Dee Margo warned Donald Trump that closing the border would have a ‘detrimental, almost draconian’ impact on the region
The Republican mayor of El Paso, the largest American city on the US border with Mexico, has warned Donald Trump that if he goes ahead this week with his threat to close the border it would have a “detrimental, almost draconian” impact on the entire region.
“It would be a critical killer to us, frankly”, the mayor, Dee Margo, said.
Continue reading...President says there is a ‘good likelihood’ he will close border this week if Mexico does not stop immigrants from reaching US
US consumers would run out of avocados in three weeks if Donald Trump makes good on his threat to close down the US–Mexico border.
Trump said on Friday that there was a “very good likelihood” he would close the border this week if Mexico did not stop immigrants from reaching the United States.
Continue reading...The Trump administration reiterated on Sunday the president’s threat to close the border with Mexico, regardless of potentially severe consequences for the US economy.
Related: Under the bridge: migrants held in El Paso tell of dust, cold and hunger
Continue reading...A new migrant caravan of about 2,500 people is making its way through southern Mexico, headed for the US border, facing greater heat – and a much cooler welcome – than last year’s caravans.
The caravan walked past the city of Huixtla in the southern state of Chiapas on Monday, but police were lined up to keep them moving along a highway outside the town, and did not let them enter – a contrast to last year, when caravans were allowed to stay in the city center.
Continue reading...Even in a country long-used to violence, the cowardly 2017 murder of the Mexican journalist Javier Valdez prompted outrage: reporters held protests, news outlets stopped publishing for a day and the then president, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised that the crime would not go unpunished.
But barely 10 days after Valdez was pulled from his car and shot dead, his widow Griselda Triana was targeted for surveillance with spyware which had been purchased by the Mexican government.
Continue reading...Carrie Gibson has written an exhaustive corrective to historians who seek to whitewash a story of settlement and conflict
The subtitle of Carrie Gibson’s book is The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America. El Norte lives up to it.
Related: These Truths review: Jill Lepore's Lincolnian American history
Continue reading...President’s 2020 plan signals intent to reignite a political fight that has already led to a record 35-day partial government shutdown
Donald Trump’s latest budget request, which demands billions of dollars for a border wall at the expense of social safety nets and environmental protections, was dismissed on Monday as “dead on arrival” and “breathtaking in its degree of cruelty”.
Related: Fox News condemns host Jeanine Pirro's attack on Ilhan Omar – live
Continue reading...Experts say officials have failed to acknowledge violence and instability in Central America and say system of ‘metering’ is not working
A staggering increase in the number of families apprehended at the US-Mexico border in February has highlighted the Trump administration’s failure to respond to the rise in Central Americans seeking protection in the US.
In February, 66,450 people were apprehended at the US-Mexico border by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency announced on Tuesday – 17,800 more than were apprehended in January and double the number who were apprehended in February last year.
Continue reading...Residents of Tlaxiaco say Yalitza Aparicio, up for best actress at the Oscars, has given indigenous Mexicans renewed sense of pride
A couple of young flautists are practising scales in a small windowless room at Tlaxiaco’s Casa de Cultura. The rest of the town band are rehearsing a competition routine with a troop of young folkloric dancers – including Yalitza Aparicio’s two younger brothers – in the grand courtyard, decorated with murals depicting the town’s pre-Hispanic Mixtec warriors and artists.
Aparicio is nominated for best actress at the Oscars, taking place on Sunday, for her astonishing portrayal of a nanny in Alfonso Cuarón’s acclaimed film Roma. If successful, the 25-year-old Mexican, who worked as teacher before she was discovered almost by accident at a casting call held at the cultural centre, will be the first indigenous winner of the award.
Continue reading...Coalition led by California accuses the president of ‘unilaterally robbing taxpayer funds’
A coalition of 16 US states led by California has launched legal action against Donald Trump’s administration over his decision to declare a national emergency in order to fund a wall along the Mexico border.
The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the US district court for the northern district of California after Trump invoked emergency powers on Friday when Congress declined his request for $5.7bn to help create his signature policy promise.
Continue reading...Bar attacked near hotel zone amid rising drug-related violence in the Caribbean resort city
Five people have been shot dead and five more wounded in Cancún after gunmen burst into a bar in the Mexican resort city and opened fire.
Quintana Roo state prosecutors said the attack on Saturday took place in a club called La Kuka, on a main avenue in central Cancún about 6km (4 miles) away from the Caribbean resort city’s seaside tourist hotel zone, situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.
Continue reading...Aparicio, the first indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, responds to Sergio Goyri’s ‘fucking Indian’ remark
The Oscar-nominated Mexican actor Yalitza Aparicio, who stars in the critically acclaimed film Roma, said on Saturday she was proud of her indigenous roots, after a soap opera star used a racial slur to describe her.
Related: Why Roma should win the best picture Oscar
Continue reading...Donald Trump has declared a national emergency to secure extra funding for his wall at the US-Mexico border. Trump’s decision came after weeks of wrangling over his campaign promise, which led to a record 35-day partial government shutdown, damaging his approval rating.
• Trump declares national emergency to build US-Mexico border wall
Continue reading...The deaths show the vulnerability of migrants forced to ‘remain in Mexico’ under new US policy for asylum seekers
On a Saturday afternoon in December, three Honduran boys walked out through the gates of the blue stucco YMCA shelter for unaccompanied child migrants in Tijuana, and turned past the gas station next door on to Cuauhtémoc Boulevard for a walk.
Their destination was a sports centre-turned-migrant camp to visit people they’d met travelling north with a caravan of other Central Americans.
Continue reading...Plan may divert billions from projects such as counterdrug efforts, has been condemned by Democrats and activists
Donald Trump has defied fierce criticism to announce that he is using emergency powers to bypass Congress and pursue the building of a wall on the US-Mexico border.
At a combative, rambling and at times incoherent press conference in the White House, the US president insisted he had no choice but to declare a national emergency to stop illegal immigrants spreading crime and drugs.
Continue reading...President is expected to sign bill but has vowed emergency action to build border wall with Mexico
Donald Trump has vowed to declare a national emergency as a way of funding his long-promised border wall with Mexico, as Congress overwhelmingly approved a border security agreement that would prevent a second damaging government shutdown.
After days of uncertainty, Trump announced his intention to support the massive $333bn-spending package, which includes on a sliver of what he sought for a steel wall. The Senate moved quickly, approving the bill in a vote of 83-16. Hours later the House passed the legislation, 300-128. Trump is expected to seal the deal with his signature on Friday, while at the same time declaring a national emergency.
Continue reading...The nearly half a century old ‘war on drugs’ shows no sign of ending, and neither does the illegal drug trade
Standing on the steps of the Brooklyn courthouse amid flurries of sleet and snow, US attorney Richard Donoghue hailed the conviction of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as a famous victory in America’s longest conflict.
“There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong,” he said.
Continue reading...Guzman’s dramatic trial showed how the cartels that traffick most of the world’s drugs today do not honour the mafia code of omertà
When Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is sentenced on 25 June, he will most likely be sent to US maximum-security prison from which there will be no more tunnels and no more escapes.
Guzmán was convicted on all 10 charges after years of painstaking behind-the-scenes work by US Department of Justice prosecutors who cut deals with captive drug traffickers to get their man.
Continue reading...Joaquín Guzmán, 61, could spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted following three-month New York trial
The notorious cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been found guilty of 10 counts of drug trafficking, at the end of a three-month New York trial that featured dramatic testimony of prison escapes, gruesome killings and million-dollar political payoffs.
Related: Behind the El Chapo trial: what's been left unsaid in a New York courtroom
Continue reading...Donald Trump and potential presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke held rallies in El Paso, Texas, on Monday night offering their contrasting views on Trump's US-Mexico border wall. The president addressed his crowd in front of a big US flag along with three 'finish the wall' banners. Meanwhile nearby, O'Rourke told supporters El Paso was, 'safe not because of walls but in spite of walls'.
Continue reading...