TUCSON, Ariz. — A program that has rotated thousands of National Guardsmen along the Mexican border to augment U.S. Border Patrol agents comes to a close in four months, despite calls by at least one border governor to extend the Guard’s mission. Operation Jump Start began in mid-2006, deploying up to 6,000 troops at a time during the first 12 months in non-enforcement roles that freed up Border Patrol agents for front-line duty. Through January, the National Guard Bureau spent more than $1 billion on the program — nearly $212 million in the 2006 fiscal year, $687 million in fiscal ….Read More
Mar 012008
01/03/2008
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A new batch of troops arrived in Nuevo Laredo this weekend to supplement the soldiers already assigned to border security. Although the authorities did not reveal the exact number of agents and soldiers who arrived, , military sources commented this week that between the 26 and the 29 of February, 2600 additional troops would be added to the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon According to a report of the Secretariat of the National defense (Sedena), the military will be distributed immediately to the municipalities of Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Aleman, Mier, Diaz Ordaz, Reynosa, Bravo River, Matamoros and the coasts ….Read More
Mar 012008
01/03/2008
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Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Several months ago, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres into the United States on this scale goes beyond what has become ….Read More
27/02/2008
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Mexico’s lower house of Congress on Tuesday approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence, but lawmakers deleted a proposal to allow police to search homes without a warrant.In the 462-6 vote with two abstentions, legislators approved the reform bill, which would also allow information from recorded phone calls to be used as evidence in criminal cases if at least one of the conversation’s participants agrees. The reform must still be approved by the Senate and then by at least 17 of Mexico’s 31 states. The original proposal, submitted last year, ….Read More
26/02/2008
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MEXICO CITY — Mexican legislators are expected today to overhaul the country’s famously ineffective justice system, implementing public trials nationwide while turning up the heat on organized crime. The long-awaited “justice reform” bill — the result of several years of fierce debate among security experts, academics and human rights activists — would amend the constitution to include the presumption of innocence and other guarantees. It would also provide alternatives to jail for minor crimes, in an attempt to reduce overcrowding in Mexican prisons. Many of the new rights, however, would not apply to suspected members of the criminal mafias, who ….Read More
Feb 202008
20/02/2008
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LAREDO — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized $1.8 million in cocaine and marijuana in three separate incidents recently, according to a news release from the agency. The largest seizure occurred Feb. 17, at the Lincoln-Juarez Bridge when a drug dog reacted to the odor of narcotics emanating from the rear rocker panel area of a 2007 Toyota Camry. Officers found nearly 42 pounds of cocaine. A passenger in the car, Darrell Wayne Phillips, 43, of Clewiston, Fla., was arrested. The cocaine has an estimated street value of $1.3 million. On Feb. 15, at 6:40 p.m. at the Gateway ….Read More
Feb 082008
08/02/2008
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WASHINGTON — A congressional review of U.S. law enforcement efforts to halt gun trafficking into Mexico was ordered Thursday by a House panel overseeing a $1.4 billion Bush administration plan to fight international narcotics cartels. The review of U.S. law enforcement efforts to stop gun running along the 2,000-mile border, particularly in high-traffic corridors of Laredo; Nogales, Ariz.; and San Diego, Calif., was ordered by the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. The panel heard testimony from U.S. law enforcement officials that 6,700 licensed gun dealers are located along the Southwest border, with only 100 Bureau of Alcohol, ….Read More
Jan 292008
29/01/2008
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CIUDAD MIGUEL ALEMÁN, MEXICO — Police in five Tamaulipas border cities continued to patrol the streets Monday without service weapons, nearly a week after military forces confiscated them in a series of surprise raids. But officers in Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Valle Hermoso have managed to maintain the peace armed only with nightsticks and batons, officials from each city said. “We don’t know when our weapons will be returned,” Rio Bravo police Chief Adan Nava Correa said in Spanish on Monday. “But until then, we are working normally.” Weapons permits must be renewed annually according to Antonio ….Read More