Mexico challenges U.S. over structures

Embassy occupying street, officials say

By Mark Stevenson

ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:00 a.m. March 25, 2009

MEXICO CITY – The drug war. Immigration reform. Escalating violence along the border. As if Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't have enough to worry about on her first visit to Mexico as secretary of state, some leading leftists accuse the United States of stealing a city street in the nation's capital.

The U.S. Embassy has illegally occupied the side street, they say, with metal barricades and a sheet-metal canopy erected years ago to provide order and shade for an estimated 2,000 Mexicans applying each day for U.S. visas.

As Mexico prepares for midterm elections in July, the issue has become, well, political.

“It seems to me to be a lack of respect, and it is also a violation of national sovereignty,â€