Mexico: Death Versus Departure

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May 6, 2007: Current population is 104 million people. An average of 495,000 people a year died in Mexico during the years 2000-2005, while an average of 577,000 Mexicans migrated to the United States each year. In 2006 501,000 Mexicans died and 559,000 moved to the US. Bottom line: Since the late 1990s more people leave Mexico each year than die in the entire country.

May 5, 2007: On May 4 the Mexican Army moved into the town and "relieved" 15 local police from duty. Another five were detained by the Army. The government report said that the Mexican Army accused the police of "failing to react" after the ambush occurred. The Mexican Army is treating drug gangs as insurgents and rebels. In this case the gangs struck back at the army.

May 4, 2007: There is evidence drug cartels are using "migrant smuggling" as a cover for shipping drugs to the U.S. Both the US and Mexico identified the Sinaloa drug cartel as "taking over" migrant routes into Arizona. One of the schemes involves cartel thugs stopping would-be migrants. They then tell the migrants when and where the migrants can cross into the US. The migrants distract (decoy) US police and Border Patrol agents who are watching the border.

May 3, 2007: Next year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to build 135 miles of fence in Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley. The fencing will stretch between towns along the lower Rio Grande.

Police reported they found a beheaded body outside of a army base in the city of Tijuana (Bah California Norte state).

May 1, 2007: An army patrol was ambushed in Michoacan state, during counter-drug and counter-crime operations in the region. Five soldiers died, and another four wounded. The attackers used grenades and "heavy weapons" (which may indicate light machine guns).

April 28, 2007: The government reported that another senior police officer was murdered in Acapulco. The policeman was a chief detective working for the state of Guerrero. The reports attributed the murder to the on-going drug war between rival cartels. Acapulco -a sea resort town with many wealthy people- is a major battlefield in the cartel war.