Mexico pushing for probe in deaths of 2 immigrants
Their ire stoked by plans in Washington for tougher border enforcement, Mexican officials and politicians are pressing for investigations of the deaths of two young men while they were crossing illegally into the United States.
The men’s deaths, one near San Diego last week and the other at Laredo in mid-December, are being blamed on the U.S. Border Patrol.
President Vicente Fox’s government sent a diplomatic note this week to the Bush administration calling for an investigation into the Dec. 30 shooting death of Guillermo Martinez, 18, on the border near San Diego.
And the Mexican Consulate in Laredo is pushing for a fuller investigation in the Dec. 14 drowning death of a 22-year-old man who was swept into the Rio Grande after his inner tube reportedly was flipped by the rotor wash of a low-flying Border Patrol helicopter.
More: chron.com
Mexico demands U.S. probe fatal border shooting
Mexico demanded a U.S. investigation on Monday into the death of an undocumented Mexican shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent as he tried to cross into California last week.
Raul Martinez, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego, confirmed that an agent had fired on a man on Friday as he tried to cross the border near San Diego, after the would-be immigrant had thrown rocks at him.
The unidentified man crossed back into Mexico, where he later died of his injuries in a hospital.
"The Mexican government is demanding an investigation of
U.S. flights to Mexico fail to cut migrant deaths
A U.S. government program that returns illegal immigrants to Mexico by flying them deep into the country is ineffective at reducing the number of deaths in the Arizona desert, analysts said on Wednesday.
The Interior Repatriation Program of daily charter flights from Tucson to Mexico City and Guadalajara was implemented in 2004 to cut deaths in the summer months.
Instead of dropping the migrants near the border as is usually done, the program flies them hundreds of miles inside Mexico. The idea was to deter migrants from immediately reattempting to cross the border via
US says migrant deaths at record on Mexico border
Deaths of illegal immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border soared to an all-time high in the past year, as a brutal heatwave killed hundreds in the remote Arizona desert, the U.S. agency in charge of border security said on Monday.
The U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection said at least 464 immigrants died crossing the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border during the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, a rise of 43 percent on the previous year and the highest number since records began.
Spokesman Mario Villarreal, speaking in a phone call from Washington, said well
Gulf of Mexico dolphin deaths reported
Scientists concerned by bottlenose dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico have reportedly asked for the marine mammal equivalent of a disaster declaration.
A 12-member working group of scientists voted Monday to recommend the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration add the dolphin deaths to an "unusual mortality event" the group declared in March for manatees, the Naples (Fla.) Daily News reported Tuesday.
The scientists suspect "red tide" is responsible for the deaths and NOAA is expected to initiate a study of the microscopic algae bloom's effects on dolphins, manatees, sea turtles and even seabirds.
More: upi.com
US resumes repatriation flights for illegal immigrants from Mexico
The US Department of Homeland Security [official website] resumed its repatriation program [JURIST report; DHS backgrounder] for illegal immigrants from Mexico Friday with a flight carrying 67 people to Mexico City. This is the third straight summer that the federal government has used the program, which twice daily flies Mexicans caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border to Mexico City and then buses them to their home communities. It specifically targets women, children, and those deemed at physical risk if they tried to cross the border again.
The US government hopes that the
Mexico Calls for Probe in Border Shooting
The Mexican government called for an investigation Friday into a shooting by two federal agents that left one person dead at the worlds busiest border crossing. A union representing the Border Patrol agent involved in the shooting defended the officers conduct.
The shooting took place Thursday afternoon after U.S. agents surrounded a sport utility vehicle that was under surveillance on suspicion of immigrant smuggling, police said.
The driver refused to get out, and when agents smashed the vehicles window with a baton, he accelerated in the direction of five U.S. agents blocking his
Fresh calls for probe in Mexico after gunmen storm newspaper
An attack on a newspaper in the violence-plagued border city of Nuevo Laredo brought renewed demands yesterday for investigations into the slayings and disappearances of Mexican journalists covering the country's escalating drug war.
Jaime Orozco Tey, a veteran reporter for the newspaper El Mañana, was critically injured after being shot five times by masked gunmen who burst into the offices of the fiercely independent paper Monday night and began firing on the reception area with assault rifles.
As Orozco lay in critical condition in a Nuevo Laredo hospital with a
91 Illegal Immigrants Arrested in Mexico
Mexican authorities had arrested 91 illegal immigrants including 13 children, the government said on Sunday.
The National Immigration Service said it had arrested 13 children from El Salvador and Honduras in the northern Mexican city of Saltillo.
They were separately found in a freight train wagon and at the citys bus station. The children, who were between two and 12 years old, were traveling in small family groups.
Some 1,800 illegal immigrants, most of them from Central America, have been arrested in the the northern Mexican state of Coahuila since the beginning of this
Mexico wants U.S. probe in killing of man
Family members of a Mexican man killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent over the weekend gazed solemnly at the coffin of Guillermo MartÃnez RodrÃguez during a Mass yesterday.
MartÃnez, a father of two children, was shot near the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Friday after an encounter with a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Though the shooting occurred in the United States, MartÃnez crossed back into Tijuana and died there a day later. U.S. Border officials said the agent was attempting to protect himself when an assailant started throwing rocks at him.
Record deaths on US-Mexico border
A record number of illegal migrants have died while trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States, say US customs officers.
At least 464 had died in the past year to 30 September, they said. The figure is a 43% increase on the previous year.
High temperatures in June and July caused many deaths, but others were due to car accidents or drowning.
A more accurate reporting procedure in the Arizona area was another factor in the rise.
According to the Reuters news agency, border patrols also conducted a record number of 2,570
