Migration and Mourning

On Latino USA today Maria Hinajosa brought up a recent survey by the PEW Research Foundation dated September 1, 2010, which noted a drop in the number of immigrants to the US: “The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the U.S. was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005. This decline contributed to an overall 8% reduction in the unauthorized immigrant population, which fell to 11.1 million in 2009 from 12 million in 2007.” The population is more geographically dispersed than in the past, but most still live in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and New Jersey. Illinois numbers are still considerable at approximately 525,000 unauthorized workers. It doesn’t distinguish between rural and urban Illinois, or take into account the increasingly dangerous character of migration.

Echoes of mourning following the Zetas mass murder of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas (21 Hondurans, 12 Salvadorans, a Brazilian, 5 Guatemalans) are still ringing in the press in Mexico and the US. In fact this event occurred during our Fulbright Orientation in Mexico City. A handful of students and scholars researching immigration discussed this horrendous event on our way to the reception at the residence of Carlos Pascual, the US ambassador to Mexico. Here we ate abundant hors d’oeuvre and speculated that his late arrival and visible fatigue were products of the aftermath of this event. The ambassador did not comment on it that night (perhaps not wanting to ruin the festive atmosphere), but the next day, near the end of our orientation, we heard a lecture on security that put into context the escalation in violence in and beyond border regions. He discussed the recent US decision to send children of US diplomats in Monterrey home due to a recent wave of kidnappings and strongly suggested that we not travel in five border states. He discussed the fact that more than 28,000 people have died since President Calderon came to office in late 2006 and deployed the armed forces to battle drug cartels, emphasizing the fact that Calderón’s strategy over the last four years to take out cartel leaders (like “Nacho” in Zapopan, Jalisco and “La Barbie” in the state of Mexico) has paradoxically led to the cartel’s continued struggle for power. Each time a cartel leader is taken out, violence escalates as cartels scramble to replace him. The most violent cartels in his mind are the Sinaloa and the Zetas (the Zetas are former military who were largely trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Bennington Georgia). Governments cannot end underground networks (much like the mafia in the US), he argued, but there needs to be a more direct way to confront the cartels.

A few things came to my mind as I listened to the lecture. I was reminded of how much the US is wrapped up and responsible for the drug demand (which is comparatively little in Mexico itself) as well as for the education of some cartel members (especially the Zetas). I also thought a bit - as I'm sure other members of the group did - about how my own plans might change throughout the year. American scholars definitely do NOT rank up there as targets for cartels, but I will be more caution in my travels and also make the greatest effort possible to understand the complex forces at work on regional, national and international levels to create this situation. Friends have also reminded me that one of my aims is to bring out the human sides of this tragedy.

The Tamaulipas story definitely puts the intersection between migrants and drug cartels in the spotlight. In an August 30 story on NPR, Jason Beaubien writes that Mexico's Human Rights Commission report released last year stated that “20,000 migrants are kidnapped annually trying to cross the country. Another 60,000 are detained by the Mexican immigration authorities and deported. Hundreds of thousands more make it to the United States and then try to get past the U.S. border patrol.”

Finally, I would like to include recent US State Department reports on cartel-related violence in Jalisco. By doing so, please note that I'm not intending to frighten my readers, who come from a variety of backgrounds in terms of their knowledge of Mexico, but rather to inform them about events in Mexico through a variety of perspectives -- both hopeful and less hopeful, and put my finger on the pulse of political and historical predicaments shared by Mexico and the US.

In the afternoon of August 16, an SUV was the target of 20 rounds from an AK-47 near the entrance to El Cielo golf club in Guadalajara.

On August 17, two local government officials were shot and killed with multiple rounds from automatic weapons, including AK-47 and AR-15 rifles, after an extended vehicle chase along the road from Guadalajara to the tourist destination of Mazamitla.

Due to recent gun battles involving automatic weapons between rival drug trafficking organizations in Yahualica, Jalisco, the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara has suspended all travel to the city of Yahualica by U.S. government personnel including family members.

This new restriction is in addition to previous security restrictions on official U.S. government travel within the consular district: no intercity driving at night; all official US government travel to the city of Tepic, Nayarit must be in armored vehicles. While these restrictions apply only to U.S. government personnel and their families, all resident US citizens and visitors are encouraged to take these restrictions into consideration when planning personal travel.

On August 25, 2010 a targeted fragmentation grenade attack occurred inside a bar near downtown Puerto Vallarta. At least 15 victims were hospitalized as a result of the severe injuries. Located within a few blocks of the main boardwalk frequented by thousands of American tourists annually, this same neighborhood is also home to multiple expatriate American citizens


Source articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/world/americas/02migrants.html?_r=1

http://immigration.change.org/blog/view/abduction_bombings_follow_massacre_of_migrants_in_mexico

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/08/roots-of-organized-crime.html

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/30/99885/mexico-arrests-la-barbie-accused.html#ixzz0yqebgF2Q


Stratfor Global Intelligence Security Report
August 30, 2010 | 2106 GMT
Mexico Security Memo: Aug. 30, 2010

Escalation in Tamaulipas

Several organized crime-related events over the course of the past week have brought both national and international attention to the northeastern Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. The week began with the discovery of the bodies of 72 Central and South American migrants executed by members of Los Zetas in an abandoned ranch building outside the city of San Fernando on Aug. 24. The same day in Reynosa, firefights erupted between members of Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel and resulted in roadblocks in 11 major intersections throughout the city, involving some 31 tractor-trailers and other large vehicles. Three days later in the early morning hours of Aug. 27, two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) concealed in two separate vehicles detonated outside the local Televisa offices and the Municipal Transit Police offices in Ciudad Victoria. Again in Reynosa on Aug. 28, three explosive devices, likely hand grenades, detonated separately in different parts of the city, injuring 15 civilians, nine of whom had to be hospitalized due to their injuries. One of the grenades detonated some 250 meters (270 yards) from the Reynosa-Hidalgo International Bridge, and the Reynosa city government asked those traveling to the United States to divert to other international bridges at Pharr and Mission, Texas. The other explosions occurred outside the La Quebradita bar near the intersection of Calle Juarez and Colon. Lastly, the mayor of Hidalgo, Tamaulipas, Marcos Antonio Leal Garcia, was ambushed and assassinated on the afternoon of Aug. 29 by a group of armed men as he left his home with his 10-year-old daughter, who was injured in the assault.

This laundry list of events is indicative of the escalation of tactics and activity of organized criminal groups operating in Tamaulipas, namely Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel. Mexican Interior Secretary Jose Francisco Blake announced Aug. 30 that he will meet with Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez Flores in the coming days to discuss sending additional federal forces to the region to help combat this surge in violence and also to boost intelligence-gathering efforts aimed at dismantling these criminal networks.

With the coming increase in Mexican federal forces to the region, government operations against these groups can obviously be expected to increase. However, one side effect that has occurred with previous deployments of federal forces — namely Coordinated Operation Chihuahua — to cartel hot spots has been a subsequent increase in violence, especially between criminal groups. Government-led blows to one criminal organization have prompted rival groups to attempt to fill the criminal power vacuum, which has led to further violence as government-targeted groups try to defend their home territory from their encroaching rivals — and their rivals try to hit them when they are down. Therefore, further escalation in tactics (possibly larger IEDs or a change in targeting to inflict casualties), tempo of fighting and attacks are likely to increase throughout Tamaulipas state and the region.

Los Zetas Take Another Hit in Monterrey

Members of the Mexican military struck another blow against the Los Zetas organization in Monterrey on the morning of Aug. 27 with the fourth arrest of a head of the organization in the city in three months. Juan Francisco Zapata Gallegos, aka El Billy or El Pelon, was detained after a brief firefight with the Mexican military, which was acting on an anonymous complaint about criminal activity in the town of Juarez, just southeast of Monterrey. Several members of Los Zetas attempted a rescue operation to free Zapata Gallegos, but the Mexican army was able to fight off the counterattack and kill four Zetas. After the failed rescue operation, several major intersections throughout the Monterrey metropolitan area were blocked using large vehicles, a tactic that has been increasingly used by Los Zetas when a senior high-value member has been threatened or captured, in an attempt to impede the extraction of the Zeta leader by Mexican security forces to Mexico City.

The senior leadership of Los Zetas in Monterrey has been heavily targeted over the past three months beginning with the capture of Los Zetas leader Hector “El Tori” Luna Luna on June 9, followed by the capture of his replacement and brother, Esteban “El Chachis” Luna Luna, on July 7. Esteban’s replacement, El Sonrics, was subsequently killed in a car chase and firefight with the Mexican military, and now El Sonric’s replacement, Zapata Gallegos, has followed his predecessors in a similar fashion. This continual disruption to the Los Zetas organization has led many to speculate that the security environment will continue to deteriorate in and around Monterrey. These developments have led the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey to authorize the departure all dependents and to ban employees from bringing any minor dependents with them to Monterrey.

The continual loss of senior leadership has added yet another point of pressure to the Los Zetas organization, and this pressure has caused the organization to lose control of its main source of income, drug trafficking. It has also forced Los Zetas to fight rivals such as the Gulf cartel and the New Federation for control of Monterrey and the surrounding region, which costs a tremendous amount of resources. In fact, under these circumstances it is becoming increasingly likely that Los Zetas will turn to other criminal operations, most likely kidnapping for ransom and extortion, to supplement their lost income.