US unveils Mexican consulate in busiest visa city

US unveils Mexican consulate in busiest visa city

The Associated Press
5:31 p.m. November 10, 2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — U.S. State Department officials unveiled a massive new consulate Monday in Ciudad Juarez, a violent Mexican border town that is the world's busiest for immigrant visas.

The $66 million consulate building, under construction since early 2006, will open to the public on Wednesday in this city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Consulate official Laura Dogu said the building has doubled capacity with more than 100 service windows and has made security improvements.

The Juarez consulate is the world's busiest, handling the most immigrant visas of any such facility. It is the only site in Mexico to apply for a U.S. immigrant visa.

The new gray building is several miles from the existing consulate, which sits in a busy part of central Ciudad Juarez. It is well away from crowded neighborhoods plagued by violence amid a bloody power struggle between drug cartels.

Ciudad Juarez, with a population of 1.3 million, sees near daily shootouts and gruesome killings. Seven people were killed Monday, including a man whose burned and headless body was found dumped in front of a police station.

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Burned, cut-up body left at Mexican police station

The Associated Press 3:51 p.m. November 10, 2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Seven people are dead after a string of gruesome attacks in the Mexican border city of Juarez.

State police say a man's burned and headless body was found dumped in front of a police station. His severed hands lay next to his body, each holding kitchen lighters. A note left behind was directed to the Aztecas drug gang.

Police later found two men and two women executed in a sport utility vehicle parked outside a Social Security clinic. And a woman's body was found stuffed in a black trash bag.

Police chased a truck that opened fire on a state vehicle, causing a car crash that killed a bystander and injured four others.

All of the deaths were Monday. Police are investigating.

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I suppose we are going to let another million into the U.S. through this consulate next year....This is so pathetic, something tells me there is no limit on visa's any longer and still no exit program....what a crock!!

Colombian president says Mexico will win drug war

By MARK WALSH, The Associated Press 10:38 p.m. November 9, 2008

MONTERREY, Mexico — Colombian president Alvaro Uribe predicted that Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon's controversial efforts to combat the increasingly violent drug war that is wracking his nation would be successful.

"When you live in a country like Colombia that has already faced that intense fight against crime, one is very happy to see efforts like those of President Calderon," Uribe told business leaders in Monterrey on Sunday night.

Calderon has been criticized for deploying federal troops to the streets to combat violent turf wars between rival drug cartels. The savage battles have left hundreds of people dead and often decapitated across northern and western Mexico. The carnage among police is particularly high, leaving many officers fearful or susceptible to corruption.

Organized crime has become "a profound crisis that is affecting many Latin American countries and particularly Mexico," said Nuevo Leon state governor Jose Natividad Gonzalez. "It's affecting governability."

Uribe emphasized Colombia's own work to slow the flow of drugs and assist U.S. prosecutors, noting that his government had carried out some 900 extradition orders since he took office and has seen crime and kidnappings fall sharply.

Colombia is world's top producer of cocaine, while Mexico has become a major transit point.

Uribe did not say how Mexico would win its drug war, but he and Calderon plan to discuss security issues in Mexico City on Monday.

The business conference Uribe attended in Monterrey will also address energy issues, the significance of growing Asian markets, and U.S. policy under a newly elected President Barack Obama.

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If they get one of those proposed "touch-back" amnesty programs, this is the convenient "super consulate" to which all the illegal Mexicans will be allowed to return to receive "legal visas" to re-enter the US. And, of course, being a "super consulate", it also will be able to handle the paper work for all the relatives of the "new legal immigrants", too!

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Originally Posted by Texas2step

If they get one of those proposed "touch-back" amnesty programs, this is the convenient "super consulate" to which all the illegal Mexicans will be allowed to return to receive "legal visas" to re-enter the US. And, of course, being a "super consulate", it also will be able to handle the paper work for all the relatives of the "new legal immigrants", too!

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I didn't think about that, but I'm sure that is exactly why they built the FIRST and only super consulate right on the border. They have had this planned for a long time now. How long did it take to plan it, get approval, and build it? And it was built much larger than is needed at this time.

I believe Rep. Pence (R-IN) was the author of the original "(country of origin) touchback path to citizenship". Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) spoke of it publically with approval and was set to sponsor the equivalent bill in the Senate before the public backlash became so strong that they abandoned it. Pence, who is young, is now working toward increased power in the Republican Party. Hutchison is a senior Republican. All the Governors and many of the Senators representing the Southwestern states are for increased foreign trade and Open Borders, regardless of their party affiliation.

Armed men kidnap 27 farmworkers in Mexico

By RICARDO GONZALEZ, The Associated Press 7:22 p.m. November 11, 2008

CULIACAN, Mexico — Police hunted Tuesday for 27 farmworkers who were kidnapped in northwestern Mexico by dozens of heavily armed men wearing military-style uniforms.

Assailants roused the farmworkers from bed before dawn Monday at a vegetable farm just outside the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan, then drove off with the group in a caravan of sport utility vehicles, according to a statement from state Attorney General Alfredo Higuera.

The victims, all men between 16 and 61 years old, made less than $10 per day.

Higuera said the motive in the mass kidnapping was still being investigated. But local news media reported that a drug gang may have kidnapped the men to make them work growing marijuana.

The owner of the vegetable camp has family ties to Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a suspected leader of the Juarez drug cartel, according to a statement from the office of joint police and military operations in Culiacan.

Also Tuesday, 21 police were arrested in the northern border city of Tijuana on suspicion of working with criminal gangs, said Rommel Moreno, attorney general of Baja California state, where Tijuana is located. Two of the officers were state police and the rest came from municipal ranks, Moreno said.

Moreno declined to release further details of the case to avoid compromising the investigation.

Police corruption is a key impediment to Mexico's efforts to root out drug gangs and other criminal groups.

More than 4,000 people have been killed across the country this year as cartels battle for drug routes and lash back at President Felipe Calderon's national crackdown on organized crime.

On Tuesday, the body of a 28-year-old man was dumped in an empty lot in the beach resort of Rosarito, outside Tijuana. The victim was still carrying a loaded

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