Beyond the season of death on the US-Mexico border
When I arrived in southern Arizona in the first days of June, temperatures were in the 90s - considerably more bearable than two weeks earlier when the mercury spiked and reached 115 degrees. The heat wave marked the early beginning of another “summer of death” in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert: Authorities found the bodies of 12 unauthorized immigrants in the scorched terrain stretching from Yuma in the west to Douglas in the east.
This summer has been especially deadly in Arizona as migrants are perishing - most frequently from heatstroke and dehydration - at what appears to be a record pace. Over the July 4 weekend, at least 10 lost their lives. During a four-day period in late July, authorities discovered 14 bodies, including one of a 13-year-old boy. With more than 190 documented migrant deaths in the state since the Oct. 1 start of the current federal fiscal year, the grim toll is on pace to surpass last year’s record of 221.
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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
Mexico opens investigation into U.S. shooting of migrant
Mexico took the unusual step of opening an investigation into the killing of a man officials said was shot while sneaking into California, using the death to again draw attention to a contentious U.S. anti-immigration measure.
The death of the 18-year-old came as Mexico's government continued its vocal campaign against the bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last month.
``This occurrence does no more than provide evidence that only a law that guarantees legal entry and is respectful of human rights can resolve the migratory problem both countries face,'' Ruben Aguilar, the
Mexico minister in crash had received death threats
A Mexican anti-drug minister who died in a helicopter crash last week had received death threats but his death was most likely an accident, the government said on Monday.
Public Security Minister Ramon Martin Huerta, a key figure in the government's fight against drug traffickers, and eight others were killed last Wednesday when the helicopter carrying them slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain near the capital.
"Yes, he had received death threats, like many other public servants," presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters.
He said government officials frequently received anonymous death threats by telephone or letter.
"It's part
Mexican police respond to protests after death in Mexico City women's prison
Dozens of riot police on Monday poured into a women's jail in eastern Mexico City to quell protests after an inmate died of an apparent heart attack.
Protesters at Santa Martha Acatitla prison hung burning clothes from the windows along with protest signs proclaiming "no more death" and "we are innocent."
There were no injuries in the protests following the death of one inmate from natural causes, said Pedro Aguilar, a spokesman for the city corrections department.
Prison officials met in the afternoon with inmate leaders to listen to grievances.
About 1,600 inmates,
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
Tagliabue pumped about game in Mexico
Expansion to Mexico still is a generation away despite the success of the NFL’s first regular-season game staged outside the United States.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the Arizona Cardinals’ 31-14 victory over the 49ers in Mexico’s capital lent credibility to the league south of the border. A record 103,467 fans packed cavernous Azteca Stadium on Sunday night, the largest regular-season crowd in NFL history.
But Tagliabue said the size of the crowd wasn’t the key factor.
“I think this game lets the fans here in Mexico, the athletes here in Mexico and businesses and everybody else know that
Record deaths in U.S.-Mexico crossings
A record 460 migrants died crossing the United States-Mexico border in the last year, the U.S. Border Patrol says.
The toll was pushed higher by unusually hot temperatures and a shift of illegal migration routes through remote deserts.
The death total from Oct. 1, 2004, through Sept. 29 surpassed the previous record of 383 deaths set in 2000, according to Border Patrol statistics.
The dead were mostly Mexicans, many from the states of Mexico, Guanajuato and Veracruz, but also from the impoverished Southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, the Los Angeles Times said.
Migrants continue to die in automobile accidents
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
Mexico axes death penalty
Mexico has outlawed its long-dormant death penalty, setting itself apart from its northern neighbour - the United States.
President Vicente Fox announced the decree, based on a constitutional change approved by the Mexican Senate in a 79-2 vote last March.
"Through the reform of our constitution, the ultimate penalty has been stricken from our laws," Fox said on Friday.
Mexico last executed a prisoner in 1961, but Mexico and the US have clashed repeatedly over the years over Mexicans sentenced to die by US courts.
In 2002, Fox cancelled a visit to US President George W.
Mexico reports death from Emily
After enduring four days of battering from Hurricane Emily, Mexican authorities on Friday reported the first death from a storm that destroyed thousands of buildings and drove 90,000 people from their homes.
The report of a woman swept away by floodwaters in the northern city of San Pedro Garza Garcia came just as President Vicente Fox toured the devastation caused by the hurricane, whose winds began raking the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday.
The evacuation of tens of thousands of people in the Yucatan area and along Mexico's northern Gulf coast helped avoid
