an extension from the high school walk out:
Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo said in a 1997 speech in Chicago to the "National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group, that he "proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders and that Mexican migrants are an important – a very important – part of this."The U.S. has tripled its border patrol budget over the past five years, but the flow of immigrants has barely changed. At the same time, Mexican President Vicente Fox has pressed for an eventual erasure of the southern border and encouraged Mexicans who seek work in the U.S.
At a speech one year ago at a border post in Nogales, just south of the Arizona border, Fox said: "We want to salute these heroes, these kids leaving their homes, their communities, leaving with tears in their eyes, saying goodbye to their families, to set out on a difficult, sometimes painful search for a job, an opportunity they can't find at home, their community or their own country."Originally Posted by vicente fox
Border violence is escalating
Efforts to curb drug trafficking are not working
By JAY ROOT
Knight Ridder Newspapers
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Eight months after Mexican authorities unleashed a show of force to quell drug violence along the U.S. border, the effort is in disarray and the general in charge has vanished.
Drug killings are on the rise, local news outlets have been cowed into silence, and evidence is mounting that members of two warring drug-trafficking cartels have infiltrated the program’s elite anti-drug forces.
U.S. officials are concerned that the violence is crossing the border: Assaults on U.S. Border Patrol agents are up 108 percent this year, according to recent congressional testimony.
Mexican officials, recognizing that the Secure Mexico program had failed, announced a new program last week, dubbed Northern Border. Under the program, 600 to 800 more federal police agents were dispatched to this besieged border city.
But few expect that to make much difference, and drug traffickers weren’t intimidated: On Thursday, they gunned down four federal police intelligence agents in broad daylight outside a school there. At least 30 shots were fired into the agents’ bodies.
Adding to the disarray is the absence of Gen. Alvaro Moreno Moreno, who’d been in charge of Secure Mexico. Nuevo Laredo city officials and a Mexican diplomat on the U.S. side of the border said they’d had no contact with the general in weeks.
“I couldn’t tell you where he is,” said Eloy Caloca, a spokesman in Mexico City for the federal Ministry of Public Security, the agency to which Moreno reports. Asked who’s in charge in Nuevo Laredo now, Caloca said: “I don’t have his name right now.”.....
To reach Jay Root, send e-mail to [email protected].Valley students ditch class to protest
By Josh Kleinbaum, Staff Writer
High school students ditched class and took to the streets today in the second day of protests over proposed federal legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally.
Students from a half-dozen high schools and middle schools in the San Fernando Valley marched through the streets - some with umbrellas to protect them from a persistent drizzle - waving flags, chanting "Mexico, Mexico!" and urging other students to leave campus and join them.
"We want everyone to know that you can't mess with us, you can't stop us,"Originally Posted by The Constitution of the United States