Aug 06

Aftermath of Hurricane Alex and the floods of 2010

By PMC Border News, For your information, Headlines, The Border View Comments
Canacar and the Federal Transport Police estimated more than 11,000 trucks were stranded between Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo

It’s been a helluva month here on the border in the aftermath of Hurricane Alex and the several tropical storms that followed.

At one point, all roads between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey were closed for several days resulting in a backup of an estimated 11-22,000 trucks.

Parts of Reynosa are still underwater as the Rio Grande is slow in returning to normal there.

Laredo Texas looks as if a tsunami hit the banks of the Rio Grande where at one point, the water was lapping at the side beams of the international bridge, 60 feet above the river.

Freight in the area is still slow in getting back across the border as the maquillas in Monterrey and elsewhere are slowly recovering and gearing back up to full capacity.

Continue with the post below the break to view photos of the disaster.
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Apr 24

Some truckers plan boycott over Arizona immigration law SB-1070

By PMC Border News, Immigration Reform, The Border View Comments

Some Mexican American truckers plan boycott of Arizona in protest to the passage of SB-1070, a draconian and illegal law that sets civil rights back 50 years.

Some Mexican American truckers plan boycott of Arizona in protest to the passage of SB-1070, a draconian and illegal law that sets civil rights back 50 years.

WASHINGTON — Two or three times a week, truck driver Jesus Serrano hauls loads of Mexican-grown produce from warehouses in Nogales, Ariz. , which is just across the U.S.- Mexico border, to distribution centers in Los Angeles .

Serrano plans to stop making the trip now that Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a stringent anti-illegal immigration bill into law, however, and he’s recruited other truckers to join him.

Serrano, the independent owner-operator of a Los Angeles -based trucking company, said that about 70 drivers based in California and Arizona had agreed to stop moving loads into or out of Arizona in protest of the new law. He hopes to get 200 truckers on board for a five-day boycott that will start within 48 hours of the bill’s signing.
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Feb 19

US – Mexico Joint effort targets border crime

By PMC Border News, ICE & CBP Comments Off

In the 1990s, the Border Patrol worked closely with Grupo Beta, an elite Mexican police unit. After a promising start, the unit faltered under allegations of wrongdoing and functions today as an unarmed humanitarian agency.

In a politically sensitive operation at the Arizona- Mexico border, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police officers are training together, sharing intelligence and coordinating patrols for the first time.

The goal of the historic partnership: a systematic joint attack on northbound flows of drugs and migrants, and southbound shipments of guns and cash. It is part of a major, unannounced crackdown started in recent months involving hundreds of U.S. and Mexican officers in the border’s busiest smuggling corridor.

The initiative appears likely to expand. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna will sign a declaration Thursday in Mexico City agreeing to replicate the experiment. Eventually, officials say, joint operations borderwide could lead to the creation of a Mexican force serving as a counterpart to the Border Patrol — an agency once regarded with nationalistic aversion in Mexico.
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Oct 17

Immigration Debate: Border Fence Provision Cut From Bill

By PMC Border News Comments Off

The border wall along the US Mexico border. America's shame and an insult to our neighbors to the south

The border wall along the US Mexico border. America's shame and an insult to our neighbors to the south

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, says a provision to build more fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border was cut out of a federal spending bill.

The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday the provision, which would have added 300 miles to current border fencing, is no longer part of a $42.8 billion spending bill for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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Sep 24

Like the Minutemen, Texas Rangers not welcome at the border

By PMC Border News, Fear Factor Comments Off
"We don't need the Texas Rangers to come to the border to quell any imaginary disturbance," said Lupe Trevino, vice chairman of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Southwest Border Task Force.

"We don't need the Texas Rangers to come to the border to quell any imaginary disturbance," said Lupe Trevino, vice chairman of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Southwest Border Task Force.

McALLEN, Texas — Rancher Mike Landry recently came upon a group of unarmed men dressed in camouflage burglarizing his guest house and stealing a truck from his 11,000 acres in Terrell County, rugged country bordering the Rio Grande in West Texas.

A couple of shots over their heads from his hunting rifle kept nine of them, all Mexican citizens, in place until Border Patrol agents arrived.

“It has really gotten to be pretty spooky,” said Landry, who has run cattle in the area for 29 years.

Stories like Landry’s seem to bolster Gov. Rick Perry’s recent decision to send elite teams from the state’s top law enforcement agency, the Texas Rangers, to remote borderlands to help them with security and deter a spillover of the gruesome drug-war violence plaguing Mexico. But Landry’s situation never grew violent, and many other ranchers, sheriffs and politicians along Texas’ 1,200 mile border with Mexico found the governor’s announcement puzzling.
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Sep 23

Drug War a Failure in U.S., Mexico

By PMC Border News, Narco Wars Comments Off

Victims of the violence in Cd Juarez is more evidence of the failed US and Mexico drug policies. Mexico has decriminalized amounts for personal use while the US continues to turn a blind eye to the problem.(AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

Victims of the violence in Cd Juarez is more evidence of the failed US and Mexico drug policies. Mexico has decriminalized amounts for personal use while the US continues to turn a blind eye to the problem.(AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

EL PASO, Texas – Academics, journalists and officials said at a conference here that the war on drugs has been a failure in both the United States and Mexico, and that the wave of violence has forced many Mexicans to flee their country and silenced journalists.

“Organized crime has Mexican society on the border very quiet and on its knees,” Alfredo Corchado, a correspondent in Mexico for the Dallas Morning News, said Monday at the Global Public Policy Forum on the U.S. War on Drugs, being hosted by the University of Texas at El Paso.

Luis Astorga, a researcher with the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said criminal organizations in the states of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas control drug trafficking along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The drug cartels became more brutal when they started employing former soldiers, who introduced paramilitary tactics to lay down the law for rivals, Astorga said.
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