Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Creates New Government Style

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s first 100 days in office have combined a compulsive shedding of presidential trappings with a dizzying array of policy initiatives, and a series of missteps haven’t dented his soaring approval ratings.

Lopez Obrador has answered more questions from the press, flown in more economy-class flights, posed for more selfies with admiring citizens and visited more genuinely risky areas with little or no security than several combined decades of his predecessors.

He’s also surprised many by maintaining a cordial relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, helping contain Central American migrant caravans while resisting U.S. efforts to oust the leftist government of Venezuela.

High ratings, many initiatives

The folksy perennial candidate took office Dec. 1 and by the end of his first month, Lopez Obrador’s approval rating surpassed 80 percent. He has taken full advantage of that mandate to move quickly on many fronts — perhaps too many.

“Every week he announces at least one or two things,” said Ivonne Acuna Murillo, a professor of political science at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. “Sometimes the speed of the issues he is putting on the agenda is such that an issue they put out in the morning is displaced by another in the afternoon.”

Before Lopez Obrador had even taken office he held a referendum on the partially constructed $13 billion Mexico City airport. He used the resulting vote as a green light to cancel a project he had campaigned against.

During his first month in office, Lopez Obrador launched a military assault on the country’s fuel theft gangs, dividing the security of Mexico’s critical pipelines and refineries between the army and the navy. The hastily planned offensive created gas shortages across the country, but somehow didn’t dampen his popularity.

This month, he overrode complaints by human rights campaigners and got the Congress and state legislatures to approve constitutional reforms creating a heavily militarized National Guard that he touts as the key to getting control of Mexico’s runaway violence.

Daily press conference

A typical day starts with his 6 a.m. Cabinet meeting, focusing on security, where he gets the daily crime report. At 7 a.m., he steps on the dais at the centuries-old National Palace to start a free-wheeling, open-ended press conference that often goes for 1½ hours.

From there he might hold a meeting on the initiative of the day, and then around noon he flies off — tourist class, fielding hugs and taking selfies with fellow passengers — to some provincial city, where he’ll meet with local leaders, eat at some modest local cafeteria, then hold another open-air rally and take some more hugs. Then he’ll catch another tourist-class flight to Mexico City. (He says he gets to bed early).

The part of the day he most clearly enjoys? Pressing the flesh and handing out time-tested one-liners at rallies in provincial towns, essentially, the same thing he has been doing for the last 20 years on the campaign trail as a three-time presidential contender.

No imperial presidency

“He is a bit messianic, meaning evangelical. He’s out there preaching all the time,” said Federico Estevez, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “He’s Bernie Sanders with power.”

“I’m not sure if this a good governance model, but it’s an exceptionally good political one,” Estevez said.

It’s easy to lose sight of how different this all is, unless you’ve lived through decades of Mexico’s distant, imperial presidency, in which the president seldom appeared beyond orchestrated speeches, or as a motorcade of luxury vehicles speeded to the president’s personal airplane hangar for flights aboard the presidential jet to carefully guarded events.

Gone are the motorcades, gone is the jet, gone is the security, gone is the official presidential residence. You’re more likely to see Lopez Obrador buying himself a $1 styrofoam cup of coffee at a convenience store or eating beans at a roadside restaurant, than to see him rubbing elbows with foreign dignitaries.

Lopez Obrador rode a wave of popular discontent with corruption in Mexico, and has attracted a near-unquestioning devotion because of his own honest, rumpled style.

“The advantage that Andres Manuel has as leader is that he arrived with a backing that no president has had in Mexico,” said Benjamin Arditi, a political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Lopez Obrador has already had spats with NGOs, regulators, environmentalists, outside experts and ratings agencies. His campaign against crime and violence has yielded few results. He chafes at those who ask for feasibility or environmental impact studies for his pet projects.

Results less rosy

But hardly anyone notices.“There is a devotion, something almost religious,” said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst at Mexico’s Center for Economic Research and Training. “It makes people believe only what he says, against everything that experts or ratings agencies or international organizations say. They don’t matter, it only matters what he says.”

At least two ratings agencies have downgraded their outlook on Mexico’s debt to ‘negative’ since he took office. His decisions, like the one to cancel the airport project, “don’t generate the slightest bit of confidence,” Crespo said, “and that is going to have a cost, is having a cost, in terms of capital leaving, or money not being invested.”

For Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s foreign policy boils down to simply non-intervention, and he leaves the field to his top diplomat, Marcelo Ebrard.

Remain in Mexico critics

But some critics say Mexico is doing Trump’s bidding by accepting the U.S. “remain in Mexico” program and by restricting the movement of caravans of Central American migrants.“Remain in Mexico” makes Central American asylum applicants await resolution of their cases from the Mexican side of the border.

“It is a U.S. policy that once again subordinates Mexico’s immigration policy,” said Oscar Misael Hernandez, an immigration researcher at the College of the Northern Border in Matamoros.

Others saw it as a pragmatic calculation that U.S. courts will soon put a halt to the program. Allowing it in the meantime helps U.S. relations and helped Mexico win a $10.6 billion U.S. commitment for regional development, meant to create jobs in Central America and southern Mexico so fewer people feel compelled to leave.

With growing signs of anti-migrant sentiment in Mexico, containing migration costs Lopez Obrador little in political terms, and is balanced by his push to grant work visas for migrants.

The new administration’s most widely criticized misstep was Lopez Obrador’s decision to ax funds for nonprofits working on issues ranging from promoting art and culture to providing domestic abuse shelters, arguing the “intermediaries” were too often used to siphon away government funds. Lopez Obrador wants to give the money directly to the people who needed it, but experts say that won’t work for complex social services like day care and shelters for battered women.

Mariana Banos, whose Fundacion Origen offers support services to women, often through partnerships with other organizations and local governments, said many groups will have to shut down because they depend entirely on government funding.

She scoffed at the corruption allegations and urged the government to reconsider.

“You have to work hand-in-hand, not create a divide, not stigmatize,” she said.

Despite the frictions there are lighter moments to “The 4-T,” a play on Lopez Obrador’s description of his administration as the “fourth transformation” of Mexico.

Lopez Obrador sometimes laughs at his own jokes. He posts Facebook videos from roadside restaurants, with impromptu lectures on the health benefits of coconuts or local fruits. And Mexicans crack up at his frequent, folksy catch phrases like “Me canso ganso,” equivalent to “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”

Enterprising designers have come up with a web app that allows people to make resolutions and receive a text message from an AMLO-bot saying “Monica, you’ll lose weight this year, or I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” (VOA)

Mexican Radio Journalist,Jesus Eugenio Ramos Shot Dead in Tabasco State

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - A radio news host in Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Tabasco was shot dead Saturday, officials said, marking the second killing of a journalist this year as the country grapples with record violence.

Jesus Eugenio Ramos died of gunshot injuries Saturday morning at a hospital in Emiliano Zapata,the Tabasco prosecutor's office said in a statement. Tabasco Gov.AdanAugusto Lopez said he lamented the loss of the reporter, known locally as "Chuchin," and said his death would be investigated.

"He was a prestigious reporter ... a program with a long history in Zapata," he told news outlet Tabasco Hoy (Tabasco Today) in a video posted on Twitter.

Ramos hosted the news program Our Region Todayon a local station. He was having breakfast at a hotel near the radio station when he was shot, according to Tabasco Hoy.

Homicides in Mexico jumped by a third to more than 33,000 last year, hitting a record about a decade after the start of a military-led campaign to battle drug trafficking.

Local journalists nationwide have fallen victim to the violence, prompting the Committee to Protect Journalists to classify Mexico as the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere for media workers.

Article 19, which defends freedom of expression and accessto information, documented the killings of 122 journalists in Mexico since 2000. (VOA)

Asylum Seekers to Wait in Mexico Starting Friday

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - The Donald Trump administration on Friday will start forcing some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases proceed through U.S. courts, an official said, launching what could become one of the more significant changes to the immigration system in years.

The changes will be introduced at San Diego's San Ysidro border crossing, according to a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because it's not yet final. San Ysidro is the nation's busiest crossing and the choice of asylum seekers who arrived to Tijuana, Mexico, in November in a caravan of more than 6,000 mostly Central American migrants.

The policy, which is expected to face a legal challenge, may be expanded to other crossings. It does not apply to children traveling alone or to asylum seekers from Mexico.

A nearly finalized plan emerged during bilateral talks in Mexico City over the last few days. It calls for U.S. authorities to bus asylum seekers back and forth to the border for court hearings in downtown San Diego, including an initial appearance within 45 days.

The Trump administration will make no arrangements for them to consult with attorneys, who may visit clients in Tijuana or speak with them by phone.
U.S. officials also will begin processing only about 20 asylum claims a day at the San Diego crossing but plan to ramp up to exceed the number of claims processed now, which is up to 100 a day, the official said.

'Credible fear'

The policy could severely strain Mexican border cities. U.S. border authorities fielded 92,959 "credible fear" claims — an initial screening to have asylum considered — during a recent 12-month period, up 67 percent from a year earlier. Many were Central American families.

The "Remain in Mexico" policy is President Donald Trump's latest move to reshape immigration policy, though it may prove temporary. Other major changes have been blocked in court, including a ban on seeking asylum for people who cross the border illegally from Mexico and generally dismissing domestic and gang violence as grounds for asylum.

It is also an early test of relations between two populist presidents — Trump and Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump's demand that it pay for a border wall, leading the president to ask Congress for $5.7 billion in a stalemate that has partially closed the government for more than a month.

Mexican officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Roberto Velasquez, spokesman for Mexico's foreign relations secretary, emphasized earlier this week that there would be no bilateral agreement and that Mexico was responding to a unilateral move by the United States. He said in an interview that discussions covering "a very broad range of topics" were aimed at preparing Mexico for the change.

Broad outlines of the plan were announced Dec. 20, but details were not revealed until Thursday. Mexico said last month that people seeking asylum in the U.S. would get temporary humanitarian visas while their cases were settled in the U.S., which can take years, and could seek permission to work in Mexico.

Mexico has started issuing humanitarian visas to Central Americans as another major caravan makes its way through the southern part of the country.

While illegal crossings from Mexico are at historically low levels, the U.S. has witnessed a surge in asylum claims, especially from Central American families. Because of a lack of family detention space and a court-imposed 20-day limit on detaining children, they are typically released with a notice to appear in immigration court. With a backlog of more than 800,000 cases, it can take years to settle cases.

Tijuana's effects

It's not clear if Central Americans will be deterred from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they have to wait in Tijuana, a booming city with plenty of jobs. Tijuana doesn't come close to matching the U.S. on wages, and asylum seekers generally have far fewer family ties there than they do in the U.S.

Incoming Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrardhas said Mexico will coordinate with the U.S. on the policy's mechanics, which would ensure migrants access to information and legal services. Ebrard said Dec. 24 that he wanted more information to ensure "orderly and secure" protocols.

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, director of the University of California-San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies, said last week that Mexico had not fully considered the impact on Mexican border towns.

"This could have lasting repercussions for Mexican border cities," Fernandez de Castro said. "We have to assess the potential numbers and how to help them stay healthy. We don't have that assessment." (VOA)

Death Toll in Mexico Pipeline Fire Rises to 93

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - The death toll in a massive fire at an illegally tapped pipeline in Mexico rose to 93 on Tuesday after four more injured people died at hospitals.

Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said Tuesday that 46 victims who were severely burned were still in hospitals, two of them in Galveston, Texas. Some are in very poor condition.

The victims were gathering gasoline from an illegal pipeline tap in the central state of Hidalgo on Friday when the gas ignited, littering an alfalfa field with charred bodies.

Many suffered bad burns over much of their bodies; about 22 of those who initially survived have since died of their injuries.

The government reported Monday that an astonishing total of 14,894 such illegal taps had been found in 2018, an average of about 41 per day nationwide.

Hidalgo had 2,121 taps, more than any other state. The fire occurred in the town of Tlahuelilpan, where 38 taps were found in 2017 and 23 in 2018.

On Tuesday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched a plan that includes six types of social aid programs for communities that have been the scenes of illegal taps in the past.

The programs will be offered in 91 townships in nine central states where pipelines pass through.

The plan includes job-training stipends, old-age supplementary payments, small, unsecured lending programs and scholarships.

Some of the communities have actively helped fuel-theft gangs in the past by confronting military and police patrols, or acting as look-outs. Lopez Obrador hopes to eliminate pretexts for helping the gangs by providing opportunities for local residents in the legitimate economy.

“No Mexican will be forced by necessity to participate in these activities,” Lopez Obrador said at a rally in a small town northwest of Mexico City. (VOA)

Lawyers: Immigrant Kids' Detention Is Prolonged, Unexplained

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Immigrant advocates said Tuesday they are suing the U.S. government, claiming it is detaining immigrant children too long and improperly refusing to release them to relatives.

A federal lawsuit filed last year in Alexandria, Virginia, was expanded on Friday to propose including the cases of more than 10,000 children.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director of the Immigrant Advocacy Program at the Legal Aid Justice Center, said the Department of Health and Human Services has been slow to release immigrant children to sponsors in the United States and that an agreement to share sponsors' information with deportation officers has deterred some from offering to take the minors.

"Children belong in homes with families, not warehoused in government detention centers," he said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency, which oversees the care and custody of immigrant children stopped on the border, doesn't comment on pending litigation.

The filing on behalf of children and their sponsors comes shortly after a detention camp housing migrant teenagers in Texas was shuttered and amid a partial government shutdown that has dragged for nearly a month over the Trump administration's demand for a wall on the southwest border.

Immigrant children who are stopped on the border alone are placed in the custody of HHS until they are released to screened sponsors in the United States. About 50,000 unaccompanied immigrant children were caught on the southwest border during the last fiscal year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Kayla Vazquez, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said she has been trying to get her husband's 17-year-old cousin released from federal custody since immigration authorities stopped him on the U.S.-Mexico border in August.

Vazquez said she has been repeatedly asked for documents from social workers that her family has already supplied to sponsor the teen, and fears the U.S. government is stalling until he turns 18 and can be transferred to an adult detention facility.

"I feel like they're playing a game and they're just keeping him there to have the family suffer," she told reporters on a conference call. (VOA)

Mexico Pipeline Blast Death Toll Climbs to More Than 70

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - The death toll from Friday’s fuel pipeline explosion in central Mexico has climbed to 73, the governor of the country’s Hidalgo state said.

Governor Omar Fayad also said Saturday at a news conference in Mexico City that at least 74 others were injured.

A leak and the resulting blast were caused by fuel thieves illegally tapping into a gas pipeline in Hidalgo state, officials said.

Video footage showed the fuel gushing into the air and people collecting gasin buckets, garbage cans and other containers before the explosion.

“I urge the entire population not to be complicit in fuel theft,” Fayad said. “Apart from being illegal, it puts your life and those of your families at risk.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has launched a crackdown on fuel theft, called on “the entire government” to assist the people at the site of the explosion.

The government says fuel theft costs the country about $3 billion a year. (VOA)

20 Dead, 60 Burned in Fire at Tap in Mexico Pipeline

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - A huge fire exploded at a pipeline leaking fuel in central Mexico on Friday, killing at least 20 people and badly burning 60 others as locals collected the spilling gasoline in buckets, officials said.

The leak was caused by fuel thieves illegally tapping the pipeline in a small town in the state of Hidalgo, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) north of Mexico City, according to state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

Video footage showed dozens of residents near the town of Tlahuelilpan gathered to collect spilled fuel in buckets, garbage cans and other vessels. Fuel was seen spouting dozens of feet into the air from the tap. Footage then showed flames shooting high into the air against a night sky and the pipeline ablaze.

Hidalgo Gov. Omar Fayad said 20 people were killed immediately and 60 suffered burns in the blast at the duct that carries fuel, apparently gasoline, from the Gulf coast to the Mexico City area.

Pemex attributed the blaze to “the manipulation of an illegal tap.”

Fuel theft crackdown

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has declared an offensive against fuel theft, and on Friday he called on all branches of government to assist the victims.

Hidalgo state police said the leak was first reported about 5 p.m. local time.

“There was a report that residents were on the scene trying to obtain fuel,” according to a police report. Two hours later, the pipeline burst into flames.

Earlier tragedies

It is not the first time such an accident has occurred.

In December 2010, authorities blamed oil thieves for a pipeline explosion in a central Mexico near the capital that killed 28 people, including 13 children.

That blast burned people and scorched homes, affecting 5,000 residents in an area six miles (10 kilometers) wide in San Martin Texmelucan.

Lopez Obrador launched an offensive against the $3 billion per-year fuel theft industry after taking office Dec. 1. Thieves drilled about 12,581 illegal taps in the first 10 months of 2018 and the country has deployed 3,200 marines to guard pipelines and refineries.

The new administration has also shut down pipelines to detect and deter illegal taps, relying more on delivering fuel by tanker truck. But there aren’t enough trucks, and long lines at gas stations have plagued several states. (VOA)

Donald Trump to Address Nation on Government Shutdown and Border Security

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - U.S. President Donald Trump says he will make a major announcement about the government shutdown and border security during an address to the nation Saturday.

Trump said the announcement from the White House would take place at 3 p.m. and would address “the humanitarian crisis on our southern border.”

A standoff between Democrats and Republicans over funding for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border led to a partial government shutdown that isentering its fifth week.

Trump has called for more than $5 billion in taxpayer funding for the wall, while Democrats have offered $1.3 billion in new money for border security, but none specifically for a wall.

Shutdown travel dispute

The dispute over the wall and the government shutdown also led to a dispute between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her plans to travel to Afghanistan.

Pelosi accused the White House on Friday of leaking information about her planned trip to fly commercially to Afghanistan after Trump denied Pelosi the use of a military plane for the trip.

Pelosi said it was “very irresponsible on the part of the president” to release details about her sensitive travel plans, which the State Department said significantly increased the security threat on the ground.

The White House denied leaking Pelosi’s flight plans.

Trump on Thursday revoked the use of a military plane for Pelosi and Democratic members of Congress to fly toAfghanistan to visit U.S. troops and to Brussels to meet with NATO allies. It wasthe latest maneuver in a bitter political battle over the shutdown, which is now the longest such government stoppage in U.S. history.

In a letter to the speaker, the president said that “in light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.”

A spokesperson for Pelosi’s office said the trip would have provided “critical national security and intelligence briefings” as well as served as an opportunity for Pelosi to thank the troops.

The speaker’s office said, “In light of the grave threats caused by the president’s action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to endanger our troops or security personnel.”

The president’s letter did not directly address Pelosi’s call Wednesday for Trump to delay his scheduled Jan. 29 State of the Union address until government funding was restored and the shutdown ended.

“This is completely inappropriate by the president,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters outside Pelosi’s office Thursday. “We’re not going to allow the president of the United States to tell the Congress it can’t fulfill its oversight responsibilities.”

No end in sight to shutdown

The back-and-forth between the White House and the speaker indicated there was no end in sight to the standoff.

“While many Democrats in the House and Senate would like to make a deal, Speaker Pelosi won’t let them negotiate,” Trump said in a speech at the Defense Department. “Hopefully, Democrat lawmakers will step forward to do what is right for our country, and what’s right for our country is border security at the strongest level.”

Democrats insist they will negotiate stronger, more effective border security measures once the government reopens, but that a border wall would be wasteful, ineffective and a blight on America’s image.

Pelosi, the top-ranking congressional Democrat, said Trump’s “insistence on the wall is a luxury we can no longer afford.”

Later Thursday, Trump also canceled a planned trip by a U.S. delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The delegation, consisting of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and presidential assistant Chris Liddell, was scheduled to travel next week.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the president wanted to make sure “his team can assist as needed” during the government shutdown.

Workers missing paychecks

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed a paycheck last week and are set to miss another next week.

“Not only are these workers not paid, they are not appreciated by this administration,” said Pelosi. “We should respect what they do for their country.”

Pelosi’s move on the State of the Union drew sharp criticism from Senate Republicans.

“By disinviting POTUS for SOTU, Pelosi erased any pretext for her unwillingness to negotiate an end to the shutdown. It is personal, pettyand vindictive,” Sen.John Cornyn of Texas tweeted Thursday. (VOA)

Border Patrol Arrests 376 Who Dug Under Barrier in Arizona

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - U.S. authorities said Friday that 376 Central Americans had been arrested in southwest Arizona,the vast majority ofthem families who dug short, shallow holes under a barrier to cross the border.

The group members dug under a steel barrier in seven spots about 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of a border crossing in San Luis and made no effort to elude immigration agents. There were176 children in the group.

Nearly all of those in the unusually large group were from Guatemala. They were taken to Yuma after entering the country Monday.

The area became a major corridor for illegal crossings in the mid-2000s, prompting the federal government to weld steel plates to a barrier made of steel bollards that had been designed to stop people in vehicles, not on foot, Border Patrol spokesman Jose Garibay III said. In those spots, there is no concrete footing to prevent digging.

The group used multiple holes in an apparent effort to get everyone across the border quickly, Garibay said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released photos and video of a long line of migrants standing patiently on a desert road's dirt shoulder after they were stopped.

On Wednesday, the Border Patrol arrested 247 people, mostly from Central America, who turned themselves in to agents in a highly remote part of New Mexico, where authorities have found 25 groups of more than 100 people since October. A group of 115 was found in the same area Thursday.

Large numbers of Guatemalan families and unaccompanied children are surrendering to immigration agents in Antelope Wells, N.M., where 7-year-old Jakelin Caal and her father were found Dec. 6 with 161 others.

Caal started vomiting on the bus ride to the nearest Border Patrol station 94 miles (150 kilometers) away and had stopped breathing by the time she arrived. She died at a hospital in El Paso, Texas.

The southwest Arizona desert is lessremotebut arrests have also sharply increased after years of relative quiet. The Border Patrol's Yuma sector made 7,857 arrests in October and November, more than double the same period a year earlier.

Despite a surge in asylum-seeking families from Central America in recent months, border arrests remain low by historical standards.

The Border Patrol made 396,579 arrests on the Mexican border in fiscal 2018, up30 percent from a 46-year low during the same period a year earlier but still well below a high of more than 1.6 million in 2000.(VOA)

New Caravan of Honduran Migrants Crosses Into Southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY,  LELEMUKU.COM - A group of Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Friday, joining more than 1,000 people who departed Central America in recent days headed to the United States and putting to the test Mexico's vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people.

The cohort crossed into southern Chiapas state before dawn without needing wrist bands that migration officials the day before told migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters.

"The road today was open. ... They didn't give us bracelets or anything, they just let us pass through Mexico migration," said Marco Antonio Cortez, 37, a baker from Honduras traveling with his wife and children, ages 2 and 9.

A migration official at the entry point, who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak to media, said that at least 1,000 people crossed from Guatemala into Mexico by around 5 a.m., without needing wrist bands.

The group proceeded on foot alongside cars on a highway, accompanied by federal police officers.

Mexico's migration institute did not respond to a request for comment.

Groups of migrants departed from El Salvador and Honduras earlier in the week, the latest in a string of caravans of people largely fleeing poverty and violence.

The caravans have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with U.S. President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a wall at the southern border with Mexico.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pursuing a "humanitarian" approach to the problem, vowing to stem the flow of people by finding jobs for the migrants. In exchange, he wants Trump to help spur economic development in the region. (VOA)

Donald Trump Says Wall Will Stop Drugs from Mexico, but Facts Differ

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - In his demands that Congress set aside $5.7 billion for a border wall, President Donald Trump has insisted that a new physical barrier would stop heroin entering the U.S. from Mexico.

"Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border," Trump said in a speech last week about U.S.-Mexico border security.

Trump added in a Tweet the next day: "These numbers will be DRASTICALLY REDUCED if we have a Wall!"

But U.S. statistics, analysts and ongoing testimony at the New York City trial of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman show that most hard drugs entering the U.S. from Mexico come through land border crossings staffed by agents, not open sections of the border.

"We've been gradually beefing up physical barriers along the border for 20 years and have not seen any demonstrable difference in drug flows," said David Shirk, a University of San Diego political science and international relations professor who specializes in U.S.-Mexico relations and border politics. "Drugs come through many ways that are not stopped by a wall, whether it's by boat, submersible, tunnel, catapult, drone."

On the border

The southwestern U.S. border "remains the primary entry point for heroin into the United States," says the Drug Enforcement Administration's 2018 Drug Threat Assessment.

It says most of its heroin seizures on the border are at official crossings called ports of entry, in California, and increasingly in Arizona. It arrives in passenger vehicles, hidden inside their frames and in other places in the cars, followed by tractor-trailers, where the drugs are hidden in legal imported goods.

A much smaller amount of heroin is seized from people who sneak across the border, usually on foot.

"Why bother trekking through the desert with a small amount of the drugs if it's so much easier and faster to drive it through a port of entry?" asked Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, a group that says Trump's wall will not boost border security.

Customs and Border Protection statistics show that 4,813 pounds (2,180 kilograms) of heroin were confiscated at official crossings in the 11-month period ending August 31. The Border Patrol, which patrols the vast areas between the crossings, seized 532 pounds (241 kilograms) of heroin in the same 11 months.

Statistics suggest more bulkier marijuana shipments are smuggled between ports of entry than at them. The Border Patrol seized nearly 440,000 pounds (200,000 kilograms) of pot between crossings during the 11 months, compared with 280,000 pounds (127,000 kilograms) confiscated at crossings.

View from the south

Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official who is now an independent security analyst, says a new wall as a counter-drug strategy is "basically a pointless exercise."

He points to recent drug seizures in Mexico, including 92.5 pounds (42 kilograms) of methamphetamine found Monday at the Tijuana airport just across the border from San Diego with a passenger who brought it hidden in cheese on a commercial flight from the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.

That day, 53 pounds (24 kilograms) of cocaine were found inside the doors of a car intercepted between Monterrey and Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas. And packages containing 64 pounds (29 kilograms) of cocaine were captured in Tuxpan port, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, on a cargo ship from Barranquilla, Colombia bound for New Orleans.

He said it's highly likely that all of those shipments were bound for official border crossings because it would not make sense for them to be rerouted to more remote areas where people cross the border illegally on foot.

Hope said it's harder to say where traffickers had planned to take the 3.7 metric tons of pot that Mexican authorities seized last Friday from a truck intercepted between the cities of Zacatecas and Saltillo in central-northern Mexico.

It could have wound up hidden inside a truck carrying cargo to Texas or smuggled under the border in secret tunnels leading from Mexico to Arizona.

Tunnels

Over the years, tunnels running from Mexico to the U.S. have become an increasingly common way to smuggle drugs by circumventing the many miles of steel bollards and tall fencing already built along the four-state border.

U.S. authorities in August discovered a tunnel stretching from a house in Mexico to an abandoned fast-food restaurant in Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security said it learned in April of a tunnel wide enough to walk through leading from Mexico to a closed Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in San Luis, Arizona, about 200 yards (180 meters) north of the international line.

Since 1990, U.S. officials have discovered at least 230 tunnels, most of them running from Mexico into California and Arizona. It's believed smugglers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the more sophisticated ones with ventilation and lighting.

Planes, trains, and a submarine

Testimony during Guzman's trial made it clear that physical barriers did little to prevent the shipment of his Sinaloa Cartel's drugs to the U.S.

Jurors have heard how the cartel has hidden narcotics in shipments that included cans of jalapeno peppers. A former cartel member detailed an operation in which trains took cocaine stuffed inside compartments of tankers filled with cooking oil from Mexico to New Jersey.

Testimony was presented of the cartel using airplanes to fly cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, which was then offloaded to trucks for transport via official border crossings to cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.

Jurors also watched a video of a cartel submarine carrying 13,000 pounds (some 5,900 kilograms) of cocaine worth more than $100 million. The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted the submarine off Guatemala's coast as it headed north. The Coast Guard has detected dozens of such subs over the years, many bound for Mexico and a trip for the drugs by truck through official border crossings, as well as few found off the U.S. coast in Florida and Texas.

Intercepted cartel text messages presented in court have shown if there is a crisis on the border, as Trump insists, it isn't new. The cartel has moved loads of drugs over the border at legal and illegal crossing points for three decades.

"How are the sales going?" Guzman asked in a 2012 text message to his lover Agustina Cabanillas Acosta, who helped coordinate drug deals.

"Like busy bees," she replied. "Non-stop, love." (VOA)

Martha Erika Alonso and Rafael Moreno Killed in Helicopter Crash Near Puebla

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - A Mexican governor and her senator husband were killed on Monday in a helicopter crash near the city of Puebla in central Mexico, the government said, just days after she had taken office following a bitterly contested election.

Martha Erika Alonso, a senior opposition figure and governor of the state of Puebla, died with Rafael Moreno, a senator and former Puebla governor, when their Agusta helicopter came down on Monday afternoon shortly after take-off, the government said.

Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said the privately owned helicopter was bound for Mexico City and crashed after suffering an unspecified failure in the town of Santa Maria Coronango, about three nautical miles from Puebla airport.

"At this point, there's no evidence that could lead us to conclude that the cause was not related to how the [helicopter] was functioning," Durazo told a news conference.

Alongside the politicians were Captain Roberto Cope and first officer Marco Antonio Tavera, and it is presumed there was a fifth passenger, Durazo said, without giving more details.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Twitter that his government would investigate the accident. Durazo said that the authorities had been in touch with the helicopter and engine manufacturers, who will be at the scene on Tuesday. "We will act with total transparency," he said.

Television images showed the remains of an aircraft in flames, a plume of smoke and people inspecting the scene.

Alonso, from the center-right National Action Party (PAN), took office this month after winning a bad-tempered contest in July. Lopez Obrador's leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) accused her of stealing the election.

Moreno was governor of Puebla between 2011 and 2017 and headed the PAN in the Senate.

An electoral tribunal validated the Puebla result only this month, and opposition politicians called for an independent investigation into the crash due to the charged atmosphere.

Vicente Fox, a former Mexican president and longtime critic of Lopez Obrador, told local television he was troubled by the timing of the accident after the electoral dispute. "Every single doubt must be cleared up," he said.

MORENA and its allies hold a majority in the state congress.

For now, Puebla's interior minister Jesus Rodriguez will be interim governor before elections are held within five months, the Puebla government said.

A number of Mexican politicians have died in aircraft accidents in recent years, including federal interior ministers in 2008 and 2011. The latter two were also members of the PAN. (VOA)

U.S. Consulate in Mexico Attacked with Grenade; No Injuries

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - Mexican authorities are investigating an apparent grenade attack on the U.S. consulate in the city of Guadalajara, officials said Saturday, underscoring the security challenges facing Mexico’s new president.

The attack took place early Saturday morning, local media reported, ahead of the swearing in of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador later in the day.

No one was killed or injured in the attack and Mexican authorities are investigating the matter, according to a U.S. official in Mexico.

Jalisco state prosecutors wrote on their Twitter account that federal authorities had taken over the investigation of the incident.

The state is the home base of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which is considered one of the most powerful gangs in Mexico by U.S. and Mexican authorities.

The gang’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, or “El Mencho” is on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most wanted list.

Violence has surged in Jalisco and across Mexico, which is seeing record levels of killings. Jalisco’s incoming governor, Enrique Alfaro, is set to take power next weekend. (VOA)

Mexico Govt Closes Migrant Shelter Near US Border

MEXICO CITY, LELEMUKU.COM - The city government of Tijuana announced Saturday that it has closed a migrant shelter at a sports complex close to the U.S. border that once held about 6,000 Central Americans who hope to get into the U.S.

Officials said all the migrants were being moved to a former concert venue much farther from the border. The city said in a statement the sports complex shelter was closed because of unsanitary conditions.

Experts had expressed concerns about unsanitary conditions that had developed at the partly flooded sports complex, where the migrants had been packed into a space adequate for half their numbers. Mud, lice infestations and respiratory infections were rampant.

Farther from the border

The remaining migrants were taken by bus to the new shelter about 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the border crossing at Otay Mesa and 14 miles (22 kilometers) from San Ysidro, near where people line up to file applications for asylum in the United States.

Tijuana officials had said earlier that nobody would be forced to move to the new facility, a large building and concrete patio known as El Barretal that was used for concerts and other events until about six years ago. But they also warned they would stop offering food and medical services at the Benito Juarez sports complex.

The new shelter is being run by federal authorities.

New pact to stem migration

Also Saturday, in one of his first acts in office, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signed an agreement with his counterparts from three Central American countries to establish a development plan to stem the flow of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.

The Foreign Ministry said the plan, which includes a fund to generate jobs in the region, aims to attack the structural causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Thousands of migrants, mostly Hondurans, have joined caravans in recent weeks in an effort to speed across Mexico to request refuge at the U.S. border.

Dozens of migrants interviewed by The Associated Press have said they are fleeing poverty and violence in their countries of origin. (VOA)