Azmex Nicaragua Special 14 Jul 2018.
Note: Rare Mexican media coverage of progressive Nicaragua.
You probably won't see any of this in the gringo media.
Sandinista Youth? Same kind of people as previous "Youth" groups in the past?
Photos, etc. at link.
Gracias
http://www.excelsior.com.mx/global/salvan-a-estudiantes-sitiados-en-nicaragua-al-menos-3-muertos/1252308
They save students besieged in Nicaragua; at least 3 dead
Some 200 university students are removed from a church in Managua where they were besieged by heavily armed government agents
14/07/2018 13:02 AP / PHOTOS: AP Y REUTERS
They save students besieged in Nicaragua; at least 3 dead
The university students took refuge in the church after police operations the day before in Managua and in Masaya that, according to Catholic priests and human rights activists, left two civilians and a policeman dead, as well as dozens of wounded.
MANAGUA.
Some 200 university students went out safely on Saturday morning from a church in Managua where they were besieged by heavily armed agents, following police operations in the Nicaraguan capital and the city of Masaya, which would have caused three deaths.
The university students and at least three Nicaraguan journalists left after the efforts made by the Nicaraguan Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and the apostolic nuncio in the country, Stanislaw Sommertag. The students were transferred to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua, where they will meet with representatives of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) and will be handed over to their parents.
They were difficult moments, but thanks to God we could overcome them, "said Radio Corporación journalist Ismael López, who accompanied the students to the temple all night.
In the church, a journalist from The Washington Post and another from the BBC also took refuge for a few hours, and they were able to leave on Friday thanks to the efforts of the parish priest. Some seriously injured also left on Friday, whose transfer to hospitals was urgent.
The university students took refuge in the church after police operations the day before in Managua and in Masaya that, according to Catholic priests and human rights activists, left two civilians and a policeman dead, as well as dozens of people injured.
They save students besieged in Nicaragua; at least 3 dead
GOVERNMENTAL GOALS
Father Raúl Zamora, parish priest of the church - south of the Managua campus of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) - said the church was under fire for more than 12 hours, since university students sought refuge in its facilities after a police operation to evict them from the UNAN, which they had occupied.
The police operation was televised by independent media and transmitted by the students themselves through social networks. The three local journalists have made transmissions from the parish through Facebook Live.
The police have not given their version of the facts.
The campus of the UNAN in Managua was attacked by police and para-police forces with the aim of evicting students who had taken it for two months.
Historically, many students have backed the leftist government, but many of those same students are now asking for the resignation of President Daniel Ortega, angered by the violence exerted against the demonstrators by the police and Sandinista Youth gangs that attack the protests in an attempt to intimidate and divide them.
They save students besieged in Nicaragua; at least 3 dead
In Managua, a young university student lost his life with a bullet to the head as a result of an attack on the church of Jesus of Divine Mercy, where the young people who were staying until Friday took the university.
He died a few minutes ago wounded by a bullet this morning that was sheltered in the Parroquia Divina Misericordia. We have to get all the people out! We have to stop this massacre! "Wrote the Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, on his Twitter account.
A young student with a covered face said on Saturday to local television:
You have to put pressure on the government and understand that the people do not want it anymore. "
In Masaya, 28 kilometers southeast of Managua, a policeman and a civilian were killed after President Ortega's visit to participate in a public event, said Álvaro Leiva, director of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights.
The roundups of President Ortega's government occurred during a day of work stoppage, the second in three months of protests against Ortega, which have left more than 270 dead, some 2 thousand 100 injured and half a thousand detainees.
End
And from BBC
Nicaragua crisis: One student killed as bloody church siege ends
5 hours ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44834188
Members of Nicaragua's Special Forces are seen next to a church during clashes with anti-government protesters in the indigenous community of Monimbo in Masaya, 14 July 2018
Nicaraguan paramilitary forces clashed with anti-government protesters
At least one student has died during an attack on a church where dozens of protesters had sought shelter after more violence erupted in Nicaragua.
The students, who had been taking part in protests on a day of a national strike, came under attack from paramilitaries and became trapped in the church on Friday evening.
Protesters have been demanding the resignation of President Daniel Ortega.
More than 300 people have died during months of anti-government protests.
Following the latest clashes, a group of about 150 students were holed up in a church building close to the main university in the capital, Managua, along with priests and journalists.
How Nicaragua's crisis unfolded
The photos that explain Nicaragua's crisis
The Nicaraguan Bishops' Conference said the young man killed in the church attack had been hit in the head by a bullet during what it referred to as a fierce assault carried out by police and paramilitary forces.
There are also reports of a second student killed and several others injured.
"We were told that there were two dead and several wounded," said Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes as he arrived at the church of the Divine Mercy to mediate between the parties.
Students who were evacuated from the church will be transferred to the Cathedral of Managua, according to reports.
A journalist working with BBC Mundo, who is inside the church, earlier tweeted a picture of the body of the first victim. He says the student was called Gerald and was from Masaya, an opposition stronghold south of Managua.
Twitter post by @lopezismael: Gerald era de Masaya, tenia 20 anos y estudiaba tecnico en construccion en la Unan
In footage posted online - which the BBC has not been able to independently verify - students appear to fear for their lives as pro-government paramilitaries launch their assault.
One young woman, who can be seen crying, asks for her mother's forgiveness.
Twitter post by @sydalgko: Literal estoy llorando mientras escribo este tweet, los muchachos se están despidiendo porque están rodeados pero no no podemos dejarlos morir porfavor oremos hagamos algo esto es insoportable #SOSNicaragua Image
Before the siege ended, a few injured protesters were allowed to leave, as well as an American journalist.
Twitter post by @partlowj: I am out of the church and safe. The police have blocked off the roads leading to the church and the Catholic church and others negotiating for release of the students.Image
The death of a policeman has also been reported following clashes between protesters and a counter pro-government demonstration.
'Unacceptable'
The Catholic Church, which has been acting as a mediator in stalled talks between the government and the protesters, has denounced the violence.
Brazil has also denounced Friday's attacks by security forces and paramilitaries against students and civilians as "unacceptable".
"The escalation of violence against civil society, with physical aggressions against priests, journalists and human rights activists, are unacceptable," the Brazilian government said in a statement.
More than 300 people are reported to have been killed since a wave of protests against the government was triggered by changes to the social security system announced on 18 April.
The protests widened and quickly turned into demands that President Ortega step down.
The government accuses the protesters of plotting a coup d'etat against the president, who was re-elected to a third consecutive term in office in 2016. It also accuses the protesters of holding the country hostage by blocking roads and hampering trade and normal business.
End
Monday, July 16, 2018
Friday, July 13, 2018
AZMEX EXTRA 12-7-18
AZMEX EXTRA 12 JUL 2018
Note: Agua Prieta is across the border from Douglas, AZ. Photo at link.
Thx
Arsenal left in Agua Prieta
By: Drafting / GH | 07/12/2018 7:49
AGUA PRIETA, Sonora (GH)
http://www.elimparcial.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Policiaca/12072018/1356244-Abandonan-arsenal--en-Agua-Prieta.html
More than 800 cartridges and seven firearms were recovered in an abandoned vehicle on this border, according to information from the Attorney General's Office (PGR).
Due to this, the Sonora delegation opened a folder of investigation for the crime of violation of the Firearms and Explosives Law and whatever may result, against whoever is responsible.
The seizure was carried out by elements of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), together with elements of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC).
At calle 10, avenida 10 in Agua Prieta, authorities located an abandoned vehicle with six long firearms; a short firearm and 28 magazines for firearm, rifle type.
Also, according to a statement from the Attorney General's Office,
818 cartridges of various sizes, four tactical vests and three military-style jackets were recovered.
Everything was made available to the agent of the Federal Public Ministry, who will continue with the integration of the corresponding investigation folder.
END
Also: http://www.elregionaldesonora.com.mx/noticia/74845
http://nuevodia.com.mx/2018/07/12/decomisan-arsenal-en-agua-prieta/
Note: Agua Prieta is across the border from Douglas, AZ. Photo at link.
Thx
Arsenal left in Agua Prieta
By: Drafting / GH | 07/12/2018 7:49
AGUA PRIETA, Sonora (GH)
http://www.elimparcial.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Policiaca/12072018/1356244-Abandonan-arsenal--en-Agua-Prieta.html
More than 800 cartridges and seven firearms were recovered in an abandoned vehicle on this border, according to information from the Attorney General's Office (PGR).
Due to this, the Sonora delegation opened a folder of investigation for the crime of violation of the Firearms and Explosives Law and whatever may result, against whoever is responsible.
The seizure was carried out by elements of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), together with elements of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC).
At calle 10, avenida 10 in Agua Prieta, authorities located an abandoned vehicle with six long firearms; a short firearm and 28 magazines for firearm, rifle type.
Also, according to a statement from the Attorney General's Office,
818 cartridges of various sizes, four tactical vests and three military-style jackets were recovered.
Everything was made available to the agent of the Federal Public Ministry, who will continue with the integration of the corresponding investigation folder.
END
Also: http://www.elregionaldesonora.com.mx/noticia/74845
http://nuevodia.com.mx/2018/07/12/decomisan-arsenal-en-agua-prieta/
AZMEX POLICY 12-7-18
AZMEX POLICY 12 JUL 2018
Exclusive: Mexico Opposes U.S. Plan To Make It Take Asylum Seekers – Document, Source
By Gabriel Stargardter
http://www.oann.com/exclusive-mexico-opposes-u-s-plan-to-make-it-take-asylum-seekers-document-source/.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico is opposed to a U.S. request to make people seeking asylum in the United States apply in Mexico instead, according to a source and a briefing note, in a setback to U.S. efforts to deepen cooperation on immigration before a leftist president takes office.
U.S. officials believe a deal known as a "Safe Third Country Agreement," could prove a deterrent to thousands of Central Americans who travel through Mexico each year to seek U.S. asylum, clogging immigration courts and causing a headache for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
Yet despite growing U.S. pressure for it to accept the treaty, Mexico views the proposal as a red line it will not cross, according to the briefing note prepared for Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray for a meeting he had with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Guatemala on Tuesday.
"Mexico is not in the position to accept a safe third country agreement, as the United States has proposed on previous occasions," the note says.
"Mexico has made a significant effort to provide Central Americans detained on (Mexico's) southern border with greater information on asylum, and recently adopted measures which allow asylum applicants to work while their case is resolved."
The safe third country proposal would force asylum-seekers who arrive at the U.S. land border via Mexico to apply to stay in Mexico, likely as refugees south of the border.
Many of the 2,000 or so foreign children taken from their parents recently under Trump's zero-tolerance policy against illegal immigration were separated from parents seeking asylum in the United States.
LOPEZ OBRADOR COMING
Under Videgaray, Mexico has become increasingly willing to cooperate with United States on some issues, which senior U.S. and Mexican officials say is part of a strategy to curry favor with Washington in hopes of winning a beneficial renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The United States is hoping to consolidate improved cooperation on immigration and security before leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is sworn in as Mexican president on Dec. 1, according to officials from both countries.
While Lopez Obrador says he wants good relations with the United States, the nationalist-leaning leader is a long-term advocate of migrant rights and is seen as even less likely to accept an asylum pact, a senior Mexican official said.
The Mexican official, who asked to speak anonymously to discuss private bilateral discussions, said it was not clear whether Nielsen had proposed the agreement in her bilateral meeting with Videgaray, nor whether the Mexican minister rejected it if she did.
Nonetheless, the official said there was no indication of a change in Mexico's policy following the meeting.
The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond.
"We are interested in dealing with the fact that both Mexico and the United States are facing a sharp increase in refugee requests and addressing the root causes of migration through development," Mexico's ambassador to the United States, Geronimo Gutierrez, said in a statement when asked for Mexico's position on the request.
"We constantly engage in dialogue with our U.S. counterparts on these matters to identify and develop areas of cooperation."
Both Videgaray and Lopez Obrador will meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he visits Mexico on Friday along with Nielsen.
Mexico's foreign ministry declined to say whether the asylum proposal would be on the agenda in those meetings. A spokesman for Lopez Obrador's foreign policy team did not respond to a request for comment.
Lopez Obrador is expected to suggest in the meeting that the United States help to reduce migration by helping create better living standards in Mexico and Central America.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)
END
ALSO: https://riodoce.mx/mexico-nacional/el-gobierno-de-trump-busca-convertir-a-mexico-en-filtro-migratorio-hacia-el-norte
END
Exclusive: Mexico Opposes U.S. Plan To Make It Take Asylum Seekers – Document, Source
By Gabriel Stargardter
http://www.oann.com/exclusive-mexico-opposes-u-s-plan-to-make-it-take-asylum-seekers-document-source/.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico is opposed to a U.S. request to make people seeking asylum in the United States apply in Mexico instead, according to a source and a briefing note, in a setback to U.S. efforts to deepen cooperation on immigration before a leftist president takes office.
U.S. officials believe a deal known as a "Safe Third Country Agreement," could prove a deterrent to thousands of Central Americans who travel through Mexico each year to seek U.S. asylum, clogging immigration courts and causing a headache for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
Yet despite growing U.S. pressure for it to accept the treaty, Mexico views the proposal as a red line it will not cross, according to the briefing note prepared for Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray for a meeting he had with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Guatemala on Tuesday.
"Mexico is not in the position to accept a safe third country agreement, as the United States has proposed on previous occasions," the note says.
"Mexico has made a significant effort to provide Central Americans detained on (Mexico's) southern border with greater information on asylum, and recently adopted measures which allow asylum applicants to work while their case is resolved."
The safe third country proposal would force asylum-seekers who arrive at the U.S. land border via Mexico to apply to stay in Mexico, likely as refugees south of the border.
Many of the 2,000 or so foreign children taken from their parents recently under Trump's zero-tolerance policy against illegal immigration were separated from parents seeking asylum in the United States.
LOPEZ OBRADOR COMING
Under Videgaray, Mexico has become increasingly willing to cooperate with United States on some issues, which senior U.S. and Mexican officials say is part of a strategy to curry favor with Washington in hopes of winning a beneficial renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The United States is hoping to consolidate improved cooperation on immigration and security before leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is sworn in as Mexican president on Dec. 1, according to officials from both countries.
While Lopez Obrador says he wants good relations with the United States, the nationalist-leaning leader is a long-term advocate of migrant rights and is seen as even less likely to accept an asylum pact, a senior Mexican official said.
The Mexican official, who asked to speak anonymously to discuss private bilateral discussions, said it was not clear whether Nielsen had proposed the agreement in her bilateral meeting with Videgaray, nor whether the Mexican minister rejected it if she did.
Nonetheless, the official said there was no indication of a change in Mexico's policy following the meeting.
The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond.
"We are interested in dealing with the fact that both Mexico and the United States are facing a sharp increase in refugee requests and addressing the root causes of migration through development," Mexico's ambassador to the United States, Geronimo Gutierrez, said in a statement when asked for Mexico's position on the request.
"We constantly engage in dialogue with our U.S. counterparts on these matters to identify and develop areas of cooperation."
Both Videgaray and Lopez Obrador will meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he visits Mexico on Friday along with Nielsen.
Mexico's foreign ministry declined to say whether the asylum proposal would be on the agenda in those meetings. A spokesman for Lopez Obrador's foreign policy team did not respond to a request for comment.
Lopez Obrador is expected to suggest in the meeting that the United States help to reduce migration by helping create better living standards in Mexico and Central America.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)
END
ALSO: https://riodoce.mx/mexico-nacional/el-gobierno-de-trump-busca-convertir-a-mexico-en-filtro-migratorio-hacia-el-norte
END
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
AZMEX UPDATE 11-7-18
AZMEX UPDATE 11 JUL 2018
Investing In Arizona's Border Strike Force
News ReleaseJuly 11, 2018
https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2018/07/investing-arizonas-border-strike-force
PHOENIX — Governor Doug Ducey, joined by Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Colonel Frank Milstead, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier and Chief Patrol Agent Rodolfo Karisch, today highlighted increased investments in the Arizona Border Strike Force for FY 2019.
Created at the direction of Governor Ducey in September of 2015, the Border Strike Force takes a collaborative approach to securing Arizona's border by partnering with local, state, tribal and federal authorities to target border-related crimes.
Due to its success, the enacted FY 2019 budget invests an additional $2.9 million to expand Border Strike Force operations in critical areas around the state. The funding will help expand coverage to 24-hours-a-day, seven days-a week in response to shifting cartel behavior.
"We made a decision – if Washington D.C. wasn't going to secure our border; Arizona would," said Governor Ducey. "The Border Strike Force is without a doubt making Arizona – and America – a safer place, and it's worthy of our continued investment."
Through May of 2018, the Border Strike Force has seized:
60,641 pounds of marijuana;
14,249 prescription drug pills/capsules;
17.2 million hits of heroin;
173,885 rounds of ammunition;
300 firearms.
Border Strike Force operations have also led to 3,199 arrests.
"With every significant seizure made since 2015, communities across the United States are safer as a result," said DPS Director Colonel Milstead. "The continued success of the Border Strike Force is predicated on the partnerships between state, federal, and local law enforcement working together. As long as transnational criminal organizations and other criminal enterprises work to infest Arizona and our nation with illegal drugs and violence, we will stand up to them and fulfill our mission to fight the narcoterrorism plaguing our country."
"The Border Strike Force is an excellent example of how we can keep our communities safer through active collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement," said Sheriff Napier. "The lack of security on our southern border presents a clear danger to public safety. Under Governor Ducey's leadership, we are all working together to meet these threats and enhance public safety."
"In Cochise County, we have come together to develop a multi-agency community initiative to secure our border," said Sheriff Dannels. "We have sent a strong message to the cartels: smuggling in Cochise County and in Arizona will not be tolerated. As a result, Cochise County is a safer, better place for our citizens, and I am proud to call Cochise County my home."
"I thank Governor Ducey for his continued support of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection with not only resources from the Department of Public Safety but also from the National Guard who are currently deployed in a support role assisting the men and women of the Border Patrol here in Arizona," said Chief Patrol Agent Karisch. "We all have a stake in strengthening border security because it is ultimately about national security and we must work together to keep Americans safe while improving the quality of life in the communities we serve."
###
End
Also; at the link:
Gov. Ducey, law enforcers tout success of Arizona Border Strike Force
BY KTAR.COM | JULY 11, 2018 AT 12:20 PM
UPDATED: JULY 11, 2018 AT 12:56 PM
http://ktar.com/story/2137826/gov-ducey-law-enforcers-tout-success-of-arizona-border-strike-force/
End
Investing In Arizona's Border Strike Force
News ReleaseJuly 11, 2018
https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2018/07/investing-arizonas-border-strike-force
PHOENIX — Governor Doug Ducey, joined by Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Colonel Frank Milstead, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier and Chief Patrol Agent Rodolfo Karisch, today highlighted increased investments in the Arizona Border Strike Force for FY 2019.
Created at the direction of Governor Ducey in September of 2015, the Border Strike Force takes a collaborative approach to securing Arizona's border by partnering with local, state, tribal and federal authorities to target border-related crimes.
Due to its success, the enacted FY 2019 budget invests an additional $2.9 million to expand Border Strike Force operations in critical areas around the state. The funding will help expand coverage to 24-hours-a-day, seven days-a week in response to shifting cartel behavior.
"We made a decision – if Washington D.C. wasn't going to secure our border; Arizona would," said Governor Ducey. "The Border Strike Force is without a doubt making Arizona – and America – a safer place, and it's worthy of our continued investment."
Through May of 2018, the Border Strike Force has seized:
60,641 pounds of marijuana;
14,249 prescription drug pills/capsules;
17.2 million hits of heroin;
173,885 rounds of ammunition;
300 firearms.
Border Strike Force operations have also led to 3,199 arrests.
"With every significant seizure made since 2015, communities across the United States are safer as a result," said DPS Director Colonel Milstead. "The continued success of the Border Strike Force is predicated on the partnerships between state, federal, and local law enforcement working together. As long as transnational criminal organizations and other criminal enterprises work to infest Arizona and our nation with illegal drugs and violence, we will stand up to them and fulfill our mission to fight the narcoterrorism plaguing our country."
"The Border Strike Force is an excellent example of how we can keep our communities safer through active collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement," said Sheriff Napier. "The lack of security on our southern border presents a clear danger to public safety. Under Governor Ducey's leadership, we are all working together to meet these threats and enhance public safety."
"In Cochise County, we have come together to develop a multi-agency community initiative to secure our border," said Sheriff Dannels. "We have sent a strong message to the cartels: smuggling in Cochise County and in Arizona will not be tolerated. As a result, Cochise County is a safer, better place for our citizens, and I am proud to call Cochise County my home."
"I thank Governor Ducey for his continued support of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection with not only resources from the Department of Public Safety but also from the National Guard who are currently deployed in a support role assisting the men and women of the Border Patrol here in Arizona," said Chief Patrol Agent Karisch. "We all have a stake in strengthening border security because it is ultimately about national security and we must work together to keep Americans safe while improving the quality of life in the communities we serve."
###
End
Also; at the link:
Gov. Ducey, law enforcers tout success of Arizona Border Strike Force
BY KTAR.COM | JULY 11, 2018 AT 12:20 PM
UPDATED: JULY 11, 2018 AT 12:56 PM
http://ktar.com/story/2137826/gov-ducey-law-enforcers-tout-success-of-arizona-border-strike-force/
End
AZMEX UPDATE 11-7-18
AZMEX UPDATE 11 JUL 2018
Note: several photos at link: If it still works. (Tecate on the border with Calif. SE of San Diego )
Thx
Drone with grenades falls on the house of the Secretary of Public Safety of BC
By: Saul D.Martinez | 07/10/2018 11:58
MEXICALI, Baja California (GH)
http://www.lacronica.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Noticias/11072018/1355997-Llaman-a-ser-precavidos-ante-posibilidad-de-tormentas-electricas-en-Mexicali.html
A drone with two fragmentation grenades fell on one of the homes of the head of the State Public Security Secretariat (SSPEBC), Gerardo Sosa Olachea, in the city of Tecate.
It was early morning on Tuesday when agents of the State Preventive Police (PEP) who guard the home realized the fall of the object in the residence.
At the time of the inspection, they saw that the drone had two fragmentation grenades but were disabled, therefore no explosion.
Sosa Olachea was not in the property at the time of these events.
An SSPE spokesperson said that the Public Security secretary currently resides in Mexicali due to his duties.
In a statement, Sosa Olachea describes these actions as a result of the strategy against crime and the latest seizures of drugs, weapons and arrest of criminals.
END
Note: several photos at link: If it still works. (Tecate on the border with Calif. SE of San Diego )
Thx
Drone with grenades falls on the house of the Secretary of Public Safety of BC
By: Saul D.Martinez | 07/10/2018 11:58
MEXICALI, Baja California (GH)
http://www.lacronica.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Noticias/11072018/1355997-Llaman-a-ser-precavidos-ante-posibilidad-de-tormentas-electricas-en-Mexicali.html
A drone with two fragmentation grenades fell on one of the homes of the head of the State Public Security Secretariat (SSPEBC), Gerardo Sosa Olachea, in the city of Tecate.
It was early morning on Tuesday when agents of the State Preventive Police (PEP) who guard the home realized the fall of the object in the residence.
At the time of the inspection, they saw that the drone had two fragmentation grenades but were disabled, therefore no explosion.
Sosa Olachea was not in the property at the time of these events.
An SSPE spokesperson said that the Public Security secretary currently resides in Mexicali due to his duties.
In a statement, Sosa Olachea describes these actions as a result of the strategy against crime and the latest seizures of drugs, weapons and arrest of criminals.
END
AZMEX UPDATE 8-7-18
AZMEX UPDATE 8 JUL 2018
Note: Monterrey, NL, the third largest city in Mexico. About 140 miles south of Laredo, TX.
Thx
Attack bars in Monterrey; 12 dead
Writing | Sunday, 08 Jul 2018 08:24
http://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/2018/07/08/atacan-bares-en-monterrey-11-muertos-2770.html
The wave of attacks began at 8:00 pm on Saturday at the La Jarra II bar. Photo Erick Muñiz
Monterrey, NL. A series of six attacks on bars in the metropolitan area of Monterrey left 12 people dead and five wounded.
According to sources of the State Agency of Investigations, the businesses were points of sale of drugs of an organized crime group and the attacks were carried out by an antagonistic group that seeks to take control of the sale of narcotics.
The attacks were carried out during the night of Saturday and early Sunday morning in bars and table dances of the municipalities of Monterrey, Guadalupe and Juárez.
The highest number of victims occurred at the Rancho Viejo bar in the municipality of Juarez, where six people were killed when they were shot by at least five gunmen who arrived aboard two vehicles and opened fire on entering the premises.
Other bars that were shot are: Bohemio, in the municipality of Guadalupe, where there were two fatalities, as well as La Mitotera Live, in Monterrey, with two others dead and one injured.
The Wichos bar in Monterrey was also under fire one person killed and four wounded.
According to police sources, the executions were directed, they were not random, and in most of the events the victims were business workers, without ruling out that someone could be a client.
The wave of attacks began at 8:00 pm on Saturday at La Jarra II bar and El Ancla bar, located five blocks from the bus station,
in the heart of Monterrey.
Armed men aboard a black truck and a taxi opened fire towards the entrance of La Jarra II, and wounded the barkeeper, Juan Camacho, 64 years old.
Afterwards, the same attackers went to El Ancla, five blocks away and repeated the attack with two wounded people,
Héctor Alberto Eguía, 25, and one person, identified as "Tyson".
In social networks began to circulate testimonies of witnesses to the attacks, such as the Roxana Badillo, vocalist of the group Retro, who was performing with her group at the bar La Mitotera Live, when armed people entered the place and began firing.
"We were playing when a shootout started, we had to flee from the place and had to leave one of our vehicles because there was a person under it," the singer says on her Facebook page.
END
Note: More chemicals from China?
Thx
Locate narcolaboratorio in Culiacán
July 8, 2018 by Editorial Staff
https://riodoce.mx/policiaca/localizan-narcolaboratorio-en-culiacan
More than 10 thousand liters of chemical substances for the making of drugs, were seized in Culiacán.
Federal sources reported that the discovery occurred in La Boca, in the municipality of Tepuche, in the state capital.
It was detailed that it is 250 liters of liquid methamphetamine contained in five drums, 5,500 liters of hydrochloric acid found in 113 drums, 2,900 liters of methanol, in 20 drums of 200 liters each, 400 liters of phenyl 2 propanone , stored in eight drums, 200 liters of benzyl alcohol found in a drum of the same capacity, in addition to 700 kilos of sodium cyanide in 14 drums of 50 kilos each, plus 160 liters of unknown substance in another drum of 200 liters.
The material was made available to the Agent of the Federal Public Ministry, while the Ninth Military Zone established coordination with the delegation of the PGR to provide the chemical analysis, of the quantities and type of substances officially.
End
Note: Monterrey, NL, the third largest city in Mexico. About 140 miles south of Laredo, TX.
Thx
Attack bars in Monterrey; 12 dead
Writing | Sunday, 08 Jul 2018 08:24
http://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/2018/07/08/atacan-bares-en-monterrey-11-muertos-2770.html
The wave of attacks began at 8:00 pm on Saturday at the La Jarra II bar. Photo Erick Muñiz
Monterrey, NL. A series of six attacks on bars in the metropolitan area of Monterrey left 12 people dead and five wounded.
According to sources of the State Agency of Investigations, the businesses were points of sale of drugs of an organized crime group and the attacks were carried out by an antagonistic group that seeks to take control of the sale of narcotics.
The attacks were carried out during the night of Saturday and early Sunday morning in bars and table dances of the municipalities of Monterrey, Guadalupe and Juárez.
The highest number of victims occurred at the Rancho Viejo bar in the municipality of Juarez, where six people were killed when they were shot by at least five gunmen who arrived aboard two vehicles and opened fire on entering the premises.
Other bars that were shot are: Bohemio, in the municipality of Guadalupe, where there were two fatalities, as well as La Mitotera Live, in Monterrey, with two others dead and one injured.
The Wichos bar in Monterrey was also under fire one person killed and four wounded.
According to police sources, the executions were directed, they were not random, and in most of the events the victims were business workers, without ruling out that someone could be a client.
The wave of attacks began at 8:00 pm on Saturday at La Jarra II bar and El Ancla bar, located five blocks from the bus station,
in the heart of Monterrey.
Armed men aboard a black truck and a taxi opened fire towards the entrance of La Jarra II, and wounded the barkeeper, Juan Camacho, 64 years old.
Afterwards, the same attackers went to El Ancla, five blocks away and repeated the attack with two wounded people,
Héctor Alberto Eguía, 25, and one person, identified as "Tyson".
In social networks began to circulate testimonies of witnesses to the attacks, such as the Roxana Badillo, vocalist of the group Retro, who was performing with her group at the bar La Mitotera Live, when armed people entered the place and began firing.
"We were playing when a shootout started, we had to flee from the place and had to leave one of our vehicles because there was a person under it," the singer says on her Facebook page.
END
Note: More chemicals from China?
Thx
Locate narcolaboratorio in Culiacán
July 8, 2018 by Editorial Staff
https://riodoce.mx/policiaca/localizan-narcolaboratorio-en-culiacan
More than 10 thousand liters of chemical substances for the making of drugs, were seized in Culiacán.
Federal sources reported that the discovery occurred in La Boca, in the municipality of Tepuche, in the state capital.
It was detailed that it is 250 liters of liquid methamphetamine contained in five drums, 5,500 liters of hydrochloric acid found in 113 drums, 2,900 liters of methanol, in 20 drums of 200 liters each, 400 liters of phenyl 2 propanone , stored in eight drums, 200 liters of benzyl alcohol found in a drum of the same capacity, in addition to 700 kilos of sodium cyanide in 14 drums of 50 kilos each, plus 160 liters of unknown substance in another drum of 200 liters.
The material was made available to the Agent of the Federal Public Ministry, while the Ninth Military Zone established coordination with the delegation of the PGR to provide the chemical analysis, of the quantities and type of substances officially.
End
AZMEX POLICY 9-7-18
AZMEX POLICY 9 JUL 2018
Mexico's new president could help ease pressure on Venezuela
Scott Smith, Associated Press
Updated 11:58 am CDT, Monday, July 9, 2018
https://www.lmtonline.com/news/world/article/Mexico-s-new-president-could-help-ease-pressure-13060158.php?utm_campaign=hpborder
Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives a press conference in Mexico City, Monday, July 9, 2018. Lopez Obrador campaigned on a promise to return to Mexico's traditional foreign policy of nonintervention. Photo: Moises Castillo, AP
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The landslide victory of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico's presidential election is likely to provide some relief to another leftist firebrand: Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro.
Lopez Obrador campaigned on a promise to return to Mexico's traditional foreign policy of nonintervention, putting him at odds with his predecessor's efforts to build a regional alliance to bring pressure against Maduro's socialist government for taking Venezuela down an increasingly authoritarian path.
"Let the broad avenues of sovereignty and friendship of our peoples be opened," Maduro said in a congratulatory tweet to Lopez Obrador following his July 1 win. "Truth triumphs over lies, and the hope of the great homeland is renewed."
Mexican governments in recent years have shifted away from the tread-softly policies of the 20th century. Former President Vicente Fox notably squabbled with both Cuba and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez over their human rights records. Relations grew so frosty between Mexico and Venezuela that they withdrew ambassadors from one another between 2005 and 2009.
Current President Enrique Pena Nieto joined forces with the Trump administration and was leading a push among mostly conservative Latin American governments to put pressure on Maduro.
His government last month sponsored a resolution at the Organization of American States that could pave the way for Venezuela's suspension from the group over what it considered Maduro's illegitimate re-election as the oil-rich economy unravels. It's also working closely with the U.S. to seize assets stolen by corrupt Venezuelan officials.
Last year, Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray went on a hushed mission to Cuba to urge the communist island's leaders to use their influence to create a more meaningful dialogue in Venezuela, their main ideological and economic ally.
By contrast, Lopez Obrador has indicated a desire to return to what's known as the Estrada Doctrine, a stance dating from the 1930s by which Mexico long refused to judge foreign governments for fear of inviting meddling by the U.S.
"We will be friends of all the world's people and governments," Lopez Obrador said in his victory speech from Mexico City's Zocalo.
"The principles of non-intervention, self-determination and the peaceful settlement of disputes will be applied again," he said.
Those principles haven't meant isolation in the past. Mexico played a significant part in efforts to mediate an end to Central America's civil wars in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Once a wealthy oil nation, Venezuela in the last five years has spiraled deep into a political and economic chaos under Maduro's rule. Last year, more than 140 people were killed in anti-government protests that were put down by security forces loyal to Maduro.
Meanwhile, widespread shortages of food and medicine and runaway inflation are sending masses of Venezuelans search of a better life abroad. Many of them have headed to Mexico, which last year received more than 4,000 asylum requests from Venezuelans compared to just a single case in 2013.
Lopez Obrador's pledges to tackle yawning inequality, root out endemic corruption and forgo bodyguards so he can be closer to "the people" have drawn comparisons to Maduro's mentor and populist predecessor Hugo Chavez.
But analysts said Lopez Obrador is unlikely to emulate Maduro's policies as he seeks to transform Mexico's economy, or to join the Bolivarian Alliance of 11 leftist nations that has been Venezuela's diplomatic spearhead the past 15 years.
Unlike Chavez, who liked to bash the U.S. "Empire," the target of Lopez Obrador's scorn has been domestic elites. And he has named a team of mainstream figures to his economic team, saying repeatedly he had no intention to adopt a Venezuelan-style approach.
"Venezuela has become a watchword for economic failure and mismanagement everywhere in the region," said Patrick Duddy, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and now a professor of Latin American studies at Duke University. "It would surprise me greatly to see Lopez Obrador embracing Venezuela's leadership or record."
But even if Lopez Obrador keeps a safe distance from Maduro, he can still tip the region's diplomatic balance toward the embattled socialist's favor.
Maduro's position in the region has soured as leftist leaders in key countries have been replaced by conservatives with less patience for the chaos in his country and the spillover it has caused into theirs.
"The fear," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, "is that under the banner of non-intervention, Lopez Obrador will break the solid consensus among the region's top democracies to treat Maduro as a pariah dictator responsible for gross violations of human rights."
END
Mexico's new president could help ease pressure on Venezuela
Scott Smith, Associated Press
Updated 11:58 am CDT, Monday, July 9, 2018
https://www.lmtonline.com/news/world/article/Mexico-s-new-president-could-help-ease-pressure-13060158.php?utm_campaign=hpborder
Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives a press conference in Mexico City, Monday, July 9, 2018. Lopez Obrador campaigned on a promise to return to Mexico's traditional foreign policy of nonintervention. Photo: Moises Castillo, AP
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The landslide victory of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico's presidential election is likely to provide some relief to another leftist firebrand: Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro.
Lopez Obrador campaigned on a promise to return to Mexico's traditional foreign policy of nonintervention, putting him at odds with his predecessor's efforts to build a regional alliance to bring pressure against Maduro's socialist government for taking Venezuela down an increasingly authoritarian path.
"Let the broad avenues of sovereignty and friendship of our peoples be opened," Maduro said in a congratulatory tweet to Lopez Obrador following his July 1 win. "Truth triumphs over lies, and the hope of the great homeland is renewed."
Mexican governments in recent years have shifted away from the tread-softly policies of the 20th century. Former President Vicente Fox notably squabbled with both Cuba and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez over their human rights records. Relations grew so frosty between Mexico and Venezuela that they withdrew ambassadors from one another between 2005 and 2009.
Current President Enrique Pena Nieto joined forces with the Trump administration and was leading a push among mostly conservative Latin American governments to put pressure on Maduro.
His government last month sponsored a resolution at the Organization of American States that could pave the way for Venezuela's suspension from the group over what it considered Maduro's illegitimate re-election as the oil-rich economy unravels. It's also working closely with the U.S. to seize assets stolen by corrupt Venezuelan officials.
Last year, Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray went on a hushed mission to Cuba to urge the communist island's leaders to use their influence to create a more meaningful dialogue in Venezuela, their main ideological and economic ally.
By contrast, Lopez Obrador has indicated a desire to return to what's known as the Estrada Doctrine, a stance dating from the 1930s by which Mexico long refused to judge foreign governments for fear of inviting meddling by the U.S.
"We will be friends of all the world's people and governments," Lopez Obrador said in his victory speech from Mexico City's Zocalo.
"The principles of non-intervention, self-determination and the peaceful settlement of disputes will be applied again," he said.
Those principles haven't meant isolation in the past. Mexico played a significant part in efforts to mediate an end to Central America's civil wars in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Once a wealthy oil nation, Venezuela in the last five years has spiraled deep into a political and economic chaos under Maduro's rule. Last year, more than 140 people were killed in anti-government protests that were put down by security forces loyal to Maduro.
Meanwhile, widespread shortages of food and medicine and runaway inflation are sending masses of Venezuelans search of a better life abroad. Many of them have headed to Mexico, which last year received more than 4,000 asylum requests from Venezuelans compared to just a single case in 2013.
Lopez Obrador's pledges to tackle yawning inequality, root out endemic corruption and forgo bodyguards so he can be closer to "the people" have drawn comparisons to Maduro's mentor and populist predecessor Hugo Chavez.
But analysts said Lopez Obrador is unlikely to emulate Maduro's policies as he seeks to transform Mexico's economy, or to join the Bolivarian Alliance of 11 leftist nations that has been Venezuela's diplomatic spearhead the past 15 years.
Unlike Chavez, who liked to bash the U.S. "Empire," the target of Lopez Obrador's scorn has been domestic elites. And he has named a team of mainstream figures to his economic team, saying repeatedly he had no intention to adopt a Venezuelan-style approach.
"Venezuela has become a watchword for economic failure and mismanagement everywhere in the region," said Patrick Duddy, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and now a professor of Latin American studies at Duke University. "It would surprise me greatly to see Lopez Obrador embracing Venezuela's leadership or record."
But even if Lopez Obrador keeps a safe distance from Maduro, he can still tip the region's diplomatic balance toward the embattled socialist's favor.
Maduro's position in the region has soured as leftist leaders in key countries have been replaced by conservatives with less patience for the chaos in his country and the spillover it has caused into theirs.
"The fear," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, "is that under the banner of non-intervention, Lopez Obrador will break the solid consensus among the region's top democracies to treat Maduro as a pariah dictator responsible for gross violations of human rights."
END
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
AZMEX UPDATE 10-7-18
AZMEX UPDATE 10 JUL 2018
Comment: as of Dec. 2, will the border protection resources be overwhelmed? If not sooner?
Another problem is that city boys and girls usually don't do very well out in the desert.
"Cronkite News" a leftist media training op out of ASU.
Thx
Audit: Hiring of customs, border agents better, but still falling short
BY BRYAN PIETSCH/CRONKITE NEWS
JULY 10, 2018 AT 12:12 PM
http://ktar.com/story/2136344/audit-hiring-of-customs-border-agents-better-but-still-falling-short/
Border Patrol agents line up in formation on ATVs in the Tucson sector. A recent audit says that despite improvements in the hiring process, Customs and Border Protection still has thousands of unfilled customs-officer and border-patrol agent jobs. (Photo by Josh Denmark/Customs and Border Protection)
WASHINGTON – Customs and Border Protection is getting better at attracting and hiring job applicants, but the agency still faces thousands of vacancies in its law enforcement ranks, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
The report said that the number of Border Patrol agents actually fell from 2013 to 2017 at a time when the government was increasing the number of agent positions.
"It's a huge deal, especially now," said Art Del Cueto, vice president of the Southwest chapter of the National Border Patrol Council. "Now you have less agents … when you're by yourself it's easier for agents to be attacked."
The report said staffing for Border Patrol agents, who patrol between ports of entry, was 6,933 agents short of the authorized level of more than 26,000 for fiscal 2017. Staffing for officers, who work at the ports of entry, was 1,100 employees below the target level of more than 24,000 for that year.
Those shortfalls come despite steep gains in the number of new applicants, with the GAO reporting that the number of applications to the agency overall tripled from fiscal 2013 to 2017. Applications to Border Patrol agent positions increased from 27,000 applications in 2013 to more than 91,000 in 2017, while CBP officer applications increased from 22,500 in 2013 to 85,000 in 2017, according to the report.
Related Links
US Rep. Andy Biggs says 'morale is really low' among border patrol agents
In a statement, the agency attributed the increase to an aggressive effort to target untapped areas for new hires. That includes a social media presence and outreach to "underrepresented groups," which it said includes women and African Americans.
"CBP is continually striving to further diversify its ranks by going into markets that may not be as familiar with the CBP mission and the federal career opportunities it offers," a CBP spokesperson said in the statement. "We are working to inform communities, along with recruiting qualified candidates."
But while applications are up, the GAO said the agency is still burdened by an extensive and lengthy hiring process. Even though the time from application to hire decreased since 2015, it still took more than 300 days on average to hire an applicant in 2017.
The report said the agency has an 11-step process that includes an entrance exam, medical exam, fitness test and a polygraph examination.
Del Cueto said the polygraph is one of the biggest issues in hiring new employees, who have told him "horror stories" about polygraph tests taking upwards of eight hours.
"You might as well waterboard them and get confessions out of these guys," Del Cueto said of the extensive testing.
"Potential young men and women sit there and say, 'Do I really want to try out for Border Patrol knowing there are issues?'" Del Cueto said. "It would make me think twice, all these horror stories."
And understaffing at the border is more than an inconvenience just for travelers, according to Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Nogales-based Fresh Produce Association of the Americas. He said that when lines at the border get too long because of a shortage of customs officers, that delays produce-carrying trucks that need to cross in a timely manner to protect their cargo.
"For the produce companies, you want to be able to sell your produce as quick and fresh as you can," Jungmeyer said. "If it's stuck at customs, it can't get through and that truck sits there and waits."
Those delays have real costs: Jungmeyer said that if a truck of produce reaches its destination in the U.S. and the fruit is not as fresh as expected, the amount paid for the produce can be cut in half by the buyer.
"If things are slowed down and you think about the systemwide impact, it really adds up," Jungmeyer said. "It raises the cost and exacerbates the (effect) on the produce."
Aside from attracting new employees, another challenge facing CBP is retaining current ones. The report said one of the main complaints from CBP employees is that there is little to no room for relocating.
In its statement, the CBP said the department is "exploring innovative practices regarding incentives and mobility options that will enhance our recruitment prospects and improve our workforce attrition rates."
Del Cueto said that it's difficult to find people willing to work in remote locations, where things like restaurants, schools and shops are few and far between. He said that people moving to those locations from larger cities soon realize that transferring to another department could allow them to live in a bigger city or closer to family.
The GAO report recommended to CBP that the agency should "systematically collect and analyze data on departing officers" to help with retention efforts. The report said that CBP agreed with the recommendation.
But Jungmeyer said that even current staffing isn't enough and that CBP needs to hire more workers to ensure security beyond managing what's crossing the border.
"While it's about national security, it's also about – in the border region – economic security," Jungmeyer said. "When there's not enough CBP officers, that harms the economic viability of the border and everybody else in that supply chain."
End
CBP makes near-record hard drug bust at Mariposa port
Nogales International Jul 9, 2018 Updated 1 hr ago
https://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/cbp-makes-near-record-hard-drug-bust-at-mariposa-port/article_c9ae4896-83cc-11e8-9b37-c71b90b14c6b.html
The load of methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl and Oxycodone pills was valued at approximately $1.4 million.
CBP photo
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Nogales made a near-record bust of hard drugs last weekend, seizing approximately $1.4 million worth of narcotics at a local port of entry.
On Saturday, CBP said, officers at the Mariposa Commercial Facility referred a 65-year-old Mexican man for further inspection of the tractor-trailer he was attempting to drive into the United States.
Aided by a drug-sniffing dog, officers conducting the inspection uncovered more than 364 pounds of methamphetamine, worth almost $1.1 million, hidden in the vehicle.
More inside
In addition, they found six pounds of heroin, worth more than $100,000; almost seven pounds of fentanyl, valued at more than $95,000; and 6,000 suspected Oxycodone pills, with a value of nearly $113,000.
It was the third-largest seizure of its kind ever recorded by CBP officers at a port of entry in Arizona, the agency said.
Officers seized the drugs and tractor-trailer, and the driver was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations.
CBP has made a number of larger marijuana busts at its Arizona ports of entry, including the seizure of an all-time state record of more than 20,000 pounds of pot, valued at $10.1 million, made at the Mariposa port in November 2013.
END
Comment: as of Dec. 2, will the border protection resources be overwhelmed? If not sooner?
Another problem is that city boys and girls usually don't do very well out in the desert.
"Cronkite News" a leftist media training op out of ASU.
Thx
Audit: Hiring of customs, border agents better, but still falling short
BY BRYAN PIETSCH/CRONKITE NEWS
JULY 10, 2018 AT 12:12 PM
http://ktar.com/story/2136344/audit-hiring-of-customs-border-agents-better-but-still-falling-short/
Border Patrol agents line up in formation on ATVs in the Tucson sector. A recent audit says that despite improvements in the hiring process, Customs and Border Protection still has thousands of unfilled customs-officer and border-patrol agent jobs. (Photo by Josh Denmark/Customs and Border Protection)
WASHINGTON – Customs and Border Protection is getting better at attracting and hiring job applicants, but the agency still faces thousands of vacancies in its law enforcement ranks, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
The report said that the number of Border Patrol agents actually fell from 2013 to 2017 at a time when the government was increasing the number of agent positions.
"It's a huge deal, especially now," said Art Del Cueto, vice president of the Southwest chapter of the National Border Patrol Council. "Now you have less agents … when you're by yourself it's easier for agents to be attacked."
The report said staffing for Border Patrol agents, who patrol between ports of entry, was 6,933 agents short of the authorized level of more than 26,000 for fiscal 2017. Staffing for officers, who work at the ports of entry, was 1,100 employees below the target level of more than 24,000 for that year.
Those shortfalls come despite steep gains in the number of new applicants, with the GAO reporting that the number of applications to the agency overall tripled from fiscal 2013 to 2017. Applications to Border Patrol agent positions increased from 27,000 applications in 2013 to more than 91,000 in 2017, while CBP officer applications increased from 22,500 in 2013 to 85,000 in 2017, according to the report.
Related Links
US Rep. Andy Biggs says 'morale is really low' among border patrol agents
In a statement, the agency attributed the increase to an aggressive effort to target untapped areas for new hires. That includes a social media presence and outreach to "underrepresented groups," which it said includes women and African Americans.
"CBP is continually striving to further diversify its ranks by going into markets that may not be as familiar with the CBP mission and the federal career opportunities it offers," a CBP spokesperson said in the statement. "We are working to inform communities, along with recruiting qualified candidates."
But while applications are up, the GAO said the agency is still burdened by an extensive and lengthy hiring process. Even though the time from application to hire decreased since 2015, it still took more than 300 days on average to hire an applicant in 2017.
The report said the agency has an 11-step process that includes an entrance exam, medical exam, fitness test and a polygraph examination.
Del Cueto said the polygraph is one of the biggest issues in hiring new employees, who have told him "horror stories" about polygraph tests taking upwards of eight hours.
"You might as well waterboard them and get confessions out of these guys," Del Cueto said of the extensive testing.
"Potential young men and women sit there and say, 'Do I really want to try out for Border Patrol knowing there are issues?'" Del Cueto said. "It would make me think twice, all these horror stories."
And understaffing at the border is more than an inconvenience just for travelers, according to Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Nogales-based Fresh Produce Association of the Americas. He said that when lines at the border get too long because of a shortage of customs officers, that delays produce-carrying trucks that need to cross in a timely manner to protect their cargo.
"For the produce companies, you want to be able to sell your produce as quick and fresh as you can," Jungmeyer said. "If it's stuck at customs, it can't get through and that truck sits there and waits."
Those delays have real costs: Jungmeyer said that if a truck of produce reaches its destination in the U.S. and the fruit is not as fresh as expected, the amount paid for the produce can be cut in half by the buyer.
"If things are slowed down and you think about the systemwide impact, it really adds up," Jungmeyer said. "It raises the cost and exacerbates the (effect) on the produce."
Aside from attracting new employees, another challenge facing CBP is retaining current ones. The report said one of the main complaints from CBP employees is that there is little to no room for relocating.
In its statement, the CBP said the department is "exploring innovative practices regarding incentives and mobility options that will enhance our recruitment prospects and improve our workforce attrition rates."
Del Cueto said that it's difficult to find people willing to work in remote locations, where things like restaurants, schools and shops are few and far between. He said that people moving to those locations from larger cities soon realize that transferring to another department could allow them to live in a bigger city or closer to family.
The GAO report recommended to CBP that the agency should "systematically collect and analyze data on departing officers" to help with retention efforts. The report said that CBP agreed with the recommendation.
But Jungmeyer said that even current staffing isn't enough and that CBP needs to hire more workers to ensure security beyond managing what's crossing the border.
"While it's about national security, it's also about – in the border region – economic security," Jungmeyer said. "When there's not enough CBP officers, that harms the economic viability of the border and everybody else in that supply chain."
End
CBP makes near-record hard drug bust at Mariposa port
Nogales International Jul 9, 2018 Updated 1 hr ago
https://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/cbp-makes-near-record-hard-drug-bust-at-mariposa-port/article_c9ae4896-83cc-11e8-9b37-c71b90b14c6b.html
The load of methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl and Oxycodone pills was valued at approximately $1.4 million.
CBP photo
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Nogales made a near-record bust of hard drugs last weekend, seizing approximately $1.4 million worth of narcotics at a local port of entry.
On Saturday, CBP said, officers at the Mariposa Commercial Facility referred a 65-year-old Mexican man for further inspection of the tractor-trailer he was attempting to drive into the United States.
Aided by a drug-sniffing dog, officers conducting the inspection uncovered more than 364 pounds of methamphetamine, worth almost $1.1 million, hidden in the vehicle.
More inside
In addition, they found six pounds of heroin, worth more than $100,000; almost seven pounds of fentanyl, valued at more than $95,000; and 6,000 suspected Oxycodone pills, with a value of nearly $113,000.
It was the third-largest seizure of its kind ever recorded by CBP officers at a port of entry in Arizona, the agency said.
Officers seized the drugs and tractor-trailer, and the driver was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations.
CBP has made a number of larger marijuana busts at its Arizona ports of entry, including the seizure of an all-time state record of more than 20,000 pounds of pot, valued at $10.1 million, made at the Mariposa port in November 2013.
END
Monday, July 9, 2018
AZMEX SPECIAL 9-7-18
AZMEX SPECIAL 9 JUL 2018
Note: from TX.
Can immigrants living in the U.S. illegally get a Texas driver's license? Curious Texas investigates
Elvia Limón, Communities Writer
https://www.dallasnews.com/life/curious-texas/2018/07/09/can-immigrants-living-us-illegally-get-texas-drivers-license-food-stamps-curious-texas
As stories about the living conditions of more than 2,000 migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border continue to unfold, curiosity about migrants and immigrants in the U.S. has increased.
The recent news from South Texas prompted Bill Wilson to reach out to The Dallas Morning News.
He submitted a question to our special edition Curious Texas, that invites readers to ask questions about migration between the U.S. and Mexico and life on both sides of the border.
He asked: Can a person who is not in the U.S. legally get a driver's license in Texas?
Can they get government benefits such as food stamps or Aid to Families with Dependent Children?
The short answer to his first question is no.
The Texas Department of Public Safety asks applicants for an ID or driver's license to provide the following information, according to its website:
U.S. citizenship or evidence of lawful presence in the U.S.
Texas residency
Proof of identity
A social security number
A Texas vehicle registration and proof of insurance.
An applicant can use some type of bill that lists their Texas address, their social security card, a passport and their vehicle's registration and insurance documentation to prove this information. DPS also provides a detailed list online of other documents an applicant can provide to meet these requirements.
Anyone who cannot meet these qualifications cannot get a Texas ID or driver's license.
However, these conditions were not always in place.
Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, con artists and unauthorized immigrants to get government-issued identification.
This also established specific federal requirements for state-issued driver's licenses and IDs to be accepted for federal purposes, such as boarding a domestic flight or entering a federal building.
At the time, supporters of the bill said the REAL ID Act was essential to assure the identity of a person obtaining a state ID in a post-Sept. 11 era. Opponents argued cutting off unauthorized immigrants from getting a driver's license and insurance would make roads less safe.
Although it was passed 13 years ago, only 32 states are compliant with the act. Several other states, like California, give applicants the option to apply for a REAL ID card or for a federal non-compliant card.
States that are not compliant with the REAL ID Act have until October 1, 2020 to issue compliant licenses and IDs.
Texas began asking residents to prove they are U.S. citizens or living lawfully in the U.S. in 2016 to comply with the REAL ID Act.
But Texas faced some ID controversy before. In October 2008, DPS began requiring applicants to provide documentation of their immigration status.
The agency established rules that gave differently marked ID cards to eligible foreign citizens from those issued to U.S. citizens.
These foreign nationals' Texas licenses and identification cards would be vertical instead of horizontal and would be stamped with the words "temporary visitor."
They would also list the date the person's legal residency expired.
A district judge blocked these Texas driver's license rules six months after they were instated.
In 2011, DPS introduced a "limited term" label on driver's licenses issued to visitors to the state who are not a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, refugee or asylee.
Individuals who qualify for this type of license must be legal visitors to the U.S. holding a visa.
The licenses look the same as other state driver's licenses, but have "Limited Term" printed across the top of the card.
These licenses expire when the person's "period of lawful presence" expires.
Recently, some Dallas-area Catholic churches allowed residents to apply for church-issued IDs after the Dallas, Farmers Branch and Carrollton police departments
said they would give their officers the discretion to accept these cards as a form of identification.
Some church-issued ID recipients said the cards added a measure of security to immigrants who aren't eligible to apply for a driver's license or ID.
Some worry that not having a form of identification during something like a simple traffic stop could lead to jail time and a possible run-in with immigration authorities.
Rev. Edward J. Burns, left, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas is followed a procession of clergy, law enforcement officials and Dallas-area city officials to the dais at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Farmers Branch for a Dallas Area Interfaith meeting on immigration, policing and city infrastructure Sunday November 5, 2017 in Farmers Branch, Texas. (Robert W. Hart/Special Contributor)
Government assistance
The answer to Wilson's second question is also no. Federal law prohibits immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from receiving food stamps or government family assistance, said Christine Mann, a press officer for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
However, Mann said, there's an exception where unauthorized immigrants can get emergency Medicaid coverage if they have "a verified emergent event."
She said this means a hospital could bill Medicaid for someone's emergency visit, but it does not mean that an immigrant living in the U.S. illegally can get full Medicaid coverage. "If determined eligible, the individual is covered by Medicaid only for the duration of a qualifying emergency medical condition, as verified by a medical provider," Mann said via email.
Anyone — regardless of legal status — who meets the requirements for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC, can receive these benefits, Mann said.
To be eligible to receive benefits from Texas WIC, an individual must be:
A Texas resident
A pregnant, breastfeeding and/or postpartum woman
Classified to be a nutritional risk by a health professional
At or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
Anyone caring for an infant or child under 5 years old — regardless of legal status —
can also apply for WIC benefits for that child as long as they meet the Texas residency and income requirements.
However, recent reports show that a growing number of American children are dropping out of Medicaid and other government programs because their noncitizen parents are afraid it could lead to deportation.
Health care groups say this trend may continue if a recent proposed change by the Trump administration to green card eligibility becomes law.
Under the proposed policy change, lawful immigrants could be passed over from getting a green card if they or family members — even if those family members are U.S. citizens — receive government services, such as food stamps or Medicaid.
Staff writer Obed Manuel contributed to this report
End
Note: from TX.
Can immigrants living in the U.S. illegally get a Texas driver's license? Curious Texas investigates
Elvia Limón, Communities Writer
https://www.dallasnews.com/life/curious-texas/2018/07/09/can-immigrants-living-us-illegally-get-texas-drivers-license-food-stamps-curious-texas
As stories about the living conditions of more than 2,000 migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border continue to unfold, curiosity about migrants and immigrants in the U.S. has increased.
The recent news from South Texas prompted Bill Wilson to reach out to The Dallas Morning News.
He submitted a question to our special edition Curious Texas, that invites readers to ask questions about migration between the U.S. and Mexico and life on both sides of the border.
He asked: Can a person who is not in the U.S. legally get a driver's license in Texas?
Can they get government benefits such as food stamps or Aid to Families with Dependent Children?
The short answer to his first question is no.
The Texas Department of Public Safety asks applicants for an ID or driver's license to provide the following information, according to its website:
U.S. citizenship or evidence of lawful presence in the U.S.
Texas residency
Proof of identity
A social security number
A Texas vehicle registration and proof of insurance.
An applicant can use some type of bill that lists their Texas address, their social security card, a passport and their vehicle's registration and insurance documentation to prove this information. DPS also provides a detailed list online of other documents an applicant can provide to meet these requirements.
Anyone who cannot meet these qualifications cannot get a Texas ID or driver's license.
However, these conditions were not always in place.
Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, con artists and unauthorized immigrants to get government-issued identification.
This also established specific federal requirements for state-issued driver's licenses and IDs to be accepted for federal purposes, such as boarding a domestic flight or entering a federal building.
At the time, supporters of the bill said the REAL ID Act was essential to assure the identity of a person obtaining a state ID in a post-Sept. 11 era. Opponents argued cutting off unauthorized immigrants from getting a driver's license and insurance would make roads less safe.
Although it was passed 13 years ago, only 32 states are compliant with the act. Several other states, like California, give applicants the option to apply for a REAL ID card or for a federal non-compliant card.
States that are not compliant with the REAL ID Act have until October 1, 2020 to issue compliant licenses and IDs.
Texas began asking residents to prove they are U.S. citizens or living lawfully in the U.S. in 2016 to comply with the REAL ID Act.
But Texas faced some ID controversy before. In October 2008, DPS began requiring applicants to provide documentation of their immigration status.
The agency established rules that gave differently marked ID cards to eligible foreign citizens from those issued to U.S. citizens.
These foreign nationals' Texas licenses and identification cards would be vertical instead of horizontal and would be stamped with the words "temporary visitor."
They would also list the date the person's legal residency expired.
A district judge blocked these Texas driver's license rules six months after they were instated.
In 2011, DPS introduced a "limited term" label on driver's licenses issued to visitors to the state who are not a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, refugee or asylee.
Individuals who qualify for this type of license must be legal visitors to the U.S. holding a visa.
The licenses look the same as other state driver's licenses, but have "Limited Term" printed across the top of the card.
These licenses expire when the person's "period of lawful presence" expires.
Recently, some Dallas-area Catholic churches allowed residents to apply for church-issued IDs after the Dallas, Farmers Branch and Carrollton police departments
said they would give their officers the discretion to accept these cards as a form of identification.
Some church-issued ID recipients said the cards added a measure of security to immigrants who aren't eligible to apply for a driver's license or ID.
Some worry that not having a form of identification during something like a simple traffic stop could lead to jail time and a possible run-in with immigration authorities.
Rev. Edward J. Burns, left, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas is followed a procession of clergy, law enforcement officials and Dallas-area city officials to the dais at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Farmers Branch for a Dallas Area Interfaith meeting on immigration, policing and city infrastructure Sunday November 5, 2017 in Farmers Branch, Texas. (Robert W. Hart/Special Contributor)
Government assistance
The answer to Wilson's second question is also no. Federal law prohibits immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from receiving food stamps or government family assistance, said Christine Mann, a press officer for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
However, Mann said, there's an exception where unauthorized immigrants can get emergency Medicaid coverage if they have "a verified emergent event."
She said this means a hospital could bill Medicaid for someone's emergency visit, but it does not mean that an immigrant living in the U.S. illegally can get full Medicaid coverage. "If determined eligible, the individual is covered by Medicaid only for the duration of a qualifying emergency medical condition, as verified by a medical provider," Mann said via email.
Anyone — regardless of legal status — who meets the requirements for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC, can receive these benefits, Mann said.
To be eligible to receive benefits from Texas WIC, an individual must be:
A Texas resident
A pregnant, breastfeeding and/or postpartum woman
Classified to be a nutritional risk by a health professional
At or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
Anyone caring for an infant or child under 5 years old — regardless of legal status —
can also apply for WIC benefits for that child as long as they meet the Texas residency and income requirements.
However, recent reports show that a growing number of American children are dropping out of Medicaid and other government programs because their noncitizen parents are afraid it could lead to deportation.
Health care groups say this trend may continue if a recent proposed change by the Trump administration to green card eligibility becomes law.
Under the proposed policy change, lawful immigrants could be passed over from getting a green card if they or family members — even if those family members are U.S. citizens — receive government services, such as food stamps or Medicaid.
Staff writer Obed Manuel contributed to this report
End
AZMEX POLICY 7-7-18
AZMEX POLICY 7 JUL 2018
Andrés Manuel López Obrador will not be able to modify the Constitution alone.
Photo: Agencies
By: El Universal | 07/07/2018 9:35
http://www.lacronica.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Nacional/07072018/1354996-Andres-Manuel-Lopez-Obrador-no-podra-modificar-la-Constitucion-solo.html
CD. MEXICO (El Universal)
Despite the fact that Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the parties that nominated him will have legislative majorities in the Congress of the Union, the Tabasqueño, Encuentro Social (PES) y el Partido del Trabajo (PT) will be obliged to negotiate with other political forces to be able to make changes to the Constitution.
According to the first projections, Morena, Encuentro Social (PES) and el Partido del Trabajo (PT) will have 68 of the 128 senators and approximately 307 of the 500 federal deputies.
With this number of legislators it gives them to make, on their own, modifications in laws, but they will have to negotiate and lobby with other political forces if they need to make changes in the constitution.
In accordance with the norm that governs the Senate of the Republic, to modify the Constitution a qualified majority is required, that is, two thirds of the senators present, and assuming that all the senators are in the hall (128 ), Morena, the PES and the PT would require the support of 86 to make changes.
In the case of the Chamber of Deputies, to change any law or ordinance the parties of the alliance Juntos Haremos Historia would need 251 legislators, which they already have, but to change the constitution they require 333 votes.
With these numbers, in the Senate of the Republic only 18 legislators are lacking, while in the Chamber of Deputies they lack 26.
According to the projections, the Senate of the Republic will be integrated by the parties as follows:
National Action (PAN) would add 24 senators by the majority and multi-member principles; PRI, 13 seats; PRD, eight; Encuentro Social (PES) y el Partido del Trabajo (PT), seven; MC will also have seven, and Nueva Alianza one.
Scenarios With this, if Morena lacks 18 legislators in the Senate to form majorities to modify the Constitution, it has three scenarios to consider in order to complete a majority.
The most viable union that political specialists see is with the alliance formed by PRI, Verde and Nueva Alianza, due to the proximity of ideologies that exist between the PRI and Morena, and that in Morena there are important and close profiles of Andrés Manuel López Obrador that militaron in the PRI, Verde and NA will have 21 senators and Morena requires 20.
The second scenario, but more complicated, is a union between Morena and the PAN, alone, without its Front allies. However, political scientists do not see this union due to how their candidates were confronted in the presidential contest, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Ricardo Anaya, respectively.
Although there is also the possibility that Morena would talk with the whole Front as a whole, that is, PAN, PRD and MC, and there would be a qualified majority.
Saint Lazaro. The integration of the Chamber of Deputies, according to projections, would be as follows: PAN would have 82 federal legislators; PRI, 45; PRD, 21; Verde 16, and NA only two.
To reach the 333 federal deputies needed to modify the constitution, Morena, PES and PT require another 26.
In this case, the scenarios for Lopez Obrador's matches open wider. To negotiate, for example, with the mere sum of the legislators of the PAN, or of the PRI, or of Movimiento Ciudadano, it would give them to reach an absolute majority.
However, the most viable scenario also to concretize a constitutional bloc would be with the PRI, Verde and Green and New Alliance. If this hypothesis is achieved, there would be 370 legislators.
The alliance of the PRI-Morena is not new, since from the 63 Legislature, which is about to end, it was specified for different opinions to vote as the appointment of the new Superior Auditor of the Federation, David Colmenares.
On that occasion, the Blue and Whites' coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, Marko Cortés, accused the PRI legislators and the members of Morena of integrating the "PRI-Mor", with the objective of endorsing the auditor, even though there was no agreement between the parliamentary groups.
The hypothesis of a union between Morena and the Front is also complicated, due to the accusations by the PAN that there was a pact between López Obrador and Enrique Peña Nieto for el tabasqueño (AMLO) to reach the Presidency of the Republic.
The party that will have more deputies and senators, will be Morena, with 191 seats and 55 seats. (?)
Map is reconfigured With the recent triumph of Morena, the map and the renewal of forces in both chambers were reconfigured.
Currently, the 500 deputies are distributed as follows: PRI, with 204 (40.8%); PAN, 180 (21.6%); PRD, 53 (10.6%); Morena, 47 (9.4%); PVEM, 38 (7.6%); MC, 21 (4.2%); NA and PES, 12 deputies each (2.4%); an independent deputy and also four without a political party.
While in the Senate of the Republic the Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) has 55 (43%); PAN, 34 (27%); PT-Morena, 19 (15%);
without party, eight (6%); PRD, seven (5%), and Verde Ecologista de México five (4%).
END
Andrés Manuel López Obrador will not be able to modify the Constitution alone.
Photo: Agencies
By: El Universal | 07/07/2018 9:35
http://www.lacronica.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Nacional/07072018/1354996-Andres-Manuel-Lopez-Obrador-no-podra-modificar-la-Constitucion-solo.html
CD. MEXICO (El Universal)
Despite the fact that Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the parties that nominated him will have legislative majorities in the Congress of the Union, the Tabasqueño, Encuentro Social (PES) y el Partido del Trabajo (PT) will be obliged to negotiate with other political forces to be able to make changes to the Constitution.
According to the first projections, Morena, Encuentro Social (PES) and el Partido del Trabajo (PT) will have 68 of the 128 senators and approximately 307 of the 500 federal deputies.
With this number of legislators it gives them to make, on their own, modifications in laws, but they will have to negotiate and lobby with other political forces if they need to make changes in the constitution.
In accordance with the norm that governs the Senate of the Republic, to modify the Constitution a qualified majority is required, that is, two thirds of the senators present, and assuming that all the senators are in the hall (128 ), Morena, the PES and the PT would require the support of 86 to make changes.
In the case of the Chamber of Deputies, to change any law or ordinance the parties of the alliance Juntos Haremos Historia would need 251 legislators, which they already have, but to change the constitution they require 333 votes.
With these numbers, in the Senate of the Republic only 18 legislators are lacking, while in the Chamber of Deputies they lack 26.
According to the projections, the Senate of the Republic will be integrated by the parties as follows:
National Action (PAN) would add 24 senators by the majority and multi-member principles; PRI, 13 seats; PRD, eight; Encuentro Social (PES) y el Partido del Trabajo (PT), seven; MC will also have seven, and Nueva Alianza one.
Scenarios With this, if Morena lacks 18 legislators in the Senate to form majorities to modify the Constitution, it has three scenarios to consider in order to complete a majority.
The most viable union that political specialists see is with the alliance formed by PRI, Verde and Nueva Alianza, due to the proximity of ideologies that exist between the PRI and Morena, and that in Morena there are important and close profiles of Andrés Manuel López Obrador that militaron in the PRI, Verde and NA will have 21 senators and Morena requires 20.
The second scenario, but more complicated, is a union between Morena and the PAN, alone, without its Front allies. However, political scientists do not see this union due to how their candidates were confronted in the presidential contest, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Ricardo Anaya, respectively.
Although there is also the possibility that Morena would talk with the whole Front as a whole, that is, PAN, PRD and MC, and there would be a qualified majority.
Saint Lazaro. The integration of the Chamber of Deputies, according to projections, would be as follows: PAN would have 82 federal legislators; PRI, 45; PRD, 21; Verde 16, and NA only two.
To reach the 333 federal deputies needed to modify the constitution, Morena, PES and PT require another 26.
In this case, the scenarios for Lopez Obrador's matches open wider. To negotiate, for example, with the mere sum of the legislators of the PAN, or of the PRI, or of Movimiento Ciudadano, it would give them to reach an absolute majority.
However, the most viable scenario also to concretize a constitutional bloc would be with the PRI, Verde and Green and New Alliance. If this hypothesis is achieved, there would be 370 legislators.
The alliance of the PRI-Morena is not new, since from the 63 Legislature, which is about to end, it was specified for different opinions to vote as the appointment of the new Superior Auditor of the Federation, David Colmenares.
On that occasion, the Blue and Whites' coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, Marko Cortés, accused the PRI legislators and the members of Morena of integrating the "PRI-Mor", with the objective of endorsing the auditor, even though there was no agreement between the parliamentary groups.
The hypothesis of a union between Morena and the Front is also complicated, due to the accusations by the PAN that there was a pact between López Obrador and Enrique Peña Nieto for el tabasqueño (AMLO) to reach the Presidency of the Republic.
The party that will have more deputies and senators, will be Morena, with 191 seats and 55 seats. (?)
Map is reconfigured With the recent triumph of Morena, the map and the renewal of forces in both chambers were reconfigured.
Currently, the 500 deputies are distributed as follows: PRI, with 204 (40.8%); PAN, 180 (21.6%); PRD, 53 (10.6%); Morena, 47 (9.4%); PVEM, 38 (7.6%); MC, 21 (4.2%); NA and PES, 12 deputies each (2.4%); an independent deputy and also four without a political party.
While in the Senate of the Republic the Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) has 55 (43%); PAN, 34 (27%); PT-Morena, 19 (15%);
without party, eight (6%); PRD, seven (5%), and Verde Ecologista de México five (4%).
END
AZMEX POLICY UPDATE3 6-7-18
AZMEX POLICY UPDATE3 6 JUL 2018
Mexico's president-elect will propose amnesty law
BY CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press
https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article214459844.html
July 06, 2018 03:16 PM
Updated 52 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY
The security advisers for President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that amnesty legislation aimed at lessening violence will be developed with the input of crime victims and presented to Mexico's congress.
Alfonso Durazo, proposed as the new administration's public security minister, said the amnesty law would be part of a "Mexican recipe for peace." Amnesty would not be given at the discretion of the president, he said. Congress will have the final word.
"The objective of this law is to bring youth who for various reasons of economic survival, extortion, pressure from organized crime are (working) in the illegal into the legal," Durazo said. There could be hundreds of thousands of youth working as lookouts for organized crime, he said. "We have to give them a way out."
Lopez Obrador's opponents attacked him throughout the campaign about the amnesty idea, but he won a landslide election victory July 1 and will take office Dec. 1. He met with the security members of his proposed Cabinet on Friday.
Olga Sanchez, the proposed interior secretary, said the president-elect had made clear that Mexico's runaway violence will not be addressed with more violence. She also mentioned the possibility of reducing some criminal penalties without providing more detail.
Mexico is on pace to have more killings in 2018 than in any other year in at least the past two decades. More than 200,000 people have been slain since the country began waging a war on drug cartels when President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
Lorreta Ortiz, Lopez Obrador's human rights adviser, said the new administration will immediately begin holding citizen forums and knocking on doors around the country to gather input that can be used to develop amnesty legislation.
"At the outset, no one who has committed a violent act, a single violent act, will receive amnesty," Ortiz said. Those who could be eligible would be children and women recruited by organized crime to work as lookouts or mules, rural farmers who grow drug crops and people imprisoned for political crimes based on ideology.
Durazo said the administration will also work to improve the capabilities of police so the military can be removed from the policing role it has been serving for years in some parts of the country.
The new government will improve filters to intercept illegal guns and drug proceeds flowing into the country, and authorities will focus on going after cartels' finances with bolstered financial intelligence, he said.
Durazo cautioned that the problem of spiraling violence did not appear in a day and "it is not going to be resolved in a day."
Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article214459844.html#storylink=cpy
END
Mexico's president-elect will propose amnesty law
BY CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press
https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article214459844.html
July 06, 2018 03:16 PM
Updated 52 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY
The security advisers for President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that amnesty legislation aimed at lessening violence will be developed with the input of crime victims and presented to Mexico's congress.
Alfonso Durazo, proposed as the new administration's public security minister, said the amnesty law would be part of a "Mexican recipe for peace." Amnesty would not be given at the discretion of the president, he said. Congress will have the final word.
"The objective of this law is to bring youth who for various reasons of economic survival, extortion, pressure from organized crime are (working) in the illegal into the legal," Durazo said. There could be hundreds of thousands of youth working as lookouts for organized crime, he said. "We have to give them a way out."
Lopez Obrador's opponents attacked him throughout the campaign about the amnesty idea, but he won a landslide election victory July 1 and will take office Dec. 1. He met with the security members of his proposed Cabinet on Friday.
Olga Sanchez, the proposed interior secretary, said the president-elect had made clear that Mexico's runaway violence will not be addressed with more violence. She also mentioned the possibility of reducing some criminal penalties without providing more detail.
Mexico is on pace to have more killings in 2018 than in any other year in at least the past two decades. More than 200,000 people have been slain since the country began waging a war on drug cartels when President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
Lorreta Ortiz, Lopez Obrador's human rights adviser, said the new administration will immediately begin holding citizen forums and knocking on doors around the country to gather input that can be used to develop amnesty legislation.
"At the outset, no one who has committed a violent act, a single violent act, will receive amnesty," Ortiz said. Those who could be eligible would be children and women recruited by organized crime to work as lookouts or mules, rural farmers who grow drug crops and people imprisoned for political crimes based on ideology.
Durazo said the administration will also work to improve the capabilities of police so the military can be removed from the policing role it has been serving for years in some parts of the country.
The new government will improve filters to intercept illegal guns and drug proceeds flowing into the country, and authorities will focus on going after cartels' finances with bolstered financial intelligence, he said.
Durazo cautioned that the problem of spiraling violence did not appear in a day and "it is not going to be resolved in a day."
Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article214459844.html#storylink=cpy
END
Friday, July 6, 2018
AZMEX POLICY2 6-7-18
AZMEX POLICY2 6 JUL 2018
Note: another very relevant op ed
Thx
EDITORIALS
After Election Of Socialist Obrador, Will Mexico Morph Into Venezuela-Style Failed State?
7/02/2018
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/mexico-election-socialism/.
Mexico Votes: Beset by corruption, poverty and endemic violence, Mexican voters sent a message of desperation on Sunday by voting overwhelmingly to make socialist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador their next president. This is bad for the U.S., but even worse for Mexico.
President Trump did the neighborly thing in congratulating Obrador on his victory and pledged to work with him.
But in fact Obrador's win bodes ill for future relations.
His talking points for the policies he'll pursue once in office sound much more like Venezuela's late socialist dictator Hugo Chavez than,
say, Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.
For starters, Obrador vows to renationalize the oil industry,
halt all cooperation with U.S. immigration laws, give amnesty to the drug cartels,
boost farm subsidies and remove "multinational" investment in agriculture,
encourage mass migration by Mexicans to the U.S., while using remittances from workers in the U.S. to fuel Mexican growth.
Hey, such ideas worked so well in Venezuela after Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," why not in Mexico?
If you think the U.S. will merely sit back and watch as this happens, think again. U.S.-Mexico ties under President Trump are already strained, with disputes over trade and immigration roiling the waters. Obrador, the author of a book titled "Oye, Trump" ("Listen, Trump"), will test U.S. patience.
The case of Venezuela is instructive, and ongoing. Its citizens are desperately heading for the border as that nation's socialist economy collapses, beset by food shortages, soaring unemployment, rampant disease, crime and inflation now at a stratospheric 43,000% a year.
(Note: tens of thousands fleeing the progressive paradise)
Since 1999, the year the socialists took over, Venezuela's economy has gone from being one of the wealthiest in Latin America, with the world's largest oil reserves, to one of the most-impoverished nations in Latin America, one that now imports oil and exports people.
"Socialist economic policies — price controls, factory nationalizations, government takeovers of food distribution and the like — have real human costs," wrote James Kirchick in a Los Angeles Times op-ed last August. "Eighty percent of Venezuelan bakeries don't have flour. Eleven percent of children under 5 are malnourished, infant mortality has increased by 30% and maternal mortality is up 66%."
And since then, things have gotten even worse, if that's imaginable.
Those who remain dumpster-dive, rummage through garbage, and even eat stray pets just to stay alive. Even zoo animals aren't off limits. Food distribution and the water system have been taken over by the army, a new opportunity for massive corruption and extortion. It's a horrible situation.
And yet, just a few years ago, celebrity leftists like Michael Moore and Sean Penn and and their political allies, such as socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, lauded Venezuela's economic model.
The point is, however well-meaning Obrador seems, such a transformation on the U.S. border would be a disaster.
It would bring potentially millions more refugees — and possibly even Mexican civil war.
As it is, we share a 2,200-mile border with Mexico, which is our third-largest trading partner.
If Mexico's economy goes south, so to speak, things on the border could get ugly fast.
No doubt, U.S. and other foreign investment in Mexico would plunge. The peso would plummet, and Mexico's already-frightening criminal violence would spiral out of control.
Obrador built his public appeal on his reputation for not being corrupt. Equally important, however, voters also saw Obrador as an agent of economic change, someone who cares about average people.
"In the last 20-odd years, this includes the government I served in, the economy has not grown more than 2 1/2% per year," Mexico's former Foreign Minister, Jorge Castaneda, told Fox News. "Mexicans are not finding deep, well-paying jobs, not seeing their living standards improved, not extracting people from poverty, we're not reducing levels of inequality which are among the highest levels in the world."
Quite an indictment coming from a high-level former government official, and sadly entirely true.
It's a big reason why at least 11 million Mexicans are in the U.S. illegally, and why a renewed surge is likely in the future under the socialist policies pushed by Obrador.
Some 12% of Mexican citizens today already make their home in the U.S. as economic refugees from that country's failed policies.
And, with more than 60 million of Mexico's 130 million people now living in poverty, that number will only grow if the economy deteriorates.
Mexicans clearly voted for change. But whether they'll get the change they're expecting is another matter.
Socialist governments have a history, once in power, of destroying economies unmatched by any other political system.
Whether it's the former Soviet Union and the communist nations of Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua or any number of other nominally "socialist" nations, all fail abysmally.
No exceptions.
Obrador may feel he has an enormous electoral mandate to impose his socialist vision on a fed-up Mexico. Looking at the election results, he does. With 54% of the vote at last count, he easily trounced his foes.
Ricardo Anaya, who led a right-left political coalition, finished second with 23% of the vote. Voters sent a particularly humiliating message to the once-all-powerful PRI party, whose candidate Juan Antonio Meade had hoped to succeed outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto. It finished a dismal third, with just 15% of the vote.
If current polling trends hold, Obrador's Morena Party also will lead a coalition with two other leftist parties that will control the legislature next year. With a single six-year term, Mexico's president has unusually broad powers, so Obrador's policies are likely to find little initial opposition.
The Corruption Factor
To his credit, Obrador is one of the few in Mexican politics without a major taint of scandal. He has vowed to leave Mexico's lavish Los Pinos compound, the equivalent of the White House, and live modestly in the center of Mexico City.
In a country where politicians view government as an opportunity to get rich quick, Obrador seems to be an exception.
"There's nothing to fear," said AMLO on Monday. "I'm not a dictator."
We hope that's true.
But in Latin American politics, far-left leaders often start out promising clean government end up dirty.
It happened in Cuba, it happened in Brazil, it happened in Venezuela, it happened in Ecuador, it happened in Nicaragua.
It's not unreasonable to think it might happen in Mexico, too.
Socialist countries get socialist results: Misery.
Look at Venezuela. Unless Obrador sees the light and pursues moderate economic policies, don't expect Mexico to be any different.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
Venezuela's Road To Serfdom
Mexico's Ballot-Box Reconquista
Zimbabwe's Coup, Venezuela's Default, And The Ongoing Failure Of Socialism
End
Note: another very relevant op ed
Thx
EDITORIALS
After Election Of Socialist Obrador, Will Mexico Morph Into Venezuela-Style Failed State?
7/02/2018
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/mexico-election-socialism/.
Mexico Votes: Beset by corruption, poverty and endemic violence, Mexican voters sent a message of desperation on Sunday by voting overwhelmingly to make socialist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador their next president. This is bad for the U.S., but even worse for Mexico.
President Trump did the neighborly thing in congratulating Obrador on his victory and pledged to work with him.
But in fact Obrador's win bodes ill for future relations.
His talking points for the policies he'll pursue once in office sound much more like Venezuela's late socialist dictator Hugo Chavez than,
say, Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.
For starters, Obrador vows to renationalize the oil industry,
halt all cooperation with U.S. immigration laws, give amnesty to the drug cartels,
boost farm subsidies and remove "multinational" investment in agriculture,
encourage mass migration by Mexicans to the U.S., while using remittances from workers in the U.S. to fuel Mexican growth.
Hey, such ideas worked so well in Venezuela after Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," why not in Mexico?
If you think the U.S. will merely sit back and watch as this happens, think again. U.S.-Mexico ties under President Trump are already strained, with disputes over trade and immigration roiling the waters. Obrador, the author of a book titled "Oye, Trump" ("Listen, Trump"), will test U.S. patience.
The case of Venezuela is instructive, and ongoing. Its citizens are desperately heading for the border as that nation's socialist economy collapses, beset by food shortages, soaring unemployment, rampant disease, crime and inflation now at a stratospheric 43,000% a year.
(Note: tens of thousands fleeing the progressive paradise)
Since 1999, the year the socialists took over, Venezuela's economy has gone from being one of the wealthiest in Latin America, with the world's largest oil reserves, to one of the most-impoverished nations in Latin America, one that now imports oil and exports people.
"Socialist economic policies — price controls, factory nationalizations, government takeovers of food distribution and the like — have real human costs," wrote James Kirchick in a Los Angeles Times op-ed last August. "Eighty percent of Venezuelan bakeries don't have flour. Eleven percent of children under 5 are malnourished, infant mortality has increased by 30% and maternal mortality is up 66%."
And since then, things have gotten even worse, if that's imaginable.
Those who remain dumpster-dive, rummage through garbage, and even eat stray pets just to stay alive. Even zoo animals aren't off limits. Food distribution and the water system have been taken over by the army, a new opportunity for massive corruption and extortion. It's a horrible situation.
And yet, just a few years ago, celebrity leftists like Michael Moore and Sean Penn and and their political allies, such as socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, lauded Venezuela's economic model.
The point is, however well-meaning Obrador seems, such a transformation on the U.S. border would be a disaster.
It would bring potentially millions more refugees — and possibly even Mexican civil war.
As it is, we share a 2,200-mile border with Mexico, which is our third-largest trading partner.
If Mexico's economy goes south, so to speak, things on the border could get ugly fast.
No doubt, U.S. and other foreign investment in Mexico would plunge. The peso would plummet, and Mexico's already-frightening criminal violence would spiral out of control.
Obrador built his public appeal on his reputation for not being corrupt. Equally important, however, voters also saw Obrador as an agent of economic change, someone who cares about average people.
"In the last 20-odd years, this includes the government I served in, the economy has not grown more than 2 1/2% per year," Mexico's former Foreign Minister, Jorge Castaneda, told Fox News. "Mexicans are not finding deep, well-paying jobs, not seeing their living standards improved, not extracting people from poverty, we're not reducing levels of inequality which are among the highest levels in the world."
Quite an indictment coming from a high-level former government official, and sadly entirely true.
It's a big reason why at least 11 million Mexicans are in the U.S. illegally, and why a renewed surge is likely in the future under the socialist policies pushed by Obrador.
Some 12% of Mexican citizens today already make their home in the U.S. as economic refugees from that country's failed policies.
And, with more than 60 million of Mexico's 130 million people now living in poverty, that number will only grow if the economy deteriorates.
Mexicans clearly voted for change. But whether they'll get the change they're expecting is another matter.
Socialist governments have a history, once in power, of destroying economies unmatched by any other political system.
Whether it's the former Soviet Union and the communist nations of Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua or any number of other nominally "socialist" nations, all fail abysmally.
No exceptions.
Obrador may feel he has an enormous electoral mandate to impose his socialist vision on a fed-up Mexico. Looking at the election results, he does. With 54% of the vote at last count, he easily trounced his foes.
Ricardo Anaya, who led a right-left political coalition, finished second with 23% of the vote. Voters sent a particularly humiliating message to the once-all-powerful PRI party, whose candidate Juan Antonio Meade had hoped to succeed outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto. It finished a dismal third, with just 15% of the vote.
If current polling trends hold, Obrador's Morena Party also will lead a coalition with two other leftist parties that will control the legislature next year. With a single six-year term, Mexico's president has unusually broad powers, so Obrador's policies are likely to find little initial opposition.
The Corruption Factor
To his credit, Obrador is one of the few in Mexican politics without a major taint of scandal. He has vowed to leave Mexico's lavish Los Pinos compound, the equivalent of the White House, and live modestly in the center of Mexico City.
In a country where politicians view government as an opportunity to get rich quick, Obrador seems to be an exception.
"There's nothing to fear," said AMLO on Monday. "I'm not a dictator."
We hope that's true.
But in Latin American politics, far-left leaders often start out promising clean government end up dirty.
It happened in Cuba, it happened in Brazil, it happened in Venezuela, it happened in Ecuador, it happened in Nicaragua.
It's not unreasonable to think it might happen in Mexico, too.
Socialist countries get socialist results: Misery.
Look at Venezuela. Unless Obrador sees the light and pursues moderate economic policies, don't expect Mexico to be any different.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
Venezuela's Road To Serfdom
Mexico's Ballot-Box Reconquista
Zimbabwe's Coup, Venezuela's Default, And The Ongoing Failure Of Socialism
End
AZMEX POLICY 6-7-18
Comment: So, the AZ National Guard and the US military can protect the border of Kuwait, but not our AZMEX border?
thx
Arizona Army Guard infantry battalion to deploy overseas
BY KTAR.COM
JULY 6, 2018 AT 5:00 AM
http://ktar.com/story/2132544/arizona-army-guard-infantry-battalion-to-deploy-overseas/
PHOENIX — The Arizona National Guard's only infantry battalion is preparing for an overseas deployment.
The Guard announced Thursday that Gov. Doug Ducey will be the keynote speaker at a pre-deployment ceremony to be held Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena
at Arizona State University in Tempe for the 1st Battalion of the 158th Infantry Regiment.
The announcement says approximately 400 soldiers of the battalion will deploy to conduct security force operations in support of Operation Spartan Shield.
The announcement didn't specify where the battalion will be deployed or provide a deployment schedule,
but a 2016 online Army article described "Operation Spartan Shield" as a "combined forces contingency operation" with a tactical headquarters located in Kuwait.
The battalion's last overseas deployment was 10 years ago to Afghanistan.
end
thx
Arizona Army Guard infantry battalion to deploy overseas
BY KTAR.COM
JULY 6, 2018 AT 5:00 AM
http://ktar.com/story/2132544/arizona-army-guard-infantry-battalion-to-deploy-overseas/
PHOENIX — The Arizona National Guard's only infantry battalion is preparing for an overseas deployment.
The Guard announced Thursday that Gov. Doug Ducey will be the keynote speaker at a pre-deployment ceremony to be held Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena
at Arizona State University in Tempe for the 1st Battalion of the 158th Infantry Regiment.
The announcement says approximately 400 soldiers of the battalion will deploy to conduct security force operations in support of Operation Spartan Shield.
The announcement didn't specify where the battalion will be deployed or provide a deployment schedule,
but a 2016 online Army article described "Operation Spartan Shield" as a "combined forces contingency operation" with a tactical headquarters located in Kuwait.
The battalion's last overseas deployment was 10 years ago to Afghanistan.
end
AZMEX ELECTION UPDATE 6-7-18
AZMEX ELECTION UPDATE 6 JUL 2018
Photo of Comrades AMLO & Subcomandante Marcos? from Milenio
Gracias
Note: Photo at link: http://www.milenio.com/politica/verificado2018-amlo-si-se-reunio-con-el-subcomandante-marcos
AMLO's photo with subcomandante Marcos
#Verificado2018
Although the photo shared by former candidate Rosario Piedra is edited (without a Zapatista and with the fund changed), the meeting took place in November 1994.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador yes He met with Subcomandante Marcos. (Verified 2018)
VERIFIED 2018 Mexico City / 05.07.2018 08:08:45 In a photograph circulating on networks, from left to right, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, Subcomandante Marcos (now subcomandante insurgente Galeano), Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano and then-Major Moisés -now a subcomandante-.
Users have questioned whether the image is real.
We recommend: # Verified2018: Is Nestora Salgado a kidnapper?
María del Rosario Piedra, candidate for deputy in Nuevo León de Morena and daughter of the activist and senator-elect Rosario Ibarra de Piedra -who appears in the photo- shared the image on June 25 and added the legend: "Together we are making history" .
In the comments, the authenticity of the image was questioned by the appearance of López Obrador, because, in theory, Cárdenas is much taller than the new president-elect or by the fund that looks "too dark" for the Chiapas jungle.
Verified 2018 consulted Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, who shared the original photo, and confirmed that the image published by María del Rosario Piedra is published, but it is a fact that did.
In the original photo, another Zapatista appears and changes the background:
"The photograph is from November 13, 1994.
That day we traveled my father (Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano),
Andrés Manuel, a collaborator of my father -Ventura Pacheco- and I Tuxtla, and from there we went by car to Comitán,
where we found Rosario Ibarra with a collaborator as well and from there we went to Guadalupe Tepeyac by car, "said Cardenas Batel in an interview. "We all met with Subcomandante Marcos, with Comandante Tacho and then Major Moisés,
and then my father was alone with them."
After they talked for a while we ate a chicken stew and left again for Tuxtla,
It must have been three hours that we were there with them.
"At that time, López Obrador was a candidate for the government of Tabasco for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
http://www.milenio.com/politica/verificado2018-amlo-si-se-reunio-con-el-subcomandante-marcos
subcomandante Marcos? (English )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcomandante_Marcos
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rafael-Guillen-Vicente
End
Photo of Comrades AMLO & Subcomandante Marcos? from Milenio
Gracias
Note: Photo at link: http://www.milenio.com/politica/verificado2018-amlo-si-se-reunio-con-el-subcomandante-marcos
AMLO's photo with subcomandante Marcos
#Verificado2018
Although the photo shared by former candidate Rosario Piedra is edited (without a Zapatista and with the fund changed), the meeting took place in November 1994.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador yes He met with Subcomandante Marcos. (Verified 2018)
VERIFIED 2018 Mexico City / 05.07.2018 08:08:45 In a photograph circulating on networks, from left to right, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, Subcomandante Marcos (now subcomandante insurgente Galeano), Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano and then-Major Moisés -now a subcomandante-.
Users have questioned whether the image is real.
We recommend: # Verified2018: Is Nestora Salgado a kidnapper?
María del Rosario Piedra, candidate for deputy in Nuevo León de Morena and daughter of the activist and senator-elect Rosario Ibarra de Piedra -who appears in the photo- shared the image on June 25 and added the legend: "Together we are making history" .
In the comments, the authenticity of the image was questioned by the appearance of López Obrador, because, in theory, Cárdenas is much taller than the new president-elect or by the fund that looks "too dark" for the Chiapas jungle.
Verified 2018 consulted Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, who shared the original photo, and confirmed that the image published by María del Rosario Piedra is published, but it is a fact that did.
In the original photo, another Zapatista appears and changes the background:
"The photograph is from November 13, 1994.
That day we traveled my father (Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano),
Andrés Manuel, a collaborator of my father -Ventura Pacheco- and I Tuxtla, and from there we went by car to Comitán,
where we found Rosario Ibarra with a collaborator as well and from there we went to Guadalupe Tepeyac by car, "said Cardenas Batel in an interview. "We all met with Subcomandante Marcos, with Comandante Tacho and then Major Moisés,
and then my father was alone with them."
After they talked for a while we ate a chicken stew and left again for Tuxtla,
It must have been three hours that we were there with them.
"At that time, López Obrador was a candidate for the government of Tabasco for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
http://www.milenio.com/politica/verificado2018-amlo-si-se-reunio-con-el-subcomandante-marcos
subcomandante Marcos? (English )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcomandante_Marcos
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rafael-Guillen-Vicente
End
Thursday, July 5, 2018
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL 4-7-18
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL 4 JUL 2018
https://www.lmtonline.com/news/world/article/Mexico-s-ruling-party-seeks-way-forward-after-13046878.php?utm_campaign=hpborder
FILE - In this June 24, 2018 file photo, a campaign poster sits on a chair after a campaign rally for presidential candidate Jose Antonio Meade, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, in Toluca, Mexico. The once mighty PRI, which held Mexico's presidency for all but 12 of the last 89 years, was reduced to a distant third place in July 1 elections, on track to lose all of the governorships at stake and even the bulk of mayorships and congressional races in its last big urban bastion, the state of Mexico, which nearly surrounds Mexico City. Photo: Moises Castillo, AP
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The landslide victory by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico's presidential election brought an abrupt end to the monopoly on power enjoyed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a nearly century-long dominance that cultivated corruption along with an extensive patronage system.
On Sunday night there were some tears, but no obvious shock or anger among the campaign workers streaming out of PRI headquarters after their candidate conceded the race within minutes of polling stations closing. Their party had finished a distant third.
Lopez Obrador, a populist and self-described leftist, had maintained a double-digit lead in the polls throughout the campaign, while PRI candidate Jose Antonio Meade's message had never gained traction.
So, what happened?
On the wide sidewalk in front of PRI headquarters, Ernesto Garcia Elizalde leaned on his cane considering that question and where the path forward might lie for the party he joined and has ardently supported since 1964.
Meade, a mild-mannered technocrat with Cabinet positions in multiple PRI administrations, had struggled in vain to address the issue of corruption, which Lopez Obrador made the central issue of a campaign that resonated strongly with Mexicans.
"There's no need to invent a hidden reason," said Garcia. "We know why we lost. We didn't lose because we had a bad fighter. We lost because of all the baggage we have."
As Meade campaign workers quietly slipped away after Sunday's loss, taunted by the celebratory honking of passing cars, Garcia lamented the PRI's half-dozen former governors who were either jailed or facing charges of corruption or organized crime ties.
"The people voted against the corruption that was generated and allowed to grow inside the party," he said.
With nearly 94 percent of the ballots counted, Meade had only 16.4 percent of the vote — a third of that won by Lopez Obrador. As recently as 1976, the PRI claimed 100 percent of the vote for its unopposed candidate.
The PRI was also on track to lose all the governorships at stake and even the bulk of the mayoral and congressional races in its last urban bastion, the state of Mexico, which nearly surrounds Mexico City.
A campaign staffer who requested anonymity to discuss the mood inside PRI headquarters said Sunday's result had been "anti-climactic" and compared it to the death of a very ill relative.
Everyone had known for some time what was going to happen, but when it finally did they were still not totally prepared, the staffer said. "That's what the whole campaign was like."
For decades, the PRI functioned as a serial dictatorship, with each all-powerful president serving six years and then choosing his successor, who would win in rigged elections.
When it lost the presidency for the first time in 2000 after a series of gradual democratic reforms, there was shock and visible anger among its members.
They dismissed the victory by the upstart conservative National Action Party and its candidates who had not come up through the ranks of the PRI, the traditional training ground for Mexican politicians, and scoffed at the idea that they could govern effectively.
And just as the PRI predicted, the two National Action presidents floundered, getting their initiatives through Congress only with the help of the PRI, which retook the presidency in 2012.
But the party blew its chance at a comeback with a string of corruption scandals that culminated in Lopez Obrador's victory on Sunday.
Party president Rene Juarez Cisneros seemed to be signaling the steps needed to repair the damage in a speech following Meade's concession. It was peppered with words like "responsibility" and "honesty."
"In the coming hours and subsequent days we must have a great call for deep reflection to find the path forward, to find the reasons and causes of these circumstances that we're facing today," he said.
Political scientist Jesus Silva Herzog said that while Sunday's loss was the most challenging yet for the PRI, it would be wrong to consider it a fatal blow.
"We have given the PRI up for dead many times," he said.
Nevertheless, after the 2000 loss, the PRI still had a very strong congressional presence. Now Lopez Obrador could cobble together a two-thirds majority in congress without even consulting the PRI. "Today I have the impression that the PRI could be dispensable," Silva Herzog said.
Still, the party has rural strongholds. It could hang on for years in sparsely populated states where it still holds governorships,
such as Campeche, Coahuila, Sonora and San Luis Potosi.
But even in those states, Lopez Obrador out-polled Meade,
and the generous government funding the PRI uses to pay its staff and for advertising is likely to be seriously reduced since it is based on vote share.
People packing the streets Sunday night to celebrate Lopez Obrador's victory were not generous toward the PRI.
Waving a Lopez Obrador banner, 26-year-old law student Hugo Moreno declared: "The PRI is flailing like a drowning man."
Retired teacher Susana Zuniga advised the PRI to "sit down and learn from its errors."
Back at PRI headquarters, Garcia seemed to be doing just that, saying the party had to work harder to choose honest candidates who had not lost touch with its base.
"Its roots are very deep," Garcia said of the party.
"It's going to take a lot of work not to reconstruct it, but to reunite it ... to reform a series of things, to get rid of the bad and leave the good."
__
Associated Press writer Maria Verza contributed to this report.
https://www.lmtonline.com/news/world/article/Mexico-s-ruling-party-seeks-way-forward-after-13046878.php?utm_campaign=hpborder
FILE - In this June 24, 2018 file photo, a campaign poster sits on a chair after a campaign rally for presidential candidate Jose Antonio Meade, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, in Toluca, Mexico. The once mighty PRI, which held Mexico's presidency for all but 12 of the last 89 years, was reduced to a distant third place in July 1 elections, on track to lose all of the governorships at stake and even the bulk of mayorships and congressional races in its last big urban bastion, the state of Mexico, which nearly surrounds Mexico City. Photo: Moises Castillo, AP
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The landslide victory by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico's presidential election brought an abrupt end to the monopoly on power enjoyed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a nearly century-long dominance that cultivated corruption along with an extensive patronage system.
On Sunday night there were some tears, but no obvious shock or anger among the campaign workers streaming out of PRI headquarters after their candidate conceded the race within minutes of polling stations closing. Their party had finished a distant third.
Lopez Obrador, a populist and self-described leftist, had maintained a double-digit lead in the polls throughout the campaign, while PRI candidate Jose Antonio Meade's message had never gained traction.
So, what happened?
On the wide sidewalk in front of PRI headquarters, Ernesto Garcia Elizalde leaned on his cane considering that question and where the path forward might lie for the party he joined and has ardently supported since 1964.
Meade, a mild-mannered technocrat with Cabinet positions in multiple PRI administrations, had struggled in vain to address the issue of corruption, which Lopez Obrador made the central issue of a campaign that resonated strongly with Mexicans.
"There's no need to invent a hidden reason," said Garcia. "We know why we lost. We didn't lose because we had a bad fighter. We lost because of all the baggage we have."
As Meade campaign workers quietly slipped away after Sunday's loss, taunted by the celebratory honking of passing cars, Garcia lamented the PRI's half-dozen former governors who were either jailed or facing charges of corruption or organized crime ties.
"The people voted against the corruption that was generated and allowed to grow inside the party," he said.
With nearly 94 percent of the ballots counted, Meade had only 16.4 percent of the vote — a third of that won by Lopez Obrador. As recently as 1976, the PRI claimed 100 percent of the vote for its unopposed candidate.
The PRI was also on track to lose all the governorships at stake and even the bulk of the mayoral and congressional races in its last urban bastion, the state of Mexico, which nearly surrounds Mexico City.
A campaign staffer who requested anonymity to discuss the mood inside PRI headquarters said Sunday's result had been "anti-climactic" and compared it to the death of a very ill relative.
Everyone had known for some time what was going to happen, but when it finally did they were still not totally prepared, the staffer said. "That's what the whole campaign was like."
For decades, the PRI functioned as a serial dictatorship, with each all-powerful president serving six years and then choosing his successor, who would win in rigged elections.
When it lost the presidency for the first time in 2000 after a series of gradual democratic reforms, there was shock and visible anger among its members.
They dismissed the victory by the upstart conservative National Action Party and its candidates who had not come up through the ranks of the PRI, the traditional training ground for Mexican politicians, and scoffed at the idea that they could govern effectively.
And just as the PRI predicted, the two National Action presidents floundered, getting their initiatives through Congress only with the help of the PRI, which retook the presidency in 2012.
But the party blew its chance at a comeback with a string of corruption scandals that culminated in Lopez Obrador's victory on Sunday.
Party president Rene Juarez Cisneros seemed to be signaling the steps needed to repair the damage in a speech following Meade's concession. It was peppered with words like "responsibility" and "honesty."
"In the coming hours and subsequent days we must have a great call for deep reflection to find the path forward, to find the reasons and causes of these circumstances that we're facing today," he said.
Political scientist Jesus Silva Herzog said that while Sunday's loss was the most challenging yet for the PRI, it would be wrong to consider it a fatal blow.
"We have given the PRI up for dead many times," he said.
Nevertheless, after the 2000 loss, the PRI still had a very strong congressional presence. Now Lopez Obrador could cobble together a two-thirds majority in congress without even consulting the PRI. "Today I have the impression that the PRI could be dispensable," Silva Herzog said.
Still, the party has rural strongholds. It could hang on for years in sparsely populated states where it still holds governorships,
such as Campeche, Coahuila, Sonora and San Luis Potosi.
But even in those states, Lopez Obrador out-polled Meade,
and the generous government funding the PRI uses to pay its staff and for advertising is likely to be seriously reduced since it is based on vote share.
People packing the streets Sunday night to celebrate Lopez Obrador's victory were not generous toward the PRI.
Waving a Lopez Obrador banner, 26-year-old law student Hugo Moreno declared: "The PRI is flailing like a drowning man."
Retired teacher Susana Zuniga advised the PRI to "sit down and learn from its errors."
Back at PRI headquarters, Garcia seemed to be doing just that, saying the party had to work harder to choose honest candidates who had not lost touch with its base.
"Its roots are very deep," Garcia said of the party.
"It's going to take a lot of work not to reconstruct it, but to reunite it ... to reform a series of things, to get rid of the bad and leave the good."
__
Associated Press writer Maria Verza contributed to this report.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL 1-7-18
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL 1 JUL 2018
Note: You have been warned. Waste another taxpayer's 100 million USD?
THX
Is amnesty the answer for Mexico's bloody drug war? The country's likely next president thinks it might be
KATE LINTHICUM | LOS ANGELES TIMES 4 hrs ago (0)
https://www.themonitor.com/news/world/article_d00ce6d6-7b7f-5abc-9d7f-1012f80abc37.html
WORLD-NEWS-MEXICO-DRUGWAR-AMNESTY-2-LA
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the front-runner in Mexico's presidential race, speaks at a campaign rally in the city of Chihuahua on June 18, 2018. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Gary Coronado
https://www.themonitor.com/news/world/article_d00ce6d6-7b7f-5abc-9d7f-1012f80abc37.html
CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — The man expected to be Mexico's next president is considering a radical new approach in the country's long-running war on the drug trade: amnesty.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has a wide lead ahead of Sunday's presidential election, has said that if he wins he may push for a law allowing some nonviolent criminals to walk free.
"I will not rule out any option" to achieve peace, he said at a recent debate.
Forgiveness for even low-level workers in the country's multibillion-dollar drug industry would mark a dramatic shift from the militaristic approach that Mexico has long employed in its attempt to curb trafficking. With U.S. encouragement, Mexico has gone to war against the cartels, imprisoning drug users and drug runners, incinerating opium and marijuana fields, and sending thousands of armed soldiers into the streets.
Lopez Obrador, a left-leaning former mayor of Mexico City, is not telling Mexicans anything most don't already believe when he says that strategy has been a failure.
The drug trade has grown — cultivation of poppies is up and Mexico has started manufacturing fentanyl and other synthetic drugs — and violence has exploded. More than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 30,000 have gone missing since former President Felipe Calderon sent troops into the streets twelve years ago in an effort to neutralize drug cartels whose power was beginning to rival that of the state.
Last year, Mexico recorded more homicides than at any point in its modern history, and it is on track to break that record this year. Police and the military have been accused of grave human rights violations and of colluding with cartels.
Lopez Obrador has not proposed sending all troops back to their barracks. But at a recent campaign event in Chihuahua, a northern border state that has seen some of the worst violence, he advocated a more holistic approach to confronting drug trafficking, saying that Calderon had "converted the country into a cemetery."
"You can't put out fire with fire," he said. "We don't want militarization. We don't want war."
Lopez Obrador has said he would use economic development, job creation and educational opportunities to address the root causes of crime, giving federal scholarships to students and creating employment programs to keep vulnerable young people off the streets.
He has offered fewer details on the amnesty proposal, which he first mentioned in an offhand manner in December at an event in Guerrero state, one of the country's top opium-producing regions.
His advisers acknowledged that it was a clumsy way to roll out such a controversial proposition. But they said it is something the campaign is seriously considering.
Amnesty, they said, would be part of a broader shift away from punitive measures and toward "transitional justice," a term used to describe the way countries emerge from periods of conflict and address large-scale or systematic human rights violations.
Olga Sanchez Cordero, a retired Supreme Court judge who is expected to be named interior secretary if Lopez Obrador wins, recently told Reforma newspaper that the amnesty would be a "pacification strategy" that would shield some low-level criminals who grow, use and transport narcotics. The effort, she said, would help reintegrate into society some of the estimated 600,000 Mexicans employed by drug cartels.
She said Lopez Obrador is also weighing decriminalizing drug consumption and launching a truth-and-reconciliation process. That undertaking, famously carried out in post-apartheid South Africa, involves the creation of a commission tasked with exposing past wrongdoing by a government or others.
Alfonso Durazo, whom Lopez Obrador plans to nominate as his secretary of public security, said at a recent forum on violence that the candidate "has proposed a process of peace and national reconciliation, not a pact with organized crime."
He used the example of children as young as 8 or 10 known here as "hawks" because they serve as lookouts for older gang members. "Are we going to put young hawks in jail, or are we going to give them development opportunities?" Durazo said.
Jose Merino, another adviser, said the proposal is built on the idea that many people who perpetuate Mexico's drug trade should also be considered victims. "You have no money, so you get co-opted into crime," he said. "You do things you'd never imagine yourself doing."
The idea of an amnesty has divided voters, with a poll this year showing that more than 7 in 10 Mexicans rejected it. Jose Antonio Meade, the presidential candidate from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, told Lopez Obrador at a recent debate: "You want to forgive the unforgivable."
Opponents also include the leaders of Mexico's armed forces, with Naval Secretary Vidal Soberon warning late last year that it would make "the state complicit in crime."
Skeptics question whether amnesty would lead to even greater impunity in Mexico, where government statistics show only about 7 percent of all crimes are properly investigated and about 2 percent result in convictions.
"I don't know how you would apply it," said Juan Manuel Andazola, the editor of El Diario, one of Chihuahua's daily newspapers. "Who are you going to give amnesty to if you're not even arresting people?"
The United States, which works closely with Mexican law enforcement in its fight against drug cartels, is weary of a softening of Mexico's security policies. Of particular concern is the impact of possible drug legalization, according to a State Department official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
U.S. officials believe Mexico's best bet for reducing violence is strengthening its institutions. Each year, the U.S. Congress appropriates about $100 million for the Merida Initiative, a bilateral partnership forged in 2007 to help reduce the power of drug trafficking in Mexico. That money has been used to help train police, prosecutors and judges, fund improvements of prisons and jails, and aid an ongoing overhaul of the criminal justice system.
The amnesty proposal has support of many human rights advocates, who have been critical of the drug war.
"There hasn't been a reduction in violence, and it hasn't reduced drug production," said Jose Antonio Guevara Bermudez, director of the nonprofit Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. His group recently called on the International Criminal Court to investigate atrocities allegedly committed by the Mexican military during an anti-drug offensive in Chihuahua.
"Without a doubt it has to change," he said. "It's a prerequisite for the country to achieve peace."
Amnesty is not unprecedented in Mexico, which in 1978 offered it to government-opposition activists prosecuted during the country's so-called dirty war and again in 1994 to Zapatista rebels.
But Maureen Meyer, a Mexico expert with the think tank Washington Office on Latin America, said that to reduce violence an amnesty would need to be paired with serious anti-corruption efforts and improvements to the justice system, including the establishment of a strong, autonomous national prosecutor's office to stop political meddling in criminal investigations.
"Amnesty needs to be accompanied by reform," she said.
The proposal has been most controversial among one constituency: relatives of the dead and the missing.
After Lopez Obrador announced his plan last year, some victims groups came out in opposition. But others say they support it.
Lourdes Hernandez, a 53-year-old grandmother, believes an amnesty and truth commission could help solve the 2010 disappearance of her daughter because it might encourage the perpetrators to talk.
Her daughter Pamela Portillo, 23 at the time, was stopped at a police checkpoint in Chihuahua with an off-duty soldier and never heard from again.
Hernandez sold her house and car to fund a desperate and dangerous quest to find her daughter. Eight years later, she is still looking. Based on her conversations with soldiers and criminals, she has come to believe that the off-duty soldier had been working on the side for two competing drug gangs.
If her daughter is dead and buried, her mother would like to know where.
"The only thing I want now is the truth," she said. "I want that more than punishment."
END
———
Note: You have been warned. Waste another taxpayer's 100 million USD?
THX
Is amnesty the answer for Mexico's bloody drug war? The country's likely next president thinks it might be
KATE LINTHICUM | LOS ANGELES TIMES 4 hrs ago (0)
https://www.themonitor.com/news/world/article_d00ce6d6-7b7f-5abc-9d7f-1012f80abc37.html
WORLD-NEWS-MEXICO-DRUGWAR-AMNESTY-2-LA
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the front-runner in Mexico's presidential race, speaks at a campaign rally in the city of Chihuahua on June 18, 2018. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Gary Coronado
https://www.themonitor.com/news/world/article_d00ce6d6-7b7f-5abc-9d7f-1012f80abc37.html
CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — The man expected to be Mexico's next president is considering a radical new approach in the country's long-running war on the drug trade: amnesty.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has a wide lead ahead of Sunday's presidential election, has said that if he wins he may push for a law allowing some nonviolent criminals to walk free.
"I will not rule out any option" to achieve peace, he said at a recent debate.
Forgiveness for even low-level workers in the country's multibillion-dollar drug industry would mark a dramatic shift from the militaristic approach that Mexico has long employed in its attempt to curb trafficking. With U.S. encouragement, Mexico has gone to war against the cartels, imprisoning drug users and drug runners, incinerating opium and marijuana fields, and sending thousands of armed soldiers into the streets.
Lopez Obrador, a left-leaning former mayor of Mexico City, is not telling Mexicans anything most don't already believe when he says that strategy has been a failure.
The drug trade has grown — cultivation of poppies is up and Mexico has started manufacturing fentanyl and other synthetic drugs — and violence has exploded. More than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 30,000 have gone missing since former President Felipe Calderon sent troops into the streets twelve years ago in an effort to neutralize drug cartels whose power was beginning to rival that of the state.
Last year, Mexico recorded more homicides than at any point in its modern history, and it is on track to break that record this year. Police and the military have been accused of grave human rights violations and of colluding with cartels.
Lopez Obrador has not proposed sending all troops back to their barracks. But at a recent campaign event in Chihuahua, a northern border state that has seen some of the worst violence, he advocated a more holistic approach to confronting drug trafficking, saying that Calderon had "converted the country into a cemetery."
"You can't put out fire with fire," he said. "We don't want militarization. We don't want war."
Lopez Obrador has said he would use economic development, job creation and educational opportunities to address the root causes of crime, giving federal scholarships to students and creating employment programs to keep vulnerable young people off the streets.
He has offered fewer details on the amnesty proposal, which he first mentioned in an offhand manner in December at an event in Guerrero state, one of the country's top opium-producing regions.
His advisers acknowledged that it was a clumsy way to roll out such a controversial proposition. But they said it is something the campaign is seriously considering.
Amnesty, they said, would be part of a broader shift away from punitive measures and toward "transitional justice," a term used to describe the way countries emerge from periods of conflict and address large-scale or systematic human rights violations.
Olga Sanchez Cordero, a retired Supreme Court judge who is expected to be named interior secretary if Lopez Obrador wins, recently told Reforma newspaper that the amnesty would be a "pacification strategy" that would shield some low-level criminals who grow, use and transport narcotics. The effort, she said, would help reintegrate into society some of the estimated 600,000 Mexicans employed by drug cartels.
She said Lopez Obrador is also weighing decriminalizing drug consumption and launching a truth-and-reconciliation process. That undertaking, famously carried out in post-apartheid South Africa, involves the creation of a commission tasked with exposing past wrongdoing by a government or others.
Alfonso Durazo, whom Lopez Obrador plans to nominate as his secretary of public security, said at a recent forum on violence that the candidate "has proposed a process of peace and national reconciliation, not a pact with organized crime."
He used the example of children as young as 8 or 10 known here as "hawks" because they serve as lookouts for older gang members. "Are we going to put young hawks in jail, or are we going to give them development opportunities?" Durazo said.
Jose Merino, another adviser, said the proposal is built on the idea that many people who perpetuate Mexico's drug trade should also be considered victims. "You have no money, so you get co-opted into crime," he said. "You do things you'd never imagine yourself doing."
The idea of an amnesty has divided voters, with a poll this year showing that more than 7 in 10 Mexicans rejected it. Jose Antonio Meade, the presidential candidate from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, told Lopez Obrador at a recent debate: "You want to forgive the unforgivable."
Opponents also include the leaders of Mexico's armed forces, with Naval Secretary Vidal Soberon warning late last year that it would make "the state complicit in crime."
Skeptics question whether amnesty would lead to even greater impunity in Mexico, where government statistics show only about 7 percent of all crimes are properly investigated and about 2 percent result in convictions.
"I don't know how you would apply it," said Juan Manuel Andazola, the editor of El Diario, one of Chihuahua's daily newspapers. "Who are you going to give amnesty to if you're not even arresting people?"
The United States, which works closely with Mexican law enforcement in its fight against drug cartels, is weary of a softening of Mexico's security policies. Of particular concern is the impact of possible drug legalization, according to a State Department official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
U.S. officials believe Mexico's best bet for reducing violence is strengthening its institutions. Each year, the U.S. Congress appropriates about $100 million for the Merida Initiative, a bilateral partnership forged in 2007 to help reduce the power of drug trafficking in Mexico. That money has been used to help train police, prosecutors and judges, fund improvements of prisons and jails, and aid an ongoing overhaul of the criminal justice system.
The amnesty proposal has support of many human rights advocates, who have been critical of the drug war.
"There hasn't been a reduction in violence, and it hasn't reduced drug production," said Jose Antonio Guevara Bermudez, director of the nonprofit Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. His group recently called on the International Criminal Court to investigate atrocities allegedly committed by the Mexican military during an anti-drug offensive in Chihuahua.
"Without a doubt it has to change," he said. "It's a prerequisite for the country to achieve peace."
Amnesty is not unprecedented in Mexico, which in 1978 offered it to government-opposition activists prosecuted during the country's so-called dirty war and again in 1994 to Zapatista rebels.
But Maureen Meyer, a Mexico expert with the think tank Washington Office on Latin America, said that to reduce violence an amnesty would need to be paired with serious anti-corruption efforts and improvements to the justice system, including the establishment of a strong, autonomous national prosecutor's office to stop political meddling in criminal investigations.
"Amnesty needs to be accompanied by reform," she said.
The proposal has been most controversial among one constituency: relatives of the dead and the missing.
After Lopez Obrador announced his plan last year, some victims groups came out in opposition. But others say they support it.
Lourdes Hernandez, a 53-year-old grandmother, believes an amnesty and truth commission could help solve the 2010 disappearance of her daughter because it might encourage the perpetrators to talk.
Her daughter Pamela Portillo, 23 at the time, was stopped at a police checkpoint in Chihuahua with an off-duty soldier and never heard from again.
Hernandez sold her house and car to fund a desperate and dangerous quest to find her daughter. Eight years later, she is still looking. Based on her conversations with soldiers and criminals, she has come to believe that the off-duty soldier had been working on the side for two competing drug gangs.
If her daughter is dead and buried, her mother would like to know where.
"The only thing I want now is the truth," she said. "I want that more than punishment."
END
———
AZMEX POLICY 3-7-18
AZMEX POLICY 3 JUL 2018
Judge rules feds must give asylum seekers chance at freedom
Decision is latest defeat for Trump's get-tough immigration policy
JAMES E. BOASBERG
In this Jan. 10, 2018, file photo, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents gather before serving a employment audit notice at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times -
Monday, July 2, 2018
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/2/asylum-seekers-must-be-considered-parole-judge-rul/
A federal judge punched another hole in the Trump administration's get-tough approach to asylum-seekers Monday, ruling that the government must consider granting them parole to be released into the U.S. while their cases are being heard.
Judge James E. Boasberg said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was violating its own 2009 policy, and must return to that directive.
His order covers five different ICE offices where parole rates had dropped to near-zero, which he said meant the agency had essentially stopped doing individualized assessments and was just denying parole requests outright.
"Today's decision will have an enormous impact on asylum-seekers, who pose no risk, and are currently languishing in detention," said Hardy Vieux, legal director at Human Rights First, one of the groups that helped bring the challenge on behalf of asylum-seekers.
The ruling is also the latest in a series of cases where the Trump administration has been found to have cut corners on its immigration policy. Judges also found problems with Homeland Security's attempt to phase out the Obama-era DACA program, and with the Justice Department's attempt to strip sanctuary cities of federal grant money.
In this case Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee to the federal district court in Washington, D.C., said the 2009 ICE policy grants asylum-seekers certain rights, and he said before the government can change that policy, it must go through the usual process laid out in regulatory law.
He also said there's little doubt in his mind the government did change the policy — even though it has never announced such a change.
During an eight-month period, ICE's offices in Philadelphia, El Paso, Texas, and Newark, New Jersey, denied 100 percent of parole requests. Los Angeles and Detroit offices denied 92 percent and 98 percent of requests.
"The numbers here are irrefutable," the judge wrote.
The Justice Department declined to comment. ICE also didn't have a comment when reached Monday evening.
Judge Boasberg granted class-action status to asylum seekers in the five ICE offices in question.
His ruling doesn't guarantee their release, but it does mean the government must give them a chance to show they deserve parole.
That means proving they are who they say they are, that they're not a risk to abscond, and that they aren't a risk to public safety or national security.
The people affected have passed "credible fear" screenings, meaning they've shown at least some level of reticence in being sent back home.
The ruling comes as immigrants who crossed the border illegally are increasingly turning to the asylum system for protections, arguing that they are refugees.
Trump administration officials say the credible fear standard is too low and lets too many people abuse the asylum track, gaining a foothold in the U.S. where they disappear into the shadows.
The latest government statistics show just 15 percent of those who made credible fear claims this year have filed for asylum.
Of those that do fill out the paperwork, the vast majority will lose their asylum cases. Justice Department figures say the approval rate in 2018 is about 1-in-5.
That suggests only about 3 percent of the migrants arriving at the border and claiming asylum will actually be granted that status.
END
Luis Videgaray: Mexico decides who enters our country
Detalles Publicado el Viernes 10 de marzo de 2017
Http://www.eldiariodesonora.com.mx/notas.php?nota=87134
"the decisions of who enters Mexico, are made by Mexico and only Mexico"
Luis Videgaray Caso, Mexican Foreign Minister
10 March, 2017
END
Judge rules feds must give asylum seekers chance at freedom
Decision is latest defeat for Trump's get-tough immigration policy
JAMES E. BOASBERG
In this Jan. 10, 2018, file photo, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents gather before serving a employment audit notice at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times -
Monday, July 2, 2018
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/2/asylum-seekers-must-be-considered-parole-judge-rul/
A federal judge punched another hole in the Trump administration's get-tough approach to asylum-seekers Monday, ruling that the government must consider granting them parole to be released into the U.S. while their cases are being heard.
Judge James E. Boasberg said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was violating its own 2009 policy, and must return to that directive.
His order covers five different ICE offices where parole rates had dropped to near-zero, which he said meant the agency had essentially stopped doing individualized assessments and was just denying parole requests outright.
"Today's decision will have an enormous impact on asylum-seekers, who pose no risk, and are currently languishing in detention," said Hardy Vieux, legal director at Human Rights First, one of the groups that helped bring the challenge on behalf of asylum-seekers.
The ruling is also the latest in a series of cases where the Trump administration has been found to have cut corners on its immigration policy. Judges also found problems with Homeland Security's attempt to phase out the Obama-era DACA program, and with the Justice Department's attempt to strip sanctuary cities of federal grant money.
In this case Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee to the federal district court in Washington, D.C., said the 2009 ICE policy grants asylum-seekers certain rights, and he said before the government can change that policy, it must go through the usual process laid out in regulatory law.
He also said there's little doubt in his mind the government did change the policy — even though it has never announced such a change.
During an eight-month period, ICE's offices in Philadelphia, El Paso, Texas, and Newark, New Jersey, denied 100 percent of parole requests. Los Angeles and Detroit offices denied 92 percent and 98 percent of requests.
"The numbers here are irrefutable," the judge wrote.
The Justice Department declined to comment. ICE also didn't have a comment when reached Monday evening.
Judge Boasberg granted class-action status to asylum seekers in the five ICE offices in question.
His ruling doesn't guarantee their release, but it does mean the government must give them a chance to show they deserve parole.
That means proving they are who they say they are, that they're not a risk to abscond, and that they aren't a risk to public safety or national security.
The people affected have passed "credible fear" screenings, meaning they've shown at least some level of reticence in being sent back home.
The ruling comes as immigrants who crossed the border illegally are increasingly turning to the asylum system for protections, arguing that they are refugees.
Trump administration officials say the credible fear standard is too low and lets too many people abuse the asylum track, gaining a foothold in the U.S. where they disappear into the shadows.
The latest government statistics show just 15 percent of those who made credible fear claims this year have filed for asylum.
Of those that do fill out the paperwork, the vast majority will lose their asylum cases. Justice Department figures say the approval rate in 2018 is about 1-in-5.
That suggests only about 3 percent of the migrants arriving at the border and claiming asylum will actually be granted that status.
END
Luis Videgaray: Mexico decides who enters our country
Detalles Publicado el Viernes 10 de marzo de 2017
Http://www.eldiariodesonora.com.mx/notas.php?nota=87134
"the decisions of who enters Mexico, are made by Mexico and only Mexico"
Luis Videgaray Caso, Mexican Foreign Minister
10 March, 2017
END
Monday, July 2, 2018
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL 2-7-18
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL 2 JUL 2018
AMLO wins in 30 of the 32 states in the country
Néstor Jiménez
Monday, 02 Jul 2018 06:45
http://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/2018/07/02/gana-amlo-en-30-de-las-32-entidades-del-pais-9342.html
Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered a historic speech in the capital's Zócalo, before a very excited crowd.
Mexico City.
According to the partial results of the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP), Andrés Manuel López Obrador, presidential candidate of the Together We Make History coalition
(Juntos Haremos Historia) (Morena-PT-PES), has the advantage in voting in 30 of the 32 states in the country .
With the exception of the states of Guanajuato and Nuevo León, where the majority of votes in the presidential election are for the presidential candidate of
Por México al Frente (PAN-PRD-MC), Ricardo Anaya, in the rest of the country López Obrador surpasses,
regardless of whether it is an state governed by the PAN, PRI, PRD or the Green Party
With 43.5 percent of the votes computed as of 6:05 on Monday, the tabasqueño has 13 million 150 thousand votes, out of a total of 24 million 487 thousand computed.
This keeps the trend that has been recorded almost overnight, with a vote so far of 53.6 percent in favor of Lopez Obrador, followed by Ricardo Anaya with 22.6 percent.
The standard-bearer of Todos por México (PRI-PVEM-Panal), José Antonio Meade, has 15.2 percent,
and the independent candidate Jaime Rodríguez Calderón has 5.6 percent, all with ranges very close to what the quick count gave.
meet by the National Electoral Institute (INE) at night.
López Obrador had the highest number of votes in the State of Mexico, with almost 2 million votes (1 million 995 thousand)
so far in his favor, while in Mexico City has recorded a million 632 thousand votes and almost a million (929 thousand) in Veracruz.
Tabasco is the state where the highest number of votes in proportion to the number of voters reaches the last advance cut of the PREP.
There he obtained 358 thousand votes until 6 in the morning, which represents 81.9 percent of the total.
In Chiapas it has so far half a million (517 thousand votes), which represents 67 percent of all the votes of the state accounted for in the PREP.
END
AMLO wins in 30 of the 32 states in the country
Néstor Jiménez
Monday, 02 Jul 2018 06:45
http://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/2018/07/02/gana-amlo-en-30-de-las-32-entidades-del-pais-9342.html
Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered a historic speech in the capital's Zócalo, before a very excited crowd.
Mexico City.
According to the partial results of the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP), Andrés Manuel López Obrador, presidential candidate of the Together We Make History coalition
(Juntos Haremos Historia) (Morena-PT-PES), has the advantage in voting in 30 of the 32 states in the country .
With the exception of the states of Guanajuato and Nuevo León, where the majority of votes in the presidential election are for the presidential candidate of
Por México al Frente (PAN-PRD-MC), Ricardo Anaya, in the rest of the country López Obrador surpasses,
regardless of whether it is an state governed by the PAN, PRI, PRD or the Green Party
With 43.5 percent of the votes computed as of 6:05 on Monday, the tabasqueño has 13 million 150 thousand votes, out of a total of 24 million 487 thousand computed.
This keeps the trend that has been recorded almost overnight, with a vote so far of 53.6 percent in favor of Lopez Obrador, followed by Ricardo Anaya with 22.6 percent.
The standard-bearer of Todos por México (PRI-PVEM-Panal), José Antonio Meade, has 15.2 percent,
and the independent candidate Jaime Rodríguez Calderón has 5.6 percent, all with ranges very close to what the quick count gave.
meet by the National Electoral Institute (INE) at night.
López Obrador had the highest number of votes in the State of Mexico, with almost 2 million votes (1 million 995 thousand)
so far in his favor, while in Mexico City has recorded a million 632 thousand votes and almost a million (929 thousand) in Veracruz.
Tabasco is the state where the highest number of votes in proportion to the number of voters reaches the last advance cut of the PREP.
There he obtained 358 thousand votes until 6 in the morning, which represents 81.9 percent of the total.
In Chiapas it has so far half a million (517 thousand votes), which represents 67 percent of all the votes of the state accounted for in the PREP.
END
AZMEX UPDATE 30-6-18
AZMEX UPDATE 30 JUN 2018
Comey was warned, yet failed to shut down rogue informant suspected of murder
Unredacted emails recently obtained by WFAA show that James Comey, then a Deputy U.S. Attorney General in 2004, was apparently made aware that a drug informant was playing a role in cartel murders.
Author: Jason Whitely, Mark Smith
Published: 9:36 PM CDT June 29, 2018
Updated: 10:39 PM CDT June 29, 2018
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/politics/comey-was-warned-yet-failed-to-shut-down-rogue-informant-suspected-of-murder/287-569367532
Unredacted emails recently obtained by WFAA show that James Comey – at the time a Deputy U.S. Attorney General in 2004 – was apparently made aware that a federal drug informant was playing a role in cartel murders.
However, neither Comey, nor other top federal officials named in the emails, shut down the investigation or suspended use of the informant.
"Comey knowing this and then proclaiming to be such a boy scout is a little bit hypocritical," said U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
"Actions speak louder than words. In this case, inaction. You know you've got an informant on a rampage. You know your informant is not being controlled. You're consciously aware of that. And you ignore it," said David Finn, a former federal prosecutor and state judge in Dallas.
The emails show Comey was copied in on internal concerns about a federal drug informant named Guillermo Ramirez-Peyro, nicknamed Lalo, suspected of supervising or assisting in murder while the U.S. was paying him $224,000 for inside information on a cartel.
In a 2006 story WFAA produced with Lalo, he denied committing murder but admitted that he was present during cartel killings, including at a duplex across the Rio Grande from El Paso in Juarez.
Lalo even said he bought supplies and helped oversee the burial of the victims. A dozen bodies were later found on the property – most with their hands bound. Witnesses, at the time, told WFAA that some murder victims had plastic bags over their heads and appear to have been buried alive.
The Department of Justice guidelines, both in 2004 and 2018, require informants to be closely monitored. The guidelines also specifically forbid informants from participating in violent crimes.
Lalo told WFAA that not only did U.S. government agents know about the murders, described by cartel members in code as "carne asadas," but U.S. agents even listened in on one killing.
"They knew what was going on all the time because it's not something that happens in one week," Lalo told WFAA in 2006.
Comey insists – detailing recently in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" – that his career was always defined by ethics and the strict rule of law.
Last month, Comey Tweeted "… Confidential Human Sources (the actual term) [are] tightly regulated and essential to protecting the country."
"Here, what's so outrageous, the government was aware of it. They were copied on emails and yet they did nothing," Finn added. "If you are an informant for the Department of Justice you cannot break the law. Period. End of sentence. No exceptions."
One email exchange between DOJ officials, with Comey copied, cites a DEA special agent's concerns about "unnecessary loss of human life" in an investigation, and described a report that an informant named Lalo "supervised the murders."
It is uncertain why the U.S. government officials did not immediately shut down the investigation or suspend use of Lalo. The informant also was working on a cigarette smuggling operation in which the federal government was unable to collect taxes.
WFAA reached out to Comey's publicist with questions regarding this case. However, neither she nor Comey responded.
"That's not how it's supposed to work. I think that violates the rules of the game in the Justice Department," Rep. McCaul said.
END
Comey was warned, yet failed to shut down rogue informant suspected of murder
Unredacted emails recently obtained by WFAA show that James Comey, then a Deputy U.S. Attorney General in 2004, was apparently made aware that a drug informant was playing a role in cartel murders.
Author: Jason Whitely, Mark Smith
Published: 9:36 PM CDT June 29, 2018
Updated: 10:39 PM CDT June 29, 2018
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/politics/comey-was-warned-yet-failed-to-shut-down-rogue-informant-suspected-of-murder/287-569367532
Unredacted emails recently obtained by WFAA show that James Comey – at the time a Deputy U.S. Attorney General in 2004 – was apparently made aware that a federal drug informant was playing a role in cartel murders.
However, neither Comey, nor other top federal officials named in the emails, shut down the investigation or suspended use of the informant.
"Comey knowing this and then proclaiming to be such a boy scout is a little bit hypocritical," said U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
"Actions speak louder than words. In this case, inaction. You know you've got an informant on a rampage. You know your informant is not being controlled. You're consciously aware of that. And you ignore it," said David Finn, a former federal prosecutor and state judge in Dallas.
The emails show Comey was copied in on internal concerns about a federal drug informant named Guillermo Ramirez-Peyro, nicknamed Lalo, suspected of supervising or assisting in murder while the U.S. was paying him $224,000 for inside information on a cartel.
In a 2006 story WFAA produced with Lalo, he denied committing murder but admitted that he was present during cartel killings, including at a duplex across the Rio Grande from El Paso in Juarez.
Lalo even said he bought supplies and helped oversee the burial of the victims. A dozen bodies were later found on the property – most with their hands bound. Witnesses, at the time, told WFAA that some murder victims had plastic bags over their heads and appear to have been buried alive.
The Department of Justice guidelines, both in 2004 and 2018, require informants to be closely monitored. The guidelines also specifically forbid informants from participating in violent crimes.
Lalo told WFAA that not only did U.S. government agents know about the murders, described by cartel members in code as "carne asadas," but U.S. agents even listened in on one killing.
"They knew what was going on all the time because it's not something that happens in one week," Lalo told WFAA in 2006.
Comey insists – detailing recently in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" – that his career was always defined by ethics and the strict rule of law.
Last month, Comey Tweeted "… Confidential Human Sources (the actual term) [are] tightly regulated and essential to protecting the country."
"Here, what's so outrageous, the government was aware of it. They were copied on emails and yet they did nothing," Finn added. "If you are an informant for the Department of Justice you cannot break the law. Period. End of sentence. No exceptions."
One email exchange between DOJ officials, with Comey copied, cites a DEA special agent's concerns about "unnecessary loss of human life" in an investigation, and described a report that an informant named Lalo "supervised the murders."
It is uncertain why the U.S. government officials did not immediately shut down the investigation or suspend use of Lalo. The informant also was working on a cigarette smuggling operation in which the federal government was unable to collect taxes.
WFAA reached out to Comey's publicist with questions regarding this case. However, neither she nor Comey responded.
"That's not how it's supposed to work. I think that violates the rules of the game in the Justice Department," Rep. McCaul said.
END
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL2 29-6-18
AZMEX ELECTION SPECIAL2 29 JUN 2018
Mexicans living in the U.S. take part in Mexico's presidential election
BY GRISELDA ZETINO
JUNE 29, 2018 AT 3:41 PM
http://ktar.com/story/2125126/mexicans-living-in-the-u-s-take-part-in-mexicos-presidential-election/
PHOENIX — They may be far from home, but Mexican citizens living in the United States are eager to influence Mexico's presidential election being held Sunday.
About 95,000 Mexican citizens living in the U.S. have mailed in their ballots, according to the latest numbers from the Electoral Institute of Mexico City.
Of those, an estimated 20,000 are people living in the U.S. who are originally from Mexico City.
That number was 8,000 during the last Mexican presidential election in 2012.
"They are really excited on being part of these elections," Yuri Beltran, electoral counselor for the Electoral Institute of Mexico City.
Beltran said he traveled to the U.S. several times and spoke at events about the national and local elections taking place in Mexico.
He said he met with many Mexican citizens living in the U.S. who continue having strong ties to Mexico.
"I think my country is divided living in two different places – in the United States and in Mexico – but we are the same people, the same nation," he said. "And we have close ties between the families and the communities."
This year, voter turnout is expected to surpass that of the 2012 presidential election,
when 73 percent of Mexican citizens voted from the U.S. (?)
Beltran said that increase is due in part to Mexico this year allowing its citizens living abroad to register to vote without having to return to the country – the first time it has done that. Mexican citizens were able to register by applying for a voter card in Mexican embassies and consulate offices in the U.S.
"The figures that we will obtain for this election I expect will continue increasing every year, so we will have better numbers every year," he said.
Mexico will elect a new president on Sunday. Poll numbers project leftist party candidate Andres Manuel Lopéz Obrador will become Mexico's next head of state. He's part of the National Regeneration Movement, also known as Morena.
Many refer to Lopéz Obrador as "Amlo." A victory for him would be significant for a country battling violence and corruption.
He would be Mexico's most left-leaning leader in 80 years.
He holds a sizeable lead over candidates from the country's two largest political parties. Ricardo Anaya, from the National Action Party, comes in as a far second behind Lopéz Obrador. And José Antonio Meade, from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, comes in third.
The winner will replace incumbent President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is widely unpopular and has criticized for his reluctance to criticize President Donald Trump. He's ineligible to run for re-election since the president of Mexico cannot serve more than one six-year term.
James Garcia, spokesperson for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said there are several reasons why the Mexican presidential election matters for Arizona.
"They're a country that has intimate ties not just with our economy but with our culture and our society," he said, adding that Mexico is Arizona's largest trading partner and the vast majority of Latinos living in Arizona are of Mexican origin.
Garcia said the election might also impact the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is a trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The three countries are renegotiating the agreement.
"It's important for us in terms of jobs here in the United States that we figure out whatever differences we may have over NAFTA," he said, adding there are millions of jobs in the U.S. that are tied to the agreement.
"Whether or not the two presidents and the leaderships of these two countries can get along is important to the survival of that economic arrangement," Garcia added. "If we don't figure that out, there are all sorts of ripple ramifications that are connected to that."
END
Mexicans living in the U.S. take part in Mexico's presidential election
BY GRISELDA ZETINO
JUNE 29, 2018 AT 3:41 PM
http://ktar.com/story/2125126/mexicans-living-in-the-u-s-take-part-in-mexicos-presidential-election/
PHOENIX — They may be far from home, but Mexican citizens living in the United States are eager to influence Mexico's presidential election being held Sunday.
About 95,000 Mexican citizens living in the U.S. have mailed in their ballots, according to the latest numbers from the Electoral Institute of Mexico City.
Of those, an estimated 20,000 are people living in the U.S. who are originally from Mexico City.
That number was 8,000 during the last Mexican presidential election in 2012.
"They are really excited on being part of these elections," Yuri Beltran, electoral counselor for the Electoral Institute of Mexico City.
Beltran said he traveled to the U.S. several times and spoke at events about the national and local elections taking place in Mexico.
He said he met with many Mexican citizens living in the U.S. who continue having strong ties to Mexico.
"I think my country is divided living in two different places – in the United States and in Mexico – but we are the same people, the same nation," he said. "And we have close ties between the families and the communities."
This year, voter turnout is expected to surpass that of the 2012 presidential election,
when 73 percent of Mexican citizens voted from the U.S. (?)
Beltran said that increase is due in part to Mexico this year allowing its citizens living abroad to register to vote without having to return to the country – the first time it has done that. Mexican citizens were able to register by applying for a voter card in Mexican embassies and consulate offices in the U.S.
"The figures that we will obtain for this election I expect will continue increasing every year, so we will have better numbers every year," he said.
Mexico will elect a new president on Sunday. Poll numbers project leftist party candidate Andres Manuel Lopéz Obrador will become Mexico's next head of state. He's part of the National Regeneration Movement, also known as Morena.
Many refer to Lopéz Obrador as "Amlo." A victory for him would be significant for a country battling violence and corruption.
He would be Mexico's most left-leaning leader in 80 years.
He holds a sizeable lead over candidates from the country's two largest political parties. Ricardo Anaya, from the National Action Party, comes in as a far second behind Lopéz Obrador. And José Antonio Meade, from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, comes in third.
The winner will replace incumbent President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is widely unpopular and has criticized for his reluctance to criticize President Donald Trump. He's ineligible to run for re-election since the president of Mexico cannot serve more than one six-year term.
James Garcia, spokesperson for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said there are several reasons why the Mexican presidential election matters for Arizona.
"They're a country that has intimate ties not just with our economy but with our culture and our society," he said, adding that Mexico is Arizona's largest trading partner and the vast majority of Latinos living in Arizona are of Mexican origin.
Garcia said the election might also impact the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is a trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The three countries are renegotiating the agreement.
"It's important for us in terms of jobs here in the United States that we figure out whatever differences we may have over NAFTA," he said, adding there are millions of jobs in the U.S. that are tied to the agreement.
"Whether or not the two presidents and the leaderships of these two countries can get along is important to the survival of that economic arrangement," Garcia added. "If we don't figure that out, there are all sorts of ripple ramifications that are connected to that."
END
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