by Ben Leiter
on November 14, 2011
On the heels of an especially violent summer south of the border, well-known Mexican movie star Diego Luna came to Washington, D.C. in September, not as an actor, but as an advocate for the growing international campaign Stop Gun Smuggling: 3 Things President Obama CAN Do. Luna met with policymakers to promote measures that could curb the flow of assault weapons from the United States into Mexico, saving thousands of Mexican lives, while making U.S. communities safer. Some estimates suggest that as many as 2,000 guns are smuggled across the U.S. border into Mexico every day, and in Diego’s own words:
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by Andrew Carpenter and Jennifer Johnson
on July 21, 2011
Last month, a congressional report noted that a staggering 70% of the weapons recovered in Mexico in 2009 and 2010— and submitted for tracing— originated in the United States, overwhelmingly from Southwest border states. The controversial and highly flawed ATF Operation Fast and Furious has drawn attention to not just the staggering number of firearms that flow over our southern border, but to loopholes and shortcomings in our policies surrounding firearms purchases that have enabled straw purchasers (people who claim to buy weapons for themselves, but then pass them on to criminal groups) and other gun traffickers in the U.S. to channel thousands of weapons to organized crime in Mexico.
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by Juliana Morris
on August 30, 2011
When Ana Pineda* left her small village in Nacaome, Honduras in 2009, she was full of hope: “I had dreams of going to the United States to get a good job and to help support my mother and father.” But her hopes were soon crushed when she was kidnapped by criminal gangs in Coatzalcoalcos, a coastal city in Veracruz, Mexico that is a frequent transit point for Central American migrants. “They brought me to a house in Tamaulipas, Mexico and had me there for four months, imprisoned along with other Central Americans, South Americans, and Mexicans. I was abused, terribly abused. Many of the others were raped, even the men. Thank God I was able to escape.”
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by Jennifer Johnson
on June 23, 2011
Calling for justice for their murdered or disappeared loved ones and peace for the nation, family members representing just a fraction of the 40,000 individuals who have lost their lives since President Calderon initiated his militarized crackdown against organized crime, crisscrossed Mexico in a week-long, 1,550 mile Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity. The caravan arrived at its final destination on Friday, June 9th, in Ciudad Juarez–a city dubbed the epicentro del dolor (epicenter of pain) by caravan leader Javier Sicilia, a Mexican writer and poet whose own son 24-year old son was brutally murdered earlier this year.
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by Andrew Carpenter
on August 24, 2011
Ciudad Juárez police officer Jose Alarcon fled Mexico to the United States in 2008 after a series of horrific events – he himself was injured and his partner killed in a shootout with organized crime, and then he was threatened by criminal gangs when he refused to accept bribes to overlook their activities. Seeking refuge for his family, he sought asylum in the United States, but a Dallas immigration judge denied Alarcon’s request, ruling that this was a “risk that police officers are supposed to take.”
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by Ben Leiter
on May 20, 2011
In 2008, as military operations in Ciudad Juárez surged, Josefina Reyes Salazar, an outspoken critic of pervasive violence against women, summoned her courage and determinedly denounced the militarization in her home state of Chihuahua. Not long after, her son Miguel Ángel was kidnapped by the military and her other son, Julio César, was brutally murdered. Josefina openly blamed the army for the slaying of her son and, despite persistent death threats, tirelessly voiced her demands for justice. In early 2010, Josefina herself was coldly executed by armed gunman on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez.
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