuated but she stayed close by, monitoring the home she shared with her husband and three children ages 9, 7 and 3.

    “The cracking of the houses started at Don Roberto’s house, it came down a foot last weekend, and slowly, the earth started moving down, first at the park and then to my house…” she said, “firemen came and told us our home would eventually collapse over the next 6 months, but it has only been 12 hours and the walls are already cracking open”.

     Eight homes collapsed completely, what’s left of them stands by a crack that is at least 300 feet long and 9 feet deep and could grow until it destroys homes near by.

    This is just one of the latest consequences of one of the strongest earthquakes to hit this border area in the last decade, a 7.2 degree earthquake followed by more than 7 thousand replicas throughout the region.

    The quake, —so emblematical, is being studied at the meeting of the American Geological Society to be held at the end of May—was quickly overshadowed in Mexico by the disappearance and death of a 4 year old girl called Paulette, and in the US by the hasty approval of a harsh immigration law in Arizona.

    But the quake and its consequences for the region need to be taken into account both by the community and its political leaders, its impact might affect the region for the next decade.

    Baja State government spokesperson Victor Adán López Camacho estimated damages caused by the quake are over $450 million dollars, equivalent to 1.66% of the state’s gross product.

    Damages include 55 kilometers of road with major damages, 19 kilometers that will need repairs, three bridges that will have to be rebuilt, along with 2,800 homes, 142 schools, 7 cultural centers and 13 sports institutions, the City Hospital and 17 clinics.

    Neighboring Calexico has similar numbers. City Administrator Assistant Armando Villa, estimates the losses at $91.3 million dollars, including severe damage in the water system and 800 inhabitable homes and the cost of additional security for the city because of the fear of looting.

    Farmers have been badly hit and crops worth over $16.6 million dollars could be lost in San Luis Rio Colorado due to severe damages in water supply.

    According to COLEF Economist Alejandro Diaz Bautista, employment is looking bleak for the next quarter. Baja California has an unemployment rate of 6.69% while California had an unemployment rate of 12.6 in March of this year.

    “Unemployed people who used to work at the US, specifically California, along with Mexicans emigrating from the South are pressuring Baja’s economy” explained Bautista, “according to government numbers, people returning from California or coming from the South in search of a better life account for 4.6% of the total unemployment and the earthquake only came to make matters worse.”

Summer yet to come

    The Calexico-Mexicali Valley is well known for it’s in bad weather, where a dessert like climate can bring snow in the winter and temperatures can reach 113 degrees in the summer, making it even harder to survive for over five thousand people who lost the home in rural and urban Mexicali.

    While state officials are parading shelters with surveys of damages, people living in the shelters are already suffering diarrhea, skin problems and insect bites.

    Pre-fab home sellers have unexpectedly benefited from the quake, and Rosarito and Tijuana sellers have been called upon to sell affordable homes that are already to install, with a price ranging from $5 to $15 thousand dollars.

    “We’ve had a lot of sales from people in Mexicali whose homes where declared damaged or who simply don’t want to slept in a solid home and now prefer wooden structures” Roberto Hernandez, prefab home salesman explains, “but this homes are suitable for benign weather, many of them don’t have air conditioning and even if they had one, where would they get electricity if the service is still struggling to keep up with city demand?”

Magdalena Vázquez Calderón recived the ashes of her two sons, murdered after being kidnapped in Tecate, Mexico. File Photo.

    Mexican President Felipe Calderon has publicly condemned the passing of SB 1070 in Arizona, a law that will allow any authority to ask for immigration status of those who “appear to be undocumented.”

    Calderon has publicly said this change in the law is tainted by an electoral process and deeply affects the friendship, commerce and tourism ties that bind Arizona with Mexico.

    The Exterior Relations Office even published their own “travel alert” for Mexicans visiting the state.

    “All regulation aimed at criminalizing the migration phenomenon, -witch is in essence a social and economic process-opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse to the rule of law” the president has said.

    But the Mexican president seems alienated from the reality those immigrants face in their own country, Mexico, he doesn’t seem to know what happens to those who even share his last name, such as Magdalena Vázquez Calderón, a woman from Mexico City whose sons where killed July 2009.

    She and her husband traveled to Tecate, Baja California to search for their boys: 22 year old José Enrique Sánchez Vázquez, 22 and 20 year-old Cruz Adán, whom had left the family home to try to cross to the US and work as carpenters.

    “My sons where shot dead before they even crossed the border” said Vasquez unequivocally.

    “…I arrived here in Tecate on the 28th [of July] and I found that authorities were not able to help me because my sons ‘were not from around here.’ I went to the missing persons office three times and they didn’t help me; it was only until I asked for help from Human Rights that they decided to open a file,” she said.

    The decomposed bodies of her two only sons where found by police on July 15th, they were found as “Joe Does” until they were identified by their parents on August 6th. Their cremated bodies were finally released to their relatives on November 30th, four months after they were found dead.

    The boy’s parents did their own investigation of their sons murders, they interviewed the emigrants that survived the attack and found that the brothers had arrived in Tecate July 14th with the plan to cross the border illegally in the rural mountainous area of Tecate. There, they were contacted by a group of female “coyotes” who promised to help them cross the border for a fee. But on their way to the US they were stopped by a group of kidnappers who worked with the “coyotes” in order to get their victims.

    The brothers and the dozen people that were with them where tied and the smugglers called Jose Enrique’s wife –who was already living in San Francisco, California—. They asked a ransom of 4 thousand dollars for his release.

    The money would have to been sent trough a money-wire service.

    But José Enrique tried to escape; he was brutally beaten by the kidnappers and when his brother defended him, they where forced to dig their own graves and then shot to death.

    Threats against immigrants on their way to the US has been on the rise in the last couple of years, governmental corruption and lack of attention by Mexican authorities have created a fertile ground for criminal gangs who see immigrants as an easy target for kidnapping and extortion, a true gold mine for the criminal world.

    Extortion is one of the biggest threats for immigrants, according to a study by the Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and the Human Mobility Office of the Vatican in Mexico, both organizations monitored immigrant shelters and found 63% of all immigrants who where interviewed suffered some kind of extortion or physical abuse, including the threat of being thrown off moving trains.

    But the most alarming trend is kidnapping, just from September 2008 to February 2009, 9,758 cases of kidnapping where documented along the immigrant shelter network in 7 Mexican states, that translates to 1,600 kidnappings a month, and the number can be much higher.

    The average ransom was $1500 to $5000, which translates to a potential profit of 25 million dollars in just six months.

    Kidnappers are mostly part of organized crime and are in many cases aided by corrupt Mexican officials; in 99 of the documented cases victims described the support or compliance of local and state authorities, and in another hundred cases, the victims said uniformed authorities were directly involved in the attack.

    A report filed by the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission found that one out of every four Guatemala immigrants being deported from Mexico was victim of some kind of abuse during their stay in Mexico. Just 26% said they where attacked by “coyotes” or smugglers, but more than 50% say they where abused by personnel from the National Immigration Institute (the Mexican equivalent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

    This is not isolated but a problem that is systemic.

    According to the Department of State Trafficking in Persons report, one year after Mexico implemented its federal anti-trafficking law, the country has not fully complied with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking. Despite most states criminalizing human trafficking, no convictions or punishments have been issued against traffickers or complicit public officials.

    Why doesn’t the president address that abuse as well?

By Kent Paterson
Editor
Frontera NorteSur

    Mexico and the border are once again big news. Stories fill the press about Michele Obama and Hilary Clinton traveling south of the border to show their support for an embattled government. Report after report comes in about the latest atrocities in the so-called narco-war. Journalists rush to the border to check on the “spill-over” violence which, contrary to the assertions of Arizona Senator John McCain and others who contend the US’ southern border is “out of control,” has yet to materialize in a systematic way.

    If my 6th grade geography lessons serve me, it would appear the violence McCain refers to is on the other side of the border line in a country called Mexico. Indeed, given the level of violence in places like Ciudad Juarez and Reynosa, it is quite noteworthy how El Paso and other places on the US side of the border are actually far less violent than many communities in the interior of the US. Is anyone proposing to send troops to Albuquerque or Oakland?

    For the scary border, though, narratives are constructed, framed and then massaged into the popular consciousness. In this way, policies are shaped, sold to the public and charged to the deficit-wracked public till.

    Lately, a story which has received wide exposure is the Associated Press’ piece about Chapo Guzman gaining the upper-hand over the Juarez Cartel in the battle over Ciudad Juarez. Although the story was based on an anonymous source, it was picked up by numerous news outlets and repeated as fact in recent days.

    Since the story is shrouded in secrecy, it is almost impossible to judge whether or not it is accurate. How many times have Mexican and US authorities proclaimed the death of the Tijuana cartel?

    Like Tijuana, however, events on the ground strongly suggest the violence in Ciudad Juarez is far from over. Scores of people have been killed in the city this month alone, including 14 just yesterday, and nobody really knows when or if the slaughter will subside.

    Last week, NPR correspondent Ted Robbins reported on the US Border Patrol training  Mexican police in Nogales. The report covered a vital issue and raised key questions, but it lacked historical depth. Robbins did not mention how US military, FBI, state and local police departments and other law enforcement agencies have long trained Mexican cops- in the thousands. This has been going on for decades.

    The specific skills imparted include interview/interrogation techniques, hostage taking negotiations, crime scene investigations and counterterrorism.

    A good follow-up piece might examine how many of the nearly 3400 complaints filed against Mexican soldiers with Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission since 2007 involve personnel trained by the US. A new story might look out how many of the 15,000 ex-soldiers detained during the so-called drug war, according to Mexican Defense Minister Guillermo Galvan, were trained by the US.

    Will the latest round of training produce better behaved graduates?

    All over the US airwaves and press these days, Tucson author Charles Bowden is a big source for Ciudad Juarez and Mexico news. Bowden provides valuable insights to a largely oblivious US public about the systemic roots and socio-economic context of the crisis raging south of the border, but he also makes some curious statements that deserve further scrutiny and comment.

    For example, while speaking on Pacifica Radio this month, Bowden claimed it was difficult to find cocaine in Juarez in 1995, “because the cartels kept a lid on it.” Really? Anyone who knows the city might conclude that Bowden had arrived during a particularly bad dry spell. Cocaine has been readily available in Ciudad Juarez for decades, drug war notwithstanding.

    Bowden is also quoted as saying that when he arrived in Ciudad Juarez back in the 1990s he thought he had landed in hell, but later realized it was the border city’s “Golden Age,” considering today’s slaughterhouse. Given Bowden’s experience, one must assume he was being facetious.

    For scores of young women who were systematically kidnapped, raped and murdered during the 1990s, the era was anything but the Golden Age. Nor was it the Golden Age for hundreds of families which, to this day, do not know what happened to relatives, both men and women, whisked away by armed commandos only never to be seen again.

    Such episodes and the government failure to curb them helped set the stage for the current mayhem.

    Prone to the melodramatic, Bowden keeps repeating that “Ciudad Juarez is dying.” His declaration grabs the attention of radio listeners or television viewers, but is it true?

    While observers will agree that Ciudad Juarez has been battered, bludgeoned and bloodied, it is quite another thing to say the city is dying. Juarenses are a tough lot, and many people are hunkering down and doing all they can to survive in and improve a place call they home.

    I am thinking of the residents of Villas de Salvarcar, scene of the gruesome youth massacre last January, who are organizing a new community library, kitchen and music center for children. I am thinking of the annual Christmas Posada for the children of Lomas de Poleo. I am thinking of the young people who stood on the streets on a recent day collecting for the Red Cross. I am thinking of the young actor with the “Love Juarez” t-shirt who told director Miguel Sabido he wanted his city back.

    From the numerous Juarenses who have fled to neighboring El Paso but are sticking close to home, one can observe how many people are making a long-term wager on the home base. And despite the exodus, more than one million people remain in the city.

    This is not to pick on Bowden, whose contributions are duly noted, or other reporters for that matter. It’s just a reminder that is imperative for all journalists, this writer included, to scratch beyond the surface, dig into history and thoroughly probe the underbelly of the beast, so to speak.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

By Mariana Martinez

“A friend woke us up in a panic, begging for us to go back to US soil, and since then we have been swamped by emails and calls about the US travel alert,” tells 51 year old Seattle Washington truck driver, Dawn Rainmann.

“But what we see is a quiet city with great hospitals and first class services” says Rainmann, who traveled to Tijuana with her husband Glenn Shaffer, in order to get dental work done for 2100 dollars, while it would cost them over 8 thousand to get the same care in the US.

Rainmann was laid off last October, and has been without medical insurance since then, so after a lot of planning, and a recommendation by Shaffer’s boss, —who comes to Mexico for medical purposes often— they decided to come to Mexico.

Unfortunately, their trip was on the same weekend when Lesley A. Enríquez , her husband Arturo Haycock Redelf  and Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, were brutally slain in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua after leaving a children’s party.

All of them are US citizens and two of them where working for the US consulate in Juarez.

The immediate consequence of the slayings is a new travel alert by the Department of State, warning citizens against unnecessary travel to Mexico, due to the current violence climate, specially along the border, where consular workers were allowed to leave Mexico if they wish to do so.

Tijuana was one of the cities mentioned as being violent and the governor was quick to state the Alert “doesn’t take into account the particular successes in the fight against organized crime.”

The murders have been hastily interpreted as retaliation against DEA agents working on Mexican soil; a complot to justify the intervention of US forces in Mexico and even as a tactic used by rival drug lords to bring Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, as columnist Carlos Loret de Mola suggested on his March 17th editorial.

The new alert has been widely publicized in US media, with headings such as “Before your children travel abroad” or “One more reason not to visit Mexico,” and it is a major blow to the tourism sector as many were hoping to recuperate tourism during the upcoming Spring Break and Summer seasons, when thousands of college kids used to hit Mexican beach towns.

The new alert is expected to have a wide impact in toruism, specially in San Felipe,  the  Tijuana, Rosarito- Ensenada corridor, Puerto Peñasco, La Paz and even Cabo San Lucas, where great effort and resources had been put into revitalizing the tourist sector.

For economist and Colef researcher Alejandro Díaz-Bautista, the alert will have quick and grave impacts in the current tourism industry, especially in Baja California.

“But what the [Mexican] government needs to do is revise current public safety and investment policies and try to increase competitiveness in tourism and change the negative image those incidents fuel”, he adds.

Medical turismo unchanged

In the last five years, Baja California has relied less and less on regular turism and more on medical tourism, an area where few Americans seem to have changed their minds because of the travel alert.

Oral surgeon Valentín Ruiz Esparza, who has a state of the art clinic in Tijuana’s popular Zona Rio, has had no trouble so far with his patients and has heard nothing from his colleges.

“My patients have called me and asked me about the travel alert and the current violence in Tijuana” said Dr. Ruiz, “but most of them believe my opinion and perception over the alert; they are well traveled, come to Mexico often and not one of them has canceled their appointment with me”.

Esparza has wide experience working with US patients, and considers most of them are quite comfortable in the border.

“Many of them come from California, they are first or second generation American at the most, so they are not easily scared, they are not teenagers hoping to come here to party”, he explains.

Esparza’s perception about medical tourists is shared by plastic surgeon Jose Luis Valero Salas, owner of a Plastic Surgery Clinic in Tijuana, focused for a US clientele.

“I’ve had no cancelations so far” said Valero, “we are going to have a couple of slow weeks due to Holly Week and a National Surgeons Congress in Chihuahua but not because of the alert”.

Velero says the constant alerts and hype over insecurity has “warned off” and people are looking for other credible sources, —to the government- for information about the border.

“Most of my patients come recommended by a friend, they’ve been to the border before and know how to keep safe”, said Valero “they are set on getting the surgery because price and quality are still hard to beat”.

“Una amiga nos despertó con su llamada histérica ayer, pidiendo que volviéramos a suelo estadounidense, nos han inundado con llamadas, correos, alertas, advirtiéndonos de la medida de Estados Unidos”, cuenta Dawn Rainmann chofer de tráiler originaria de Seattle, de 51 años de edad.

“Pero nosotros lo que hemos visto es una ciudad tranquila, con excelentes hospitales y una atención de primera” agrega, Rainmann, quien viajó junto con su marido Glen Shaffer, a Tijuana y Rosarito para someterse a tratamientos dentales que costarán 2100 dólares, mientras que hubieran costado más de 8 mil dólares en los Estados Unidos.

Rainmann fue despedida en octubre del año pasado y por consecuencia perdió su seguro médico, por lo que luego de meses de planearlo decidieron aventurarse a venir a Tijuana, por recomendación del jefe de Shaffer, quien viaja seguido a México para someterse a tratamientos médicos.

Pero justo este fin de semana fueron asesinados Lesley A. Enríquez , su esposo Arturo Haycock Redelf y  Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, quienes en vida estuvieran adscritos al Consulado de Estados Unidos en Juárez.

La consecuencia inmediata para Mexico fue una nueva alerta de viaje emitida por el Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos, advirtiendo de la escalada de violencia y condiciones de inseguridad en Mexico, especialmente en la frontera hacen inseguro el viajar a este país e  incluso autorizó la salida de personal consular en las ciudades consideradas como las más violentas, —entre las que se encuentra Tijuana—.

Los asesinatos han sido rápidamente interpretados como una agresión a agentes de la DEA en territorio Mexicano, como un “complot” para justificar la entrada a Mexico de elementos de seguridad en Estados Unidos e incluso como una táctica utilizada por grupos rivales para poner en la mira a Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman”, como asegura en su columna el periodista Carlos Loret de Mola (Universal 17 de marzo 2010).

La  nueva alerta, —ampliamente difundida por medios estadounidenses con encabezados como “antes de que tus hijos viajen” o “una razón más para no ir a México”—, coincide con los periodos de vacaciones de Semana Santa o “Spring Break” y verano, temporada en la que comúnmente acuden más de cien mil estudiantes universitarios de Estados Unidos  las costas de nuestro país.

El miedo es que la alerta apunte  a un recrudecimiento de la retirada del turismo en destinos como San Felipe, el corredor Tijuana, Rosarito y Ensenada, Puerto Peñasco, La Paz y Cabo San Lucas, echando al suelo los esfuerzos e inversión realizada por el sector turístico en la región.

“Es de esperarse que la actualización de la alerta impactará negativamente la actividad turística en el país y en particular la zona fronteriza, incluyendo Baja California” dijo el doctor en Economía de El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef), Alejandro Díaz-Bautista.

“Pero no hay que buscar culpables, porque México tiene el pendiente de recuperar la competitividad del turismo y modificar la percepción que tienen en el vecino país sobre un incremento de la violencia, a través de nuevas estrategias tanto en seguridad publica como en atracción de inversión extranjera”, agregó el académico.

Poco amedrentados

En los últimos años el tipo de turismo que atrae Baja California ha sido sobre todo de tipo médico y es en este sector donde son pocos los visitantes estadounidenses que han hecho caso a la alerta.

El ortodoncista y cirujano facial Valentín Ruiz Esparza, cuya clínica está en plaza zona Río, comenta que la mayoría de sus pacientes y aquellos que van a los consultorios vecinos provienen de Estados Unidos.

“Mis pacientes me han estado hablando luego de la alerta para preguntarme sobre el clima de violencia en Tijuana” dijo Ruiz Esparza, “pero la mayoría de los pacientes norteamericanos visitan frecuentemente la frontera y valoran mucho mi opinión al respecto. Es un público que viene seguido y no se deja llevar tan fácil”.

Esparza, con amplia experiencia trabajando con pacientes norteamericanos, explica que la mayoría tiene raíces hispanas o mexicanas y comprende bien las particularidades de la frontera.

“Muchos son primera o segunda generación en Estados Unidos, tienen  familia aquí o incluso han vivido en México un tiempo” explicó el doctor, “eso hace que no se asusten tan fácilmente como otro tipo de turismo que viene por primera vez o depende aun del permiso de sus padres, como sucede con los muchachos que vienen de fiesta”.

La percepción de Esparza coincide con la experiencia del cirujano plástico Jose Luis Valero Salas, quien tiene una clínica estética en Tijuana donde atiende pacientes Mexico-americanos. “Hasta ahora ha habido cero cancelación” dijo el doctor Valero.

El doctor dijo que esta serie de alertas y la alarma por la inseguridad no son nuevas y que por lo tanto van perdiendo fuerza o veracidad entre la población.

“La mayoría de los pacientes viene por recomendación de amigos, ya ha viajado a la frontera y sabe cuidarse, tomar precauciones y están decididos ya a buscar este servicio porque la diferencia de calidad y precios con Estados Unidos sigue haciéndolos muy atractivos”, agregó.

By Kent Paterson

By most accounts, she was an outgoing girl who loved to sing and dance.

Tejana legend Selena was her idol. The John Adams Middle School student loved sports, books and butterflies. And she was someone whose smile could lift a depressed person’s heart. That’s how relatives remembered 15-year-old Jamie Barela. On March 4, 2010, nearly six years to the day she vanished with her older cousin Evelyn Salazar, Jamie Barela was finally given a proper burial .

Barela and Salazar were among the 11 women found murdered and buried close together on Albuquerque’s West Mesa on February 2, 2009. After months of pain-staking work by the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator and North Texas University, Jaime’s remains were officially identified in January. She was the last West Mesa victim buried.

“Somebody took a bright smile away from us,” said mother Jayne Perea. “For me, it’s not closure,” said the Albuquerque resident, who is working for justice with relatives of other murdered and still-missing women in Albuquerque. “I don’t want (any one) to go through what I do.”

All the West Mesa victims went missing between 2003 and 2005. Many vanished from a section of Albuquerque where drugs, gangs and violence are realities of daily life.

Despite a $100,000 reward offered by the Albuquerque Police Department, no suspects are in custody for the murders of Barela and the other women.

The Duke City teen was from an extended New Mexican family. Adam Tachias recalled playing with his sister at family ranch near Mt. Taylor west of Albuquerque, where cattle and horses recalled a  New Mexican past when rural folkways and not big-city social traps were more the stuff of daily life. For a spell, Jamie stayed with an aunt in Leadville, Colorado.

After Jamie vanished, rumors flew. Variously, it was reported she was alive and well in Espanola, in Colorado, even Canada. A cloak of mystery shrouded her disappearance. Several relatives said they were never questioned by police about Jaime’s possible whereabouts. According to half-sister Antoinette Tachias, the police considered Jaime a runaway.

Except for a visit to draw a DNA sample a few months ago, mother Jayne Perea said she had not been visited by Albuquerque police since 2004.

When news broke of the mass grave on the West Mesa last year, Antoinette said she did not suspect her little sister was among the victims.

“I hope they try to do everything they can to catch this person,” she said after Jaime’s funeral. “I think that’s really scary. What kind of person, or persons, would do something like that?”

As the West Mesa story developed, parallels were drawn with the mass killings of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, only a straight-shot, four hour drive on 1-25 south of Albuquerque. El Diario de Juarez even sent a reporter to New Mexico to cover the story.

Historically connected, both Ciudad Juarez and Albuquerque share a common Spanish language, a deep-rooted Catholic religion, a history of trade and migration along the old Camino Real, and a modern commerce of both legal and illegal goods. Both cities also grapple with a legacy of violence against women.

On March 4, the very the same day as Jaime Barela’s funeral, local media reported that the body of an unidentified woman was discovered by workers in an irrigation ditch south of Albuquerque. The Bernalillo County Sherriff’s Department subsequently identified the dead woman as 47-year-old Debbie Martinez.

Although the circumstances of the Ciudad Juarez femicides might be different than the West Mesa murders, striking similarities exist between the two sets of crimes: questioned police investigations, the recovery of multiple homicide victims at a common site and the accidental discovery of a crime scene by a passer-by.

The Albuquerque victims were working-class women of color, and more than a few New Mexicans questioned whether a long string of disappearances that culminated in the West Mesa find would have been allowed to continue if the missing persons were wealthy and white.

“(Police) did not do investigating the right way it should have been done, and they could have prevented these women’s deaths,” contended Lupe Lopez-Haynes, the sister of Beatrice Lopez, who disappeared in Albuquerque back in 1989, but was never found alive or dead.

Recently, Lopez-Haynes and other Albuquerque residents learned first-hand about the Ciudad Juarez femicides. Traveling to New Mexico earlier this year, Irma Monreal and Paula Flores, mothers of two young women murdered in Ciudad Juarez in 2001 and 1998, respectively, shared their experiences at an Albuquerque gathering.

“Even with the threats, these women keep going. They show no fear. They don’t stop,” said Lopez-Haynes, who is trying to get to the bottom of the truth of what happened to her sister. “It gave me the strength to keep on going with this.”

Human rights advocates and cultural workers in the US, Mexico and Australia plan to pay homage to the women of Ciudad Juarez and Albuquerque during this year’s International Women’s History Month celebration in March. Organized under the theme “A Prayer for Juarez,” specific information about the events is available on Internet sites set up under the same name.

Los Angeles’ Los Abajo Printmaking Collective and Casa 0101 are helping produce the southern California segment of the project. According to a summary provided by co-organizer Kay Brown, the events will include mural exhibits, “guerrilla performance art,” plays, book and poetry readings, discussions, and showings of several fiction and non-fiction films about the border femicides. A new version of California producer’s Lorena Mendez Quiroga’s documentary “Border Echoes” will premiere. Authors Alicia Gaspar Alba and Diana Washington Valdez are scheduled to give presentations at separate events this month.

In Albuquerque, about 100 artists and others from different walks of life and nationalities responded to “A Prayer for Juarez,” according to co-organizer and painter Deborah Gavel.  On March 20-21, three art showings and related events scheduled for the New Mexico city will focus on the local women’s murders as well as the Ciudad Juarez slayings.

“I thought it would be a good idea to link West Mesa since it is right here and in our own backyard,” Gavel said. “The more I read about the daughters of Juarez, the more I see similarities.”

Emphasizing sculptural design, the Albuquerque exhibits will “metaphorically symbolize the women and their vulnerability,” Gavel said.

Gavel said an important goal of the project is to bring the community together to honor the women. “It’s been a deeply emotional experience for me to work on this during the last three months, and I hope it’s touched the hearts of all those who’ve worked on this,” she added.

Inspired by common issues that transcend borders, activists like Gavel are making sure that victims of gender violence in the US and Mexico are not forgotten.

In Albuquerque, many people remember Jaime Barela. She was buried in the time of Lent, on a day when the first stirrings of spring burst through a long, hard winter. In a month when the seedlings of next year’s crop are almost ready for planting, the morn-ing’s green chile had that residual late-season zing. Roadrunners dashed in the streets, while snow melted from the chameleon-like Sandia Mountains. Later in the day, a red sunset splashed across the West Mesa.

At the cemetery where she was interred, Jaime Barela drew scores of friends and relatives, family members of other West Mesa victims and representatives of the news media. Prior to releasing an armful of heart-shaped balloons that read “I love you,” brother Angelo spoke through tears.

“The time for my sister was very short,” he said. “I just want everyone to take the best memory you have of her.”

While the balloons caught a northerly wind and quickly disappeared, Jaime’s casket was lowered into the ground. Crows then swooped into the cemetery, making their usual racket. Soon, in another old New Mexican ritual, the migratory birds will head north. Almost as if they will follow Jaime into eternity.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Raydel Rosalío López Uriarte on the most wanted list and aboard a Cessna after his arrest.

Tiene un narco-corrido con su nombre contando sus hazañas; una película promovida por él mismo, autos blindados, armas bañadas en oro portando su nombre en diamantes y hasta un ejército de más de 200 personas,  con uniformes que muestran su total egolatría: Fuerzas Especiales Muletas.

Era el encargado de entregar los cadáveres de las víctimas de “El Teo” al “Pozolero” quien fue detenido en enero del 2008, contó a detalle como deshacía en ácido los cuerpos de rivales y victimas del secuestro para borrar cualquier rastro de sus crímenes.

Los rumores  en las calles de Tijuana incluyen que no come nada que no fuera preparado por su cocinero de confianza,—por miedo a ser envenenado— y que se escapó varias veces de ser capturado por las fuerzas federales en balaceras ocurridas en toda la ciudad, burlándose del hecho por medio de la frecuencia de radio de la policía.

Es fan del programa de MTV”Jackass” por lo cual emuló el símbolo usado en el programa para los uniformes de sus sicarios, que estaban organizados en 6 grupos de entre 30 y 40 elementos encargados de asesinar, torturar y secuestrar a nombre de la mafia, en todo Baja California.

Su detención había sido anunciada una docena de veces y se dice que se le escapó a las autoridades en el llamado “Narco-bautizo”; en la balacera de tres horas con militares en “La Cúpula”; en un operativo del estadio Calimax durante una pelea de box e incluso de una balacera en los Mariscos Godoy, en la cual fue arrestado su hermano.

Raydel Rosalío López Uriarte, alias “El Muletas” de sólo  30 años de edad, fue detenido finalmente en un sigiloso operativo de la policía federal, junto con José Manuel García Simental, alias “El Chiquilín” y dos de sus escoltas.

“Chiquilín” es hermano de  Teodoro García Simental, alias “El Teo”, quien fuera detenido en un operativo similar, apenas hace un mes en esta misma ciudad del Sur de la península, adecuadamente llamada La Paz.

Las autoridades federales aseguran que tras la captura del “Teo” fue su hermano menor, -de 27 años de edad-, quien tomó las riendas de las operaciones de tráfico de droga, siendo él líder operativo y financiero y apoyándose en el grupo encabezado por López Uriarte, encargado del reclutamiento de sicarios, la búsqueda de protección institucional y la coordinación de sicarios de la estructura criminal.

Las investigaciones federales apoyadas por la Agencia de Investigaciones Anti-Drogas  de Estados Unidos (DEA), aseguran que “El Muletas” contaba con al menos tres vehículos blindados para su uso privado y desplazaba mensualmente un promedio entre dos o tres viajes de marihuana de 500 kilogramos cada uno en avionetas Cesna de Sinaloa o Durango a la ciudad de Tijuana.

También se tenía una red que permitía a la organización traficar cada mes con 250 kilos aproximadamente de droga sintética conocida como “ice”, que desplazaba de Guadalajara y Michoacán hacia Tijuana, donde ambas drogas eran empaquetadas y traficadas a través de la frontera hasta San Diego, Calexico y el Centro.

Utilizaban autos robados para llevar a cabo secuestros, robos de droga y distintas operaciones contra sus enemigos, además contaban con dos armas tipo Barret calibre 50 para penetrar blindajes y derribar aeronaves.

El efecto dominó

El sigilo de las autoridades federales no es en vano;  existe tal penetración de grupos criminales, que  algunas filtraciones dentro de la policía federal han revelado que incluso que los agentes que participaron en este operativo (y en la detención de “El Teo”) subieron al avión desde la ciudad de México sin siquiera saber su destino final o a quien iban a detener.

La detención de “El Muletas” y “El Chiquilín” fue realizada a las 7:30 de la mañana del lunes 8 de febrero y menos de ocho horas después, un fuerte operativo militar paralizó las principales arterias de la ciudad de Tijuana.

En este despliegue se detuvo a 11 personas en posesión de 5 armas, 4 chalecos antibalas, 14 cargadores, 4 paquetes de marihuana con un peso de 5 kilos y 1,401 cartuchos útiles.

Entre los detenidos están el policía municipal Macario Arturo Enríquez, Ramón Ángel Soto Corral, supervisor de la delegación San Antonio de los Buenos, Juan Carlos Cruz Espinoza, Jefe del distrito de Sanchez Taboada y Francisco Ortega Zamora, jefe del distrito La Mesa.

En el operativo montado en la zona afluente de Las Américas, —atrás del hipódromo de la ciudad y a cuadras de la casa del alcalde-, los militares liberaron a dos  hombres que se encontraban privados de su libertad, quienes según autoridades federales son miembros del cártel rival; Los Arellano Félix la cual  encabeza Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano, alias “El Ingeniero”, aun prófugo de la justicia.

Según declaraciones del gobernador de Baja California, José Guadalupe  Osuna Millán, “Baja California y Tijuana están en primer lugar nacional en cuanto a depuraciones de las corporaciones policíacas, ya que en 2 años han salido más de 400 elementos policíacos de los cuales 120 están consignados por tener relación con un delito criminal”.

El alcalde de Tijuana dijo incluso que  esta detenciones demuestran que a diferencia de otras administraciones, en Tijuana “quien la hace la paga”.

“El que  algunos criminales se estén refugiando en otras ciudades como La Paz, al Sur de la península demuestra que en Tijuana ya no tenían la tranquilidad [para operar], debido a las acciones de combate que mantienen las corporaciones de los tres órdenes de gobierno” dijo Ramos.

Pero numerosos comentarios en los foros de sitios de noticias señalan la creciente descon-fianza de los tijuanenses en la policía municipal, aun la “depurada”.

Y es que tanto Cruz  como Ortega, ambos militares retirados, —quienes ahora se encuentran bajo sospecha de trabajar para el narcotráfico—fueron nombrados a este cargo por el Secretario de Seguridad Pública, Julián Leyzaola y él mismo había avalado su labor en la policía en varios eventos públicos.

Un usuario del periódico local identificado como “Sg72” dijo “¿Policías Municipales detenidos? no lo puedo creer, si son tan finas personas todos ellos, fueron elegidos entre los elegidos, son un ejemplo a seguir según el inepto de nuestro Alcalde”.

Mientras que “Eloysiller” expresa la desilusión de muchos y cuestiona seriamente la apatía de la prensa para atacar a mandos militares que ahora dirigen instituciones publicas: “…y estos eran lo honestos nombrados por Leyzaola y Ramos ¿y ahora que la prensa se va callar?, no hubiera sido Hank, y hasta el NYtimes…. estos eran escogidos por buenos ¿Qué no?… haber Frontera y Zeta, échenle leña al fuego!”

A group of migrant farm-workers and their relatives is attempting to pick up the pieces of their lives after a deadly crash along the Mexico-US border. Early on the morning of January 2, a bus carrying 34 agricultural laborers and family members veered off a cliff near the settlement of La Rumorosa on the Tecate-Mexicali highway. Fourteen persons were killed and 21 others injured.

The passengers were reportedly enroute to a tomato farm near Culiacan, Sinaloa, after working the winter vegetable harvest in San Quintin, Baja California.

“Initially, we were told it was two buses and we mobilized firefighters, civil protection, the army, and police from Tecate, Tijuana and Mexicali, said Rene Rosado, director of Mexicali’s civil protection department. “We later realized it was one bus cut in half.”

Preliminary reports suggested faulty brakes or excessive speed could have been the cause of the tragedy.  Within two days, seven of the 14 killed passengers were identified: Mario Pinacho, 50; Roberto Carerra Hernandez, 25; Antonio Ibarra Fuerte, 19; Helcega Ramirez Velazquez, 24;  Dario Ordonez, 5; Alejandro Lopez, 40; and Asuncion Velasco Macias, 42.

Of the 21 injured persons, 10 were quickly released from Mexicali’s General Hospital. Three of the injured, including one child, sustained critical injuries.

Despite a pledge by Baja California state human rights ombudsman Heriberto Garcia Garcia to make sure officials duly attended victims and family members, relatives gathered at General Hospital told the press they did not know how expenses would be met. Consequently, some relatives were reported soliciting donations from other members of the public at the hospital.

Unidentified officials were quoted as saying that relatives declined an offer of assistance from a local shelter out of preference to remain in the hospital with loved ones. Later, fifteen adults and children were lodged at a church shelter. Some victims lost all their belongings in the crash, including personal identification documents.

The January 2 tragedy was the latest calamity to befall migrants who work the winter vegetable harvest circuit in northern Mexico. In addition to insecure transportation, incidents have included pesticide poisonings, on-the-job accidents and other problems. In the coastal zone of Baja California alone, an estimated 30,000 seasonal workers are employed in an industry that is geared to the US export market.

Mexican officials are still investigating the cause of the accident as well as the ownership of the bus that plunged off the cliffs of La Rumorosa.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces,New Mexico.

The guy was asleep in his room, no bodyguards around. Just before dawn an explosion was heard and over 50 masked police men entered his huge mansion in an exclusive neighborhood in quiet La Paz, Baja California Sur.

That was the way police arrested one of the most renowned narcos from Tijuana.

Teodoro García Simental better known as “El Teo” “El Tres Letras” or “K-1,” is just around 31 years-old but according to federal officials and the DEA, he is responsible for the gruesome killings of over 600 people in the Tijuana region and was one of the criminals who made it common for killers to mutilate their victims and even dissolved them in acid so they would not leave a trace.

After its movie-like arrest, “El Teo” was quickly sent to Mexico City, where he was paraded in front of the media in a press conference lead by the head of the Federal Police, Ramón Pequeño García.

Pequeño, confirmed “El Teo” was one of the most wanted criminals both for Mexico and the US, and a 2.3 million dollar reward was offered for information that lead to his capture. It took authorities over 5 months of surveillance and intelligence gathering, as well as close collaboration of the Mexican army, marines and the DEA to catch him.

Who is “El Teo” and why is he considered key in the war against Mexico’s war against violence and drug trafficking? According to information released by federal authorities, “Teo” started a criminal career joining the Arellano Félix Cartel at a young age, quickly climbing the ranks and becoming head of security for the family.

But August 2006, DEA arrested Francisco Arellano Félix “El Tigrillo” shifting the power of the cartel. Simental confronted Fernando Sánchez Arellano, “El Ingeniero” in the fight over control, but the Cartel proved to be a “family owned business” and “Teo” was kicked out of the operation.

He then decided to join Arellano’s rivals; La Familia Michoacana and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, from the Sinaloa Cartel. He started trafficking for them, bringing plane loads of drugs to Tijuana, from Sinaloa, Michoacán and Jalisco.

Since then, Simental waged an all open war against the Arellano’s, and his criminal group attacked police from all levels. Federal authorities link him with planned attacks against Tijuana police chief, Julián Leyzaola Pérez and even the state’s prosecutor Rommel Moreno Manjarrez.

The separation from the Arellano Felix also resulted in a spike in kidnappings.

It was during that time that the war between drug rivals made the killings bloodier; burned, beheaded and mutilated bodies started turning up all over, most of them with direct narco-messeges, and references to the new head of the Arellanos.

His bloody style of leadership and territorial control made it necessary for people like Santiago Meza López, nicknamed the “Stew-maker” or “Pozolero.” A man, who after his January 2009 arrest, confessed to having dissolved over 300 bodies in acid under directions of his drug boss: Simental.

Now, the region has lived the three bloodiest years, but Simental’s arrest gives strange hope for people from the Esperanza Association, a non-profit group of families whose members have been kidnapped or disappeared.

“My phone was ringing off the hook even before authorities had confirmed Teo’s arrest” said Cristina Palacios, president of Esperanza , “I’ve been getting calls from Guadalajara, Mazatlan, Mexicali… entire families who left Tijuana after the kidnappings and who are now hopeful this man will confess to the crime and finally tell them where their son, wife or parents are buried”.

According to Palacios, the Association has documented over 300 cases of kidnap victims and disappeared, out of the cases filed during 2007 to 2009, 60 to 70% have been linked to people working for “Teo.”

“Family members have become private investigators in their own cases, and it was them who have found the crimes to be linked one way or another to this guy “Teo” who used to kill people in conjunction with “pozolero” said the activist, who then proceeded to give pictures and information to federal investigators,  hoping they will be used during interrogations.

Amongst those who are hopeful is Nayeli Lara de Barruecos, whose husband, thoracic surgeon Horacio Barruecos disappeared January third 2008.

“The two year anniversary of his disappearance just passed, and I’m praying to the lord this man [el Teo] will look into his heart and finally confess where he took his victims and where their bodies lay, so families like ours can bury them and have some long delayed peace”, said Lara.

Despite celebration from authorities and politicians, many think this arrest will have little repercussion in the grim public safety in the area if these actions are not followed by sustained collaboration amongst authorities.

Even Baja California governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, said he was happy about the arrest but on the same breath said he has instructed special vigilance in the state because of fears of more violence.

José María Ramos, Public Safety Expert from local think thank Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef) en Tijuana, warned about two possible reactions from organized crime; one would be the decrease in violence because the Arellano’s will quickly regain control, but the other possibility is for Teo’s allies —La Familia and Sinaloa Cartel— to double their efforts for territorial control and become even bolder in their attacks.

“The way things are laid out, they are not going to change because of just one arrest” said SDSU professor and human rights activist, Víctor Clark Alfaro, “What we have seen is one a head gets arrested it pulverizes the big cartels into small headless criminal cells, so what we have to remember is “Teo” was just the violent arm of a criminal group, not the brains or financial power of the operation. If authorities led their efforts to intellectual leaders or the financial stability of such groups, then we would see truly mortal blows, but that’s not the case”.

Dormido en su cuarto y sin guardaespaldas. Una explosión en la madrugada y media centena de agentes encapuchados entrando a la mansión de una zona exclusiva en la tranquila ciudad de La Paz.

Así fue finalmente capturado uno de los narcotraficantes más nombrados de Tijuana.

Teodoro García Simental mejor conocido como “El Teo” “El Tres Letras” y “K-1”, tiene alrededor de 31 años de edad y según autoridades federales mexicanas y la DEA es el responsable de al menos 600 ejecuciones violentas en la región de Tijuana  y de hacer común la mutilación sanguinaria de cadáveres de sus víctimas, incluyendo disolverlos en ácido para que no dejen rastro.

Luego de su aparatosa detención, “El Teo” fue rápidamente trasladado a la ciudad de México, para ser presentado a los medios en una conferencia liderada por Ramón Pequeño García, jefe de la Policía Federal.

Según Pequeño, el “El Teo” era buscado tanto por México como por Estados Unidos, y se ofrecía una recompensa de 30 millones de pesos (2.3 millones de dólares) por información que resultara en su captura. Finalmente, fueron necesarios 5 meses de labores de inteligencia y vigilancia, así como la colaboración directa de personal de la DEA, el Ejercito y la Marina mexicana para su detención.

Pero, ¿Quién es el Teo y por qué se le considera tan importante en el mapa del crimen en México? Según datos revelados por autoridades federales, “Teo” inició su carrera criminal muy joven, como miembro del cartel de los Arellano Félix, subiendo rápidamente entre sus rangos hasta hacerse jefe de escoltas de la familia.

Pero en agosto del 2006, la detención del líder del cartel, Francisco Arellano Félix “El Tigrillo” provocó una escinsión en la organización en la cual Simental se enfrentó contra Fernando Sánchez Arellano, “El Ingeniero” por el control del cartel.

Pero el Cartel probó ser un “negocio familiar” y el “Teo”  se unió entonces a los rivales de Arellano, La Familia Michoacana e Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, del cártel de Sinaloa, para quienes actualmente  traficaba grandes cantidades de droga desde Sinaloa, Michoacán y Jalisco por medio de tres aviones de su propiedad.

La separación desató una cruda guerra contra los Arellano que provocó un incremento en la violencia entre narcotraficantes, pero también un ataque frontal contra policías de todos los niveles y se le atribuye haber planeado ataques contra del jefe de la policía de Tijuana, Julián Leyzaola Pérez e incluso el procurador del estado, Rommel Moreno Manjarrez.

El deslinde con los Arellano Félix también resultó en un incremento en el número de secuestros en la ciudad.

Fue durante este enfrentamiento entre cárteles cuando se hicieron cada vez más frecuentes las técnicas como la decapitación, incineración y mutilación de los cuerpos como mensajes para el “ingeniero”; el colgar a víctimas de los puentes públicos y dejar narcomensajes en contra de Arellano Félix,  al que frecuentemente se refería burlonamente como “el albañil”.

Sus sanguinarios métodos de control de territorio hicieron necesarios los servicios de Santiago Meza López, apodado “El Pozolero”, quien fuera detenido el 25 de enero de 2009 para luego confesar haber disuelto en ácido a por lo menos 300 cadáveres para su jefe: Simental.

Ahora, después de los tres años más violentos en la región, su detención extrañamente da esperanzas a Tijuanenses los miembros de la Asociación Esperanza contra las Desapariciones Forzosas.

Su presidenta, Cristina Palacios cuenta que desde antes de que se confirmara la detención de “El Teo” ya estaba sonando su teléfono con familias de secuestrados que buscan que el famoso narcotraficante confiese los crímenes contra sus seres queridos.

“Me han llamado de Guadalajara, Mazatlan, Mexicali, familiares de desaparecidos quienes ya se fueron de Tijuana pero que tienen esperanzas que este hombre se tiente el corazón y confiese el lugar donde dejó los cuerpos de sus hijos, esposas, padres…” dijo Palacios.

Y es que de los más de 300 casos que tiene documentados la asociación, los desaparecidos correspondientes al 2007, 2008 y 2009, son en un 60 o 70% relacionados con operaciones criminales relacionados con la célula del Teo.

“Los familiares, —que se han vuelto investigadores privados de sus propios casos—, han vinculado los secuestros al “Teo” y sus cómplices, quienes trabajaban junto a Meza López, el llamado “Pozolero”, agregó la activista, quien junto con otros familiares de desaparecidos fue a la PGR en Tijuana esta misma tarde para entregar un disco con fotografías de los desaparecidos.

Entre los familiares está Nayeli Lara de Barruecos, esposa del doctor y cirujano Horacio Barruecos quien desapareciera el 3 de enero del 2008.

“Acaba de cumplir dos años de desaparecido mi marido y yo estoy orando para que ese señor [el Teo] se tiente el corazón y nos diga a tantas familias que hizo con ellos, con los que se llevó y que pueda por lo menos recuperar su cuerpo”, dijo Lara.

Aunque su captura ha sido celebrada por autoridades y políticos, ésta no significa la paz para la región. El Gobernador del estado, José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, dijo ante los medios estar complacido de la captura, pero también advirtió de un posible reacomodo de las fuerzas criminales que puede repercutir en más violencia en la región.

José María Ramos, experto en seguridad pública del Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef) en Tijuana, advierte que hay dos posibles reacciones: la primera sería una disminución de la violencia ante el control de la plaza a manos de los Arellano Félix, pero no se descarta que los aliados de “El Teo”—La Familia y el cártel de Sinaloa—continúen peleando la plaza con fuerza.

“Las cosas no se resuelven con una detención sola” advirtió el académico de SDSU y activista de los derechos humanos en esta frontera, Víctor Clark Alfaro, “porque lo que hemos visto es una pulverización de los grandes carteles, además hay que recordar que “El Teo” solo es un brazo armado y no el cerebro o el poder financiero que sería un verdadero golpe mortal a una organización criminal”.

It is around this time of year when thousands of Mexican immigrants or Mexican-Americans prepare to go back to Mexico during the holidays, a trip that is eagerly expected but can turn into a disaster if you don’t comply with Mexican laws and take a few precautions.

For the last 20 years, the Paisano Program has been put in place during the holidays by the federal government, as a way to fight corruption and abuse in the hands of Mexican police, as it gives out accurate paper work information to travelers as well as visitors hotline.

From November 10th this year, to January 10th 2010, Mexican Customs allows for 300 dollars worth of Duty free merchandise (the usual amount is $75), and transit authorities in Mexico City allow foreign cars to travel trough the city without obeying the strict “no-driving-day” policy.

The Paisano webpage has new features this year, allowing travelers to map out their rout, from beginning to end including toll roads and gas mileage, as well as calculate their tax payments on line.

But what do you need to travel to Mexico? According to Paisano, you first need to state your citizenship, then declare your items at Customs and do a temporary importation of your car.

In order to claim citizenship, travelers can show their Mexican passport, their “matrícula consular” [consulate issued card] or simply state it and sign a free form.

Travelers can bring many items that are considered duty free; new and used shoes and clothing, up to 2 video or photo cameras; 2 radios or cel phones, a DVD player, a video game player (such as as Wii) up to 5 USB’s or MP3 players or memory sticks and for those over 18; up to 20 packs of cigarettes, 2 liters of wine and 1 liter of liquor.

Everything else is taxable if it’s worth more than $300 US, but this amount is individual and can be added on by family members (including kids) traveling together in the same car.

For people traveling with controlled medication, it is recommended they do so only with limited quantities of medicine and always with the prescription signed by a doctor and bearing their name as the patients.

After paying taxes the third step is the temporary importation of your car, so you can travel throughout the country with US issued license plates.

Paperwork and payment can be made on line at www.banjercito.com.mx so travelers can receive their payment receipt and sticker in the mail at a US address, but this can also be done at the Mexican Consulates in Albaquerque, Nuevo México; Phoenix, Arizona; Chicago, Illinois; Austin, Forth Worth and Houston, Texas, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Bernardino, California.

If it’s too late for the web form you can always do the paperwork as you enter Mexi-co at the Mexico gate (you can ask customs agents where to go).

Prices vary, if you do the paperwork at the border ($29.70 US), Mexican consulate ($39.60 US) or on line ($49.50 US) the deposit for the car that you will get once you re-enter the US with the vehicle, range from $400, $300 and $200 US depending of the year and model of the car.

In order to obtain the temporary import you need to have proof of US citizenship or permanent residency (green card) as well as the car title. Once the payment is made you will get a special sticker you need to put in the front window of the car.

Once you return to the US, you cancel the permit and obtain a receipt you will need to get your deposit back.

If you need more information you can always visit www.paisano.gob.mx or call free toll numbers for information or help, available 24 hours a day everyday of the week. From Mexico dial 01 800 201 85 42 and 1 877 210 94 69 from the US and Canada.

Another important thing to consider is traveling with pets, because dogs and cats traveling to Mexico must pay for a vaccination sheet and health certificate costing around $120 US.

All guns and ammo are prohibited in Mexico, as well as having 10 thousand dollars in cash, in turn, getting arqueo-logical pieces and historical documents out of Mexico is also a crime, as well as the transport of native animals and plants.

If you still encounter rude officials or are shaken down for a bribe while you are in Mexico, call 01 800 386 24 66 to file a formal complaint.

Es por estas fechas que miles de migrantes mexicanos y norteamericanos de origen mexicano vuelven a sus lugares de origen para celebrar la navidad, pero el viaje puede pronto convertirse en una pesadilla si no se cumplen los requisitos que piden las autoridades mexicanas.

Desde hace 20 años el llamado Programa Paisano, impulsado por el gobierno federal mexicano para combatir los abusos y corrupción de autoridades y dar mayor información al viajero.

De Noviembre al 10 de enero próximo, la Administración General de Aduanas del Servicio de Administración Tributaria, elevará la franquicia terrestre de 75 a 300 dólares y se exentará del Programa Hoy no Circula a vehículos con placas extranjeras transitando por el Distrito Federal.

En la página del Programa Paisano, se está estrenando un “cotizador” para calcular el pago de impuestos relativos a la importación definitiva de vehículos a México y un simulador de viajes que calcula el gasto promedio de gasolina y casetas desde la entrada a México hasta el punto de destino, incluyendo paradas intermedias.

Pero, ¿qué pasos hay que seguir para ingresar a México?: Comprobar ciudadanía, declarar mercancía que no entre en la franquicia e importar temporalmente el vehículo en el que viaja.

Para comprobar nacionalidad se debe presentar al agente aduanal ya sea con el pasaporte o la matrícula consular, o simplemente declarar tu nacionalidad y llenando una forma gratuita.

Para el viaje se considera equipaje personal —libre de arancel— el calzado y ropa nueva o usada, productos para el bebé incluyendo la silla y cuna; hasta 2 cámaras de video o fotografía, 2 teléfonos o radios, una computadora portátil, un DVD, una consola de video (tipo Wii o Nintendo), 5 video-juegos, hasta 5 USB, Ipods o reproductores de MP3 o tarjetas de memoria.

Si lo que se lleva no entra en la descripción o tiene un valor mayor de $300 dólares se debe declarar en aduanas y pagar el impuesto correspondiente. Esta franquicia es personal, pero acumulable entre miembros de familia que viajen en el mismo vehículo, incluyendo los menores de edad.

Para las personas que lleven consigo medicamento controlado es importante que lo lleven sólo en las cantidades necesarias para la duración de su viaje y siempre con la receta médica con su nombre, que los autorice a la portación y consumo de este.

El tercer paso y quizás el más tardado es el de importar temporalmente tu vehículo para poder circular libremente por las carreteras del país con placas de Estados Unidos.

El trámite se puede hacer a través de internet en la página de Banjercito (www.banjercito.com.mx) para recibir el documento a domicilio en Estados Unidos y también en los consulados mexicanos de Albaquerque, Nuevo México; Phoenix, Arizona; Chicago, Illinois; Austin, Forth Worth y Houston, Texas y Sacramento, Los Ángeles y San Bernardino en California.

También se puede hacer a la entrada al país en los módulos de Importación Temporal de Vehículos.

Los costos varían si el permiso se tramita en la frontera ($29.70 dólares), en el consulado ($39.60 dólares) y por Internet ($49.50 dólares) mas el monto de depósito de garantía en dólares americanos que se devuelve al regresar a EU y varia de entre 400, 300 y 200 dólares dependiendo del año de manufactura del auto.

Para tramitarlo se necesita un certificado de ciudadanía extranjera o permiso de residente permanente (tarjeta verde o green card), el título de propiedad al nombre del conductor o endosado y realizar el pago correspondiente.

El engomado debe de ir en el parabrisas del vehículo y al salir del país, cancelar en la frontera el permiso de importación temporal para obtener el comprobante de retorno y la devolución del depósito.

Para cualquier duda, puede visitar la página web www.paisano.gob.mx o llamar a los números telefónicos gratuitos de orientación y ayuda con servicio los 365 días del año, las 24 horas del día: desde México al 01 800 201 85 42 y desde Estados Unidos y Canadá al 1 877 210 94 69.

Otro punto a considerar es el viajar con mascotas, ya que si tiene perros y gatos que viajen a México con usted, deberá mostrar su certificado de salud y cartilla de vacunación además del costo del Certificado Zoosanitario de $1,620 ($120 aproximadamente).

   Está prohibido introducir a México armas de fuego, cartuchos y cargadores así como más de 10 mil dólares en efectivo sin declarar y está prohibido sacar de México joyas arqueológicas, documentos históricos y especies de flora y fauna silvestres o en peligro de extinción.

Si aun así tiene usted algún problema puede denunciar abuso o extorsión de autoridades en México a la Secretaría de la Función Pública, llamando gratuitamente 01 800 386 24 66.

The goal is to ensure that temporary workers comply with the requirement to leave the country when their work authorization expires. The program will also help secure U.S. borders more effectively and streamline existing guest worker programs.

H-2A and H-2B visas are issued to temporary seasonal workers. H-2A visas allow foreign nationals to temporarily work in agricultural jobs while H-2B visas allow temporary work in non-agricultural jobs.

To verify final departure from the United States, H-2A/B non-immigrant temporary workers will be required to scan their visa and their fingerprints and return their I-94, Arrival/Departure form, at an exit kiosk located at the port of departure. Under the pilot program, travelers admitted under H-2A/B non-immigrant visa classifications at San Luis or Douglas ports of entry must also depart through one of the two designated ports. The kiosk will provide instructions in English and Spanish.

Frequent border crossers or commuters do not need to register their every departure, but only their final departure from the United States. Only H-2A/B temporary workers who enter the United States on or after December 8, on a new work authorization will be required to register their final departure from the United States when their authorized period of stay expires.

More than 205,000 H-2 guest workers crossed into United States in FY 2009. Of those, more than 147,000 were H-2A and more than 58,000 were H-2B visa holders.