News Summaries in September 2023

“In El Paso, Migrants With Nowhere to Go Strain a Welcoming City,” New York Times, Sept. 27, 2023

 

Previously existing shelters have been filled. A new one that opened over the weekend in a rec center quickly saw its 400 beds filled. Hundreds of hotel rooms lined up by the city for migrants are now occupied. Another shelter is in the works at vacant middle school. In the West Texas border town of El Paso, the strains faced by the government of a city with a tradition of welcoming migrants have Mayor Oscar Leeser applauding the chartering of buses by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to take hundreds of migrants to cities like Denver, Chicago or New York. El Paso is just one of many cities showing such strains. An influx of arrivals from Venezuela, but also other countries in South America and Africa “is taxing the available services in cities and small towns from Texas to California,” the Times reports. San Diego just declared a humanitarian crisis. Border agents have been dropping off some migrants 50 miles north of the border to ease the pressure on the city. Before, those arriving had a specific destination in mind. Now, “They’re arriving here with no idea where to go and with no resources to get them anywhere else,” said an El Paso official. Migrants no longer are staying only in shelters but moving out onto the street in other parts of the city near “marquee tourist hotels” and restaurants where their homelessness is witnessed by upscale patrons. “I feel terrible for me and my family to be seen like this,” a Venezuelan woman told the Times.  Said another woman who had just run out of money and was hoping to find a free ride out of El Paso, “God willing, we will make it to Chicago.” 

“President Petro: ‘Colombia Should Undergo a Radical Transformation,’ Interview by Lally Weymouth, Washington Post, Sept. 27, 2023

 

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, said that his goal for his term in office is “peace for Colombia, which means more social justice.” Petro spoke in an interview with right-wing Post columnist Lally Weymouth on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week. He said he’ll include all guerrilla groups in his “total peace” plan for the violence-plagued nation. He denied Weymouth’s characterization of the M-19 organization he joined in the 1970s as a terrorist organization, saying Simón Bolivar was called a terrorist.  Petro said during the 1970s the belief of almost all on the Latin American left was that change was not possible through elections. Why not?  Because Chile’s democratically elected Socialist government had been overthrown with U.S. help. There “was no other option than to take up arms.” After the defeat of the leftist FARC organization and subsequent talks in 2016, violence in Colombia is no longer from revolutionaries, but is now “linked exclusively to drugs.” Weymouth noted some U.S. lawmakers want to decertify Colombia as a partner in the drug war for failing to cooperate with U.S. anti-narcotics efforts. Petro said the U.S. erred by not targeting drug traffickers, but cocoa leaf grown by peasants. “One mustn’t confuse the cocoa leaf with cocaine.” The U.S. has switched its illicit drug consumption from cocaine and marijuana to fentanyl, “which may cause the death of millions over the next 50 years.” Asked about the “very bad” crime problem in Colombia, Petro replied that his country “has gradually and slowly been able to corner violence into certain areas so most of its population has been able to achieve peace.” He denied that he isn’t committed to a free press. No media outlet will be shut down and no journalist persecuted. “I have not shut down any. I have corrected some of the questions that you have asked me. And mistakes are not simple mistakes but efforts to destroy a democratically elected government with slander.”  Much of Colombia’s export revenue comes from permits to explore for oil and gas – why stop selling those permits? “Obviously what you say is correct, but it would be more dangerous to continue along the path of coal and oil” than to pursue green energy. 

“Costa Rica Declares National State of Emergency Over Migrant Surge,” Tico Times, Sept. 27, 2023

 

 The government of Costa Rica has declared a state of emergency because of the number of migrants crossing into the country from Panama. Officials said 60,000 migrants entered in September alone.  “This decree will facilitate additional funding and operational capabilities to manage the influx of migrants, primarily extracontinental individuals aiming to reach the United States,” wrote Tico Times reporter Ileana Fernandez. Alejandro Picado, president of Costa Rica’s National Emergency Commission, said 386,000 migrants have come into the country this year, most of them through the southern border town of Paso Canoas. Officials plan to send migrants arriving there by bus to northern Costa Rica. Migrants must remain peaceful, said Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves, alluding to the detention in Paso Canoas of 25 “unruly” migrants who were detained after confrontations with the police. Chaves said compassion should not be mistaken for weakness. The upsurge stems from the increasing ability of migrants to manage the dangers of traveling through the jungle terrain of the Darién Gap to enter Central America from South America. After they cross into Panama, migrants must pass through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to arrive at that country’s border with the United States. 

“Republican Hopefuls Ramp Up War Talk Over Mexican Border,” Washington Post, Sept. 27, 2023

 

Republican presidential candidates are taking the “build the wall” Trump rallying cry to the next level, scrambling to outdo each other with boasts that they’ll order military strikes in Mexico to block the flow of dangerous illegal drugs into the United States. However, Mexican officials and independent security analysts “have cautioned that military force by the United States would fail to quickly stop drug trafficking while torching relations with its southern neighbor and risking significant casualties,” the Post reports. Candidates talk about launching attacks on drug cartels like U.S. strikes against the ISIS terrorist group. But those Islamic militants were imposed from the outside, says Mexico analyst Falko Ernst of the International Crisis Group. Mexican traffickers are deeply embedded in their communities. They can’t be surgically removed like a cancerous growth in the body, he adds. They have ties to politicians and security forces and are part of criminal enterprises employing thousands of people in local communities. “It is not a 1950s Western with guys in white hats and guys in black hats,” says Cato Institute analyst Justin Logan. “You could end up with an awful lot of bloodshed on the border, and plenty of fentanyl to go around.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said “they got a satchel of fentanyl strapped to their back, you use deadly force against them, you lay them out, you will see a change in behavior.” Without taking the fight to the cartels “we’re going to continue to see Americans dying.” But U.S. authorities say most fentanyl comes into the U.S. via legal ports of entry, not through desert areas between border crossing points. People detained with the drug are more likely to be U.S. citizens not migrants. Politicians talk about missile attacks on fentanyl labs, but most labs are small and can be located indoors. Republicans want “to come over and hunt for narco traffickers, violating our sovereignty, something we are never going to allow,” says Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 

“Costa Rican Minister Visit Darien Gap Amid Regional Migrant Crisis,” Tico Times, Sept. 26, 2023

 

Costa Rica’s top security official joined Panamanian authorities in touring the Darien Gap as both countries struggle to cope with the massive influx of U.S.-bound migrants through the dangerous jungle region. The official, Mario Zamora Cordero, said “both Panama and Costa Rica are dealing with migratory flows that force our countries to allocate significant resources that could be used for other types of work.”  Panama’s Minister of Security Juan Pino said that “as transit countries and as the brotherly nations we are, I am confident we will find solutions.” Rodrigo Chaves Robles, the president of Costa Rica, is expected to visit the Daríen Gap on October 7.

“Mexican Army Sends Troops, Helicopters, Convoys into Towns Cut Off by Drug Cartels,” Associated Press, Sept. 27, 2023

 

Mexico’s military sent troops, vehicle convoys and helicopters into remote towns near the border with Guatemala because drug cartels Sept. 27 blocked roads and cut off electricity in some areas. Videos had surfaced a few days before of a convoy of armed gunmen from the Sinaloa cartel rolling into one town, cheered by some inhabitants. Church groups complained that supplies were running low because of gang roadblocks. The government’s responding force of 800 soldiers, police, and National Guard officers that spread out in over the township of Frontera Comalapa did not encounter resistance. Some local residents are skeptical how long peace will last because the army carried out a similar response in May but then left. An army officer said this time soldiers will stay as long as it takes to regain control of the area. Cartels are fighting for control of drug smuggling routes leading into Mexico from Central America.  The area involved includes a valuable route for smuggling immigrants. “The drug cartels have taken control of so much territory in the rural southern state of Chiapas that some government workers had to be flown in by helicopter to repair power lines,” AP reported. 

“The Permanent Migration Crisis,” Opinion, Ross Douthat, New York Times, Sept. 23, 2023

 

The Biden administration’s announcement that it will grant work permits to 400,000 Venezuelans in the United States is a humanitarian gesture, a recognition of the miseries of life under the Maduro dictatorship. But “in political practice it’s a flailing attempt to respond to a sudden rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in blue cities, particularly New York as the surge of migrants overwhelms social services and shelters.” Such policies that make it easier to work in big cities “are likely to encourage more migration until the border is more stable and secure.” Europe even more than the United States faces many years of overwhelming pressure to admit migrants. Why? The internet and smart phones make it easier to navigate around the world. Another big change:  “the population imbalance between a rich, rapidly aging West and a poorer, younger Global South,” has created a “deeply unstable equilibrium drawing economic migrants north.” There “is no clear limit on how many people can reach the Rio Grande.” Mass arrivals “will spread beyond the border, there will be an increased demand for restrictions even from people generally sympathetic to migrants, but the sheer numbers will make any restrictions less effectual.”  Liberals will be forced to embrace punitive measures they once decried, but right-wing populists themselves will not always know how to fulfill their promises.” Douthat quotes former French President Nicholas Sarkozy: “The migration crisis has not even started.” Douthat concludes: “Most likely there will be neither a punitive end to the crisis nor a successful humanitarian means of managing it.” 

“Guatemalans Rally on Behalf of President-Elect, Demonstrating a Will to Defend Democracy,” Associated Press, Sept. 21, 2023

 

Thousands of Guatemalans marched through the streets of Guatemala City and blocked major highways across the country in protest of the attorney general’s investigation of alleged irregularities in the election of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo. An anti-corruption candidate who was a surprise winner, Arévalo says the investigations are an attempted coup d’etat. Organization of American States observers say the attorney general’s actions appear to be an attempt to keep Arévalo from taking office. Some 76 percent of Guatemalans in one poll said more than half of the country’s politicians are involved in corruption. Arévalo’s anti-corruption campaign struck a chord with voters, “especially with young voters when contrasted with former first lady Sandra Torres, who was associated with the establishment,” AP reported. The protests suggest a new will to defend democracy. Historically, Guatemala’s support for democracy has scored among the lowest in Latin American countries, according to the AmericasBarometer survey. Earlier this year only 48 percent of those polled said democracy was the best form of government. Support is weak because people regard the government as corrupt, one analyst suggested. More people are betting on democracy since his election, Arévalo said. “Because in some way this corrupt state that we have lived with has authoritarian government practices (hidden) beneath the shape of democratic institutions, and the people are beginning to see that that does not lead anywhere.” 

“Mexico Feels Pressure of Relentless Migration from South America,” New York Times, Sept. 21, 2023

 

Mexico’s immigration system is straining under a relentless surge of people trying to go north.  Almost all Tijuana’s 32 shelters are full, with people from nearly 70 countries seeking asylum or a chance to sneak across the border.  “In Mexico, people coming from South America are outpacing those from Central America for the first time since data has been collected,” says Times reporter James Fredrick.  Officials tallied 140,671 migrants from South American countries in the first seven months of 2023 compared to 102,106 from Central America. Record numbers came from Venezuela and Ecuador, escaping economic hardship or narcoviolence. Mexico is expected to get 150,000 asylum applications this year, compared to 118,570 in 2022, according to United Nations figures. People entering southern Mexico “are asking for food, water, very basic care,” says one advocate. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sept. 19 that the world has taken the wrong approach to the migrant crisis by militarizing borders to stop the flow of migrants instead of addressing the root causes of why people are leaving their homes. Law enforcement poses a threat to migrants by demanding payment to allow them to keep heading north while organized crime menaces them with kidnappings. Some migrants are told they are being bused to one city and then dropped off in another. Officials are trying to steer them away from highly populated areas.  A booming business getting people across the treacherous Darién Gap between Columbia and Panama means the influx won’t stop any time soon (see story below, “A Ticket to Disney.” ) 

“Migrants Overwhelm Texas City of Eagle Pass,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 21, 2023

 

About 3,000 migrants passed into the Texas city of Eagle Pass Sept. 20 and another 3,000 were expected Sept. 21.  An estimated 10,000 will have entered the town illegally within a week, said Rep. Tony Gonzalez, a Republican whose district in the U.S. House of Representatives includes Eagle Pass. The mayor declared a state of emergency. Overwhelmed Border Patrol agents have started releasing migrant families into the U.S. to await court dates on their pleas for asylum. Eagle Pass is “one of the safest border crossings, if not the safest,” the mayor of the city said. “I think word gets around, especially now you see all these thousands of people.” The mayor signed an order Sept. 20 allowing the arrest of adult border crossers on the charge of trespassing. Meanwhile, the Mexican railroad company Ferromex has suspended freight operations on certain trains because thousands of migrants are hitching rides atop railcars headed for the United States. 

 

“U.S. Will Allow Nearly 500,000 Venezuelan Migrants to Work Legally,” New York Times, Sept. 21, 2023

 

About 472,000 Venezuelans who arrived in the United States before July 31 will be permitted to live and work legally in the country for 18 months, the Biden administration announced. The move responds to intense pressure from Democratic elected officials in New York to ease the movement of migrants out of overcrowded shelters by allowing work permits. If migrants can go to work and make money they can arrange their own places to live and provide needed tax revenues, officials say. New York Democrats had gone public with their criticism of Biden for failing to address the influx of Venezuelan and other migrants into New York City and state. Republicans have begun quoting those officials  to weaken Biden. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Venezuelans who have entered the U.S. since August  would not be protected and would be removed if they lacked a legal basis for staying. The administration previously extended humanitarian protection to almost 250,000 Venezuelans who entered the U.S. by March 2021. New York City currently provides shelter to 60,000 people seeking asylum, many of them Venezuelans. 

 

“Trump Says He Will Carry Out the ‘Largest Domestic Deportation Operation in American History’ if Elected,” Fox News, Sept. 20, 2023

 

Former President Donald Trump said in a speech in Iowa Wednesday that if elected to a second term he’ll end all the Biden administration’s immigration policies and “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Speaking in Dubuque, Trump said he’ll “shift massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement,” including parts of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.  He also said he'll move “thousands of troops currently stationed overseas to our OWN southern border.” A “Full Fentanyl Blockade” deployed by the U.S. Navy will board and inspect ships “to look for fentanyl and fentanyl precursors.” He said he'll return “all trafficked children to their families in their home countries immediately.”  Trump has previously said he’ll deploy U.S. Special Forces to “inflict massive damage” on cartels crossing the southern border. 

“Columbia’s Leftist President Predicts ‘Billions’ of Migrants ‘Defy Armies to Move North,” Washington Examiner, Sept. 19, 2023

 

Columbian President Gustavo Petro told the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 19 that “billions of people will defy armies” to migrate to the United States and other western democracies. “The exodus across the borders has increased. They have set the dogs and the hounds on the immigrants. They have put people on horses to pursue them with whips in their hands, with stocks and chains, they have built prisons.” Petro, Columbia’s first left-wing president, said “prisons have even been built at sea so that these women and men cannot tread the Earth of the white people, who still believe themselves to be the superior race.” Petro made other comments likening the United States to Nazi Germany. He decried the “hurricane of capitalism” as responsible for climate change. Addressing it will require the linking of democracies “planning for the great Marshall Plan of the revitalization of the planet.” 

“Fareed’s Take: Democrats Must Change Course on Immigration,” CNN, Sept. 17, 2023

 

Commentator Fareed Zakaria says the Biden administration isn’t stepping up with a policy change in immigration able to address the massive influx of migrants now occurring at the southern border of the U.S. “The migrant crisis is exposing Democratic policy weakness at every level,” Zakaria said. He described the administration as “scared to take on its progressive wing and take bold action.” If Democrats don’t “seize control of this issue, the politics of it will end up having the same effect as in other Western countries – rocket fuel for the populist right.” Trump’s solution didn’t work but most Americans “know that he sees the current situation as utterly unacceptable and is willing to take extreme measures to end it. And they know no such thing about his Democratic opponents.” 

“Ovidio Guzman, Alleged Fentanyl Boss and Son of El Chapo, Sent to U.S.,” Washington Post, Sept. 16, 2023

 

Ovidio Guzmán, who allegedly helped run the largest and most violent fentanyl trafficking operation in the world, has been extradited to the United States, federal prosecutors said. He and his three siblings became key leaders of the Sinaloa cartel after its kingpin, their father Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, was arrested in 2016. Mexican troops captured Ovidio in the city of Culiacán in January. Gun battles involved in his capture killed at least 29 people.  The Biden administration pressed for his extradition because of the devastating impact of fentanyl on the United States and because Mexican prisons haven’t been able to keep cartel leaders from continuing to operate behind bars.  U.S. prosecutors say the Sinaloa cartel has pioneered large-scale fentanyl production. An estimated 196 Americans die every day from fentanyl. It’s the leading cause of death for Americans of ages 18 to 49. Fatal fentanyl overdoses in the United States jumped 94 percent between 2019 and 2021.

“The Coup That Shattered Democracy in Chile 50 Years Ago,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 2023

 

This week marks the 50^th anniversary of a coup in Chile that deposed a democratically elected socialist president and launched the torture and killings of thousands of his supporters – all with the backing of U.S. President Richard Nixon and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Backed by business interests, the Chilean military mobilized against President Salvador Allende after he began a program of nationalizing the copper industry, redistributing land, and exerting state control over key industries and banks. Allende refused to leave the presidential palace when the military began seizing control and shot himself to death.  “Tens of thousands of men and women were rounded up during the first few months after the coup and held in massive detention centers,” wrote Times reporter Pascale Bonnefoy. Foreigners were detained. “About 1,200 clandestine detention and torture centers were set up across Chile, where more than 40,000 people were tortured, according to official records.” The ruling junta suspended civil liberties and banned political parties and labor unions.  It censored or banned opposition media, and “left-leaning professors and students were expelled, detained or killed.” The U.S. sought to sabotage Allende. Nixon in a meeting with CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the agency to “make the economy scream,” according to notes by Helms. Kissinger, Bonnefoy wrote, “worried that a Marxist such as Allende rising to power through democratic elections would become a model for other countries in the region, and also for Europe.” Now, some on the right are justifying the coup. Right-wing leaders “have refused  to sign a government-sponsored commitment to democracy and declined to participate in official anniversary events.”

"Dominican Republic Closes Border With Haiti, Further Stoking Tensions," Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2023

 

The president of the Dominican Republic announced he is shutting down the border with Haiti starting Sept. 15. Luis Abinader announced the shutdown of all land, air, and sea frontiers with Haiti because of its plan to build a canal off the river that separates the two countries, which together form the island of Hispaniola. “A border closure would essentially lock Haitians within their country amid extreme levels of violence, including large-scale, killings, kidnapping and rapes,” said Ida Sawyer of Human Rights Watch in a statement quoted by the Post. She added that much of the population there is “struggling to feed their families or access clean water and health care.” The Dominican is one of Haiti’s largest trading partners. Abinader said the canal project, which aims to use water from the Massacre River to irrigate more than 7,400 acres of land, is poorly designed. Dominican officials say the canal would violate a 1929 treaty governing the equitable use of water from the river. Haitians say the closure is just an attempt by Dominican politicians to exploit anti-Haitian sentiment to build political support in elections next year.  Haitians facing lawlessness, famine, and cholera have been fleeing their country to go to their more prosperous neighbor. But the Dominican has been deporting them, including pregnant women. Some 500,000 Haitians live in the Dominican, which has a population of 11 million. 

‘A Ticket to Disney?’ Politicians Charge Millions to Send Migrants to U.S., New York Times, Sept. 14, 2023

 

Politicians, businessmen, and elected leaders are now making big money assisting the passage of an enormous number of U.S.-bound migrants through the treacherous Darién Gap, the only land passage from South America to North America. The gap is a jungle region overlapping the border of Columbia and Panama.  “A trickle only a few years ago,” writes Times reporter Julie Turkewitz, “has become a flood: More than 360,000 people have already crossed the jungle in 2023, according to the Panamanian government, surpassing last year’s almost unthinkable record of nearly 250,000.” Local leaders  collect “tens of millions of dollars this year alone from migrants in an enormous people moving operation – one that international experts say is more sophisticated than anything they have seen.” Elements of the “migration business” include boat operators, campsites, jungle guides, porters, food vendors, and other equipment suppliers. The Gulf Clan, an armed drug-trafficking group with tight control over northern Columbia, charges migrants for permission to cross the Darién Gap. The services and supports stop once migrants enter Panama. There, they risk encounters with criminal bands that use rape as a punishment for those who cannot pay them.  Columbian President Gustavo Pedro doesn’t plan to interfere; he said he had “no intention of sending ‘horses and whips’ to the border to solve a problem that wasn’t of his country’s making.” He says half a million will cross this year and then a million next year. Panama and Costa Rica say they cannot handle the surge.

“Mexican Reporter Whom U.S. Tried to Deport Ruled Eligible for Asylum,” Washington Post, Sept. 14, 2023

 

A three-judge panel has overturned an order to deport a Mexican reporter who sought asylum in the U.S. after exposing corruption in the Mexican military.  The National Press Club said the ruling ends a years-long effort by the U.S. government to deport Emilio Gutiérrez Soto. An immigration judge in 2017 ordered the deportation saying he did not believe the reporter faced death threats and the risk of harm if forced to return to Mexico. He was permitted to remain in the U.S. pending his appeal of the decision, but the same judge rejected his claims in 2019. A three-judge panel of the Board of Immigration Appeals then reviewed the case and called it “clearly erroneous” in a Sept. 5 letter. U.S. State Department officials vouched for the dangers Gutiérrez Soto faced. Corruption in the Mexican military has long been a threat to reporters, wrote Post reporter Nick Miroff. “The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Mexico as one of the most dangerous places for reporters in the world outside a war zone,” he added,  noting that according to the group more than 150 reporters have been killed in Mexico over the last three decades.

“Spanish Soccer President Luis Rubiales Resigns After Nonconsensual Kiss at Women’s World Cup Final,” Associated Press, Sept. 10, 2023

 

Luis Rubiales has resigned as president of the Spanish soccer federation under pressure from players, politicians, and global soccer officials. His unwanted kiss on the lips of a star Spanish soccer player during the awards ceremony honoring her team as Women’s World Cup champions overshadowed Spain’s first ever victory in the tournament. Rubiales said the kiss was like one he would have given his own daughters and came “in a moment of jubilation”. But Spanish players, fans, and politicians “strongly disagreed and saw it as a sexist act and the abuse of authority,” AP reported.  Spanish male soccer executives have long been accused of subjecting female players to demeaning treatment. 

 

“Argentina Owes $16 Billion in Expropriation Suit, U.S. Court Rules,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 8, 2023

 

Argentina must pay about $16 billion because it seized majority control of the energy company YPF in 2012, a U.S. judge has ruled. Argentina owes the money to Burford Capital, which financed litigation by two YPF shareholders to recover damages. The Argentine government said the ruling is flawed and will appeal it.  YPF was expropriated in 2012 under then President Cristina Kirchner, said Journal reporter Kejal Vyas. The Kirchner administration said the takeover was justified because of underinvestment by private oil companies. Opponents called the takeover a brazen attempt to seize promising new oil and gas developments in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta basin.  Axel Kicilloff, who served as an economic advisor to Kirchner, said the New York court ruling violated Argentina’s sovereignty. He said it only benefits litigation funders, who he described as vultures. 

“A Historic First for Mexico as Two Women Vie for the Presidency,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 2023

 

Mexico’s governing Morena party has chosen Claudia Sheinbaum to compete next year with opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez for the presidency. “We can already say today: Mexico, by the end of the year, will be governed by a woman,” said Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez of the Monterrey Institute of Technology. That would be a first. “While neither are explicitly feminist, both are socially progressive, have engineering degrees and say they will maintain broadly popular antipoverty programs,” the Times says. Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, is thought to have an edge because she is a protegé of Mexico’s very popular president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Gálvez is “an outspoken engineer with Indigenous roots who rose from poverty to become a tech entrepreneur,” the story adds. Some observers say the election next year will determine whether Mexico will return to a dominant-party system with Morena in broad-based control. Mexico has the world’s largest Spanish-speaking population. 

“Judge Orders Texas to Move Barrier from the Middle of the Rio Grande,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 2023

 

A federal judge ordered the removal of a floating barrier in the Rio Grande, calling it a threat to human life. He said the barrier placed there by the state of Texas to deter illegal crossings was also an impediment to navigation. The ruling said the risk of drowning and other problems posed by the barrier outweighed the interest that Texas has in controlling migration into the state. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he’ll appeal the order, if need be all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Court filings by the federal government say that there have been 89 water-related deaths in recent years in and around Eagle Pass, Texas, where the barrier is located. Abbott says a state rather than the federal government has the Constitutional power to place such a barrier along the border when it is under invasion.  The barrier is part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, an increasingly aggressive effort to stop the crossing by tens of thousands of migrants into the United States.

 

“Mexico’s Supreme Court Decriminalizes Abortion Nationwide,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 2023

 

Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in a Sept. 6 ruling that makes the procedure legally accessible in all federal health institutions in the predominantly Catholic country of 130 million people. Columbia, Argentina, Uruguay and Guyana also have either legalized or decriminalized abortion. Much of Mexico “remains culturally conservative, but decades of feminist activism have reshaped how many people think about women’s rights,” the Times says. Abortion remains illegal under local law in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states but in those areas women can now get abortions legally in federal hospitals and clinics. 

“Bedtime Check-Ins and Verbal Abuse: Women’s Life in Spanish Soccer,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 2023

 

Demeaning treatment of women has long been a part of Spanish soccer management, say more than a dozen women involved in the sport. The forced kiss of star player Jenni Hermoso by Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales following Spain’s victory in the Women’s World Cup championship is but one example, say Times reporters. Players say they’ll boycott the national team until Rubiales is gone. They also want higher wages, contracts that continue with maternity leave, and the same nutritionists and physical therapists as men.  They may strike to get them. Rubiales “resisted the idea of professional women’s soccer from the beginning,” the Times said. Last summer he refused to meet by videoconference with the new female head of the Spanish women’s soccer league, who requested the online meeting so she could stay home with her newborn. He said she should fully devote herself to the child. He is alleged to have used federation money to host a sex party, a charge he denies. Referring to the uniforms worn by women, he has said they play in their underwear. Spain just fired its women’s national coach, Jorge Vilda, and replaced him with the first woman to hold the job, Montse Tomé.  Women said they got bedtime checks from Vilda and he ordered them to leave their bedroom doors ajar. When they gathered for coffee they had to do so where he could see them so he could study their body language to see if they were talking about him. “He wanted to control everything,” one player said. The player recalled that Vilda’s predecessor Ignacio Quereda told players “what you really need is a good man and a big penis.” The Times said Quereda “has denied being verbally abusive.” 

“Spain Floods: Three Dead and Three Missing After Torrential Floods,” Reuters, Sept. 4, 2023

 

Record rainfall in central Spain Sept. 3^rd and 4^th caused heavy flooding that claimed the lives of at least three people. Three people were missing. The rainfall shut down roads, subways, and high-speed train connections. The downpour “transformed streets into rivers of mud that swept away cars and trash bins in Madrid, Castile-La Mancha, Catalonia and Valencia regions,” Reuters reported. The three deaths occurred in the countryside around the city of Toledo. Half a dozen bridges were destroyed by water in the Madrid region. 

“Scorching Heat Is Contributing to Migrant Deaths,” New York Times, September 4, 2023 (updated from Aug. 31, 2023)

 

More than 500 people have died this year from various causes trying to cross from Mexico into the United States. Days of temperatures 100 degrees or higher this summer have been “deadly for some of those making their way through the hot, barren shrub land where migrants travel to avoid detection from Border Patrol agents,” wrote Times reporter Edgar Sandoval. In all of 2022 there were 853 confirmed deaths of people seeking to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. More people tried to cross in 2022 than has been the case this year. Among the causes of the deaths are drownings in the Rio Grande. Heat-related deaths occur from dehydration, heat stroke and hypothermia. Many of the deaths this summer resulted not only from high heat but also “suffocating” humidity, officials say. The Southwest border “has come to be known as one of the deadliest land crossings in the world,” according to Sandoval. Since 1998, at least 7,805 people have died trying to cross from Mexico and more than 3,527 remain missing, says the Colibri Center for Human Rights. 

“Daily Blackouts in a Poor Spanish Neighborhood. Is Marijuana to Blame?” New York Times, Sept. 4, 2023

 

The electrical grid is abysmally bad in some of Spain’s poorest neighborhoods, but pot’s to blame not poor maintenance, the power company claims. For example, the northern district of Granada is that city’s poorest section -- half the population lives on less than $8,000 per year. “It is a collection of cramped quarters where decrepit tangles of electric cables stretch across the streets – a far cry from the fancy, cobbled neighborhoods of the city center,” writes Times reporter Constant Méheut. “Daily blackouts plague the 25,000 inhabitants,” he adds. The result: rotting food in refrigerators, dying phone batteries, and medical devices that stop working. Spain’s largest electric company, Endesa, blames marijuana growers illegally connecting to the grid and overwhelming it because their plants need powerful lights and air conditioning. Power goes off nearly 100 times a month.  At least a dozen other poor districts across Spain are similarly affected. Financial downturns in Spain have led some poor people to turn to growing marijuana to bring in money. Trafficking of the drug extends through almost all of the municipalities of the province of Granada. Some 430,000 marijuana plants were seized in Granada in 2021. Residents question how much marijuana is to blame for the blackouts saying the  grid has long been shaky and that  the power company is using pot as an excuse not to fix it. 

“Why Did a Drug Gang Kill 43 Students? Text Messages Hold Clues,” New York Times, Sept. 2, 2023

 

Who was behind the disappearance nearly a decade ago of 43 rural college students in Mexico? According to New York Times reporters Natalie Kitroeff and Ronen Bergman, it was a relatively unknown drug cartel aided by the police and military. “Just about every arm of government in that part of southern Mexico had been secretly working for the criminal group for months, putting the machinery of the state in the cartel’s hands and flattening any obstacle that got in its way,” they wrote. Police officers who snatched the students one night in 2014, forced them into patrol cars, and turned them over to a drug cartel never to be seen again had been taking direct orders from drug traffickers, according to text messages obtained by the Times. The military, which monitored the abduction but did nothing to help the students, “had been showered by cartel bribes.” The thousands of messages obtained by the Times showed that Guerreros Unidos, the cartel, had turned public officials into full-blown employees. That’s what made the mass killing of the students possible. Why were students killed who were training to be teachers and were not involved in organized crime? The cartel mistook the students, who were in a convoy headed to a demonstration, as an intrusion by rival gang members and so ordered the attack. Mexican authorities have now ordered the arrest of 20 Mexican soldiers in connection with the kidnappings. 

“Ecuador Hit by Car Bombs as Security Crisis Widens,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2023

 

At least six explosions have struck Ecuador since August 30, including car bombs in Quito, the capital, and Cuenca, a city popular with American retirees. Bombs also exploded in the coastal province of El Oro. No injuries were reported from any of the explosions. “These car bombs were strategically placed,” said former Deputy Interior Minister Max Campos. “What we are seeing is a response from criminal groups that want to intimidate the state.” Ecuador saw an 80 percent increase in homicides in the January to July period, compared to the same period a year earlier, the story by Journal reporter Ryan Dubé also reported. Ecuador has been awash in violence in recent years as drug cartels kill to seize control of the cocaine trade. A presidential candidate who pledged to stop cartel infiltration of government was recently gunned down and killed. President Guillermo Lasso called the most recent bombings a response to his efforts to take back control of prisons by drug gangs. 

“Hard Right Injects Immigration Into Spending Fight, Raising Shutdown Fears,” New York Times, Sept. 1, 2023

 

Hard-right House Republicans say they won’t vote to keep the federal government running unless funding legislation includes a crackdown on undocumented migrants crossing the border. The threat applies also to stopgap money to keep the government open pending negotiations to pass a longer-term bill. They say the toughened provisions must include border wall construction, extended detention of asylum seekers, and faster deportation of unaccompanied minors. An October 1 shutdown looms. Texas Republican Chip Roy is a leader of the effort by the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus to force tougher measures. But Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel, said “House Republicans will need House Democrats to pass any serious funding bills, and they will not get our support on a bill that contains the Freedom Caucus demands.” Times reporter Karoun Demirjian wrote that “their gambit has prompted consternation among more mainstream House Republicans who are keenly aware that their party would be badly damaged by a shutdown.”