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.