Title 42 ends amid confusion, dash for the border
Migrants headed for the US-Mexico border ahead of the May 11 lifting of Title 42, preferring not to risk the uncertainty of what would replace it.
Title 42 was lifted May 11, but the dash to the border by thousands of migrants came in the days prior to the end of the pandemic-era provision. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 10,000 apprehensions daily leading up to the end of Title 42 on Thursday night – with the numbers dropping afterward.
More than 2.7 million migrants were rapidly expelled from the United States to Mexico or returned to their country of origin under Title 42. The expulsions included persons making multiple attempts at entering. A program of exceptions, meanwhile, allowed some people to enter at the discretion of U.S. port of entry officials – until an app was unveiled to schedule appointments in January.
In Ciudad Juarez, which neighbours El Paso, Texas, observers reported that migrants began abandoning the city and heading for the border as the end of Title 42 neared – not wanting to chance what might follow amid a dearth of clear information from U.S. and Mexican authorities.
“No one is telling us anything official – not in United States and not in Mexico,” said Ramón Domínguez, a pastor and director of a Ciudad Juárez migrant shelter.
Heading for the ‘gates’
In the absence of official information, migrants staying at shelters in Ciudad Juárez started crossing the border, according to Domínguez and other sources. The migrants arriving via bus and atop trains from faraway Mexico City would head immediately for the “puertas” – gates in the border wall, where they would wait on U.S. soil, having crossed the narrow Rio Grande, for Border Patrol agents to admit them.
“(U.S. officials) say: the border is closed, don’t come. But some people are entering,” Domínguez said May 8.
Another source working with migrants in Ciudad Juárez said word of some migrants were being admitted through the gates – for humanitarian reasons – spread via messaging services such as WhatsApp, encouraging others to try the same. The source said:
“It only takes a few people to send a message and make others hopeful that they can get in.”
The source also added frustration with the CBP One app, through which migrants can schedule appointments for presenting themselves at U.S. ports of entry, prompted people to jump the gun. People working with migrants such as Domínguez say crushing demand for the app has left many people unable to get limited spaces – though Domínguez said May 10 that guests in his shelter were suddenly finding success with getting an expanded number of slots.
“The app works. The demand is huge,” the source said. “That’s why people are going to the gates.”
Fallout from migrant detention centre fire
A fire tore through the migration detention facility in Ciudad Juárez on March 27, claiming the lives of 40 migrants – many of whom had been detained in the days leading up to the tragedy. (The Mexican government blamed the migrants for lighting mattresses on fire, while security footage shows guards failing to open the cells where the migrants were trapped.)
Three observers in Ciudad Juárez and another source working with migrants throughout Mexico told this newsletter that migration enforcement in the city and other parts of the country effectively stopped after the fire, prompting increased movement toward the border.
“I think this is the fallout of March 27,” said a source working with migrants.
“The flow to El Paso started after the fire,” said another source in Ciudad Juárez. “There was no enforcement.”
Immigration leniency in southern Mexico?
This newsletter cited sources last week suggesting the National Immigration Institute (INM) in southern Mexico had been issuing documents known as FMMs, allowing migrants 45 days to transit Mexico. The New York Times expanded on subject, citing Mexican immigration data showing the INM had issued 30,000 humanitarian visas between April 2 and May 2 in the southern state of Chiapas, where migrants enter the country from Guatemala, “more than triple the monthly average in the first three months of the year.”
The Times reported:
“Visa numbers increased sharply in the last month as authorities issued them to anyone who asked, according to local humanitarian groups. Instead of detaining migrants without proper documents, as had been the usual practice, migration authorities directed them to a park on the edge of Tapachula to start the visa process.
“On Wednesday, Raul Ortiz, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, said he didn’t believe that the increase in visas being issued was contributing to the build up at the border.”
Mexico reported a 42% increase in irregular migration during the first three months of 2023, when compared to the same period of 2022 – 111,505 people versus 78,439 – according to the newspaper Reforma. Most were from Venezuela.
Biden on Mexico: ‘Overwhelming cooperation’
Other analysts cited another factor for the increasing numbers other than the fire: Mexico negotiating migration enforcement with the United States.
The U.S. government has unveiled plans for restricting access to asylum post Title 42. The new rules force migrants to apply for appointments via the CBP ONE app or to request asylum in one of the countries they passed through prior to reaching the United States. New migrant processing hubs are planned in the Western Hemisphere, in addition to centres already announced for Guatemala and Colombia.
After an hour-long conversation with AMLO, President Joe Biden told reporters, “We’ve got an overwhelming cooperation from Mexico.”
AMLO said Thursday that Mexico was sending additional security forces to its southern border with Guatemala.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Friday there were 10,000 migrants in Ciudad Juárez and 5,500 in Matamoros. He added:
“Mexico has let it be known that it would not be able to, in any situation, receive more than 1,000 people daily. We cannot, we don’t have the capacity, nor will we accept them. … They no this; we’re not going to accept more than this number because we wouldn’t be able to.”
Somewhat quietly, the INM announced the closure of 33 provisional migration stations and said it would stop issuing FMM documents. The INM insisted the closures would allow the National Human Rights Commission to carry out inspections and issue a special report. The INM also closed a special facility in Tapachula for regularizing migrants.
More migration to come?
Mexico reported 2.7 million people expelled to Mexico during the three years and two months that Title 42 was in effect. Sixty percent of those returned were Mexican.
The push factors in Central and South America and the Caribbean also remain: rising authoritarianism, increasing violence and the usual poverty. The Wall Street Journal also cited another factor: Venezuelans who left the failing country years ago for other parts of South America have been looking northward. The Journal reported:
“Most Venezuelans in Colombia are staying put, having started businesses or found steady work, advocates for the migrants say. A Colombia Migration agency report from October showed that 1.6 million were authorized to live and work in the country.
“But Venezuelan migrants, advocacy groups and academics who track migration say that there is a noticeable policy shift in Colombia now that President Gustavo Petro, a leftist former guerrilla, is in office. And the October government report, which the government removed from the Migration Colombia website as it reviews its figures, showed there were a million Venezuelans without documentation or in the process of accessing papers.”
FENTANYL IS PRODUCED IN MEXICO – CONTRARY TO WHAT AMLO SAYS
AMLO has infamously stated that fentanyl is not produced in Mexico. He’s also insisted that talk of fentanyl in the United States is little more than politicking, in which Mexico reverts to its usual role as a punching bag ahead of elections (though AMLO is careful to never criticize former president Donald Trump for the latter’s discourteous comments toward Mexico.)
The president recently tapped Navy secretary Admiral José Rafael Ojeda Durán with dismissing a recent report from Sky News, showing how chemical precursors are transported from China to Sinaloa state and cooked up into fentanyl in clandestine labs. Ojeda insisted the report showed something other than fentanyl being produced due to the carelessness of the fentanyl cooks. (See last week’s newsletter for details.)
Sinaloa journalist Miguel Ángel Vega, who fixed the story for Sky News, retorted in a story for the newspaper El Universal, “The reality is that those preparing the drug don’t have adequate training to handle the chemicals and many of them die in the process.”
Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsay described the two cooks at a clandestine lab as “just 18 and 19 years old.” He wrote in his report:
“At the end of the cooking process, they pick up their handguns from the tree and start firing bullets at rocks to pass the time. The elder of the boys picks up his gun and prepares to stick it in his belt, forgetting it is cocked and loaded. There is a loud bang, and a howl of pain. He’s shot himself in the hand.”
‘The fixer’
Vega is a fixer, who works with most of the foreign journalists visiting Sinaloa – including the author of this newsletter on a reporting trip in 2017 for the Guardian. His access to areas controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel is unmatched and his sources are solid.
He wrote in his report for El Universal:
“As could be seen during an access granted to this reporter and to the British outlet Sky News, in order to move the drugs safely, the cartel constantly monitors members of the navy and army. They maintain a network of young monitors, called ‘pointers,’ who follow them wherever they go while reporting via walkie talkies. …
“If the navy marines go toward where there the drugs will be moved, in the case of these precursors, the entire criminal structure stops the time that is necessary, even days. But once they’re notified (the marines) have left for other areas, the trafficking restarts.”
RUSSIA EXPANDS ‘DIPLOMATIC’ PRESENCE IN MEXICO
A new Russian ambassador arrived in Mexico earlier this month, announcing his arrival with a social media video promoting the so-called “Russian concept of a multipolar world” which would “reinforce our cooperation with Mexico.”
The video found a warm welcome from parts of AMLO’s MORENA party and the usual suspects at La Jornada, which has promoted pro-Russian, anti-NATO positions throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it also coincided with the rapid expansion of staff at the Russian Embassy, according to reporting by journalist Dolia Estévez.
Writing in the publication Eje Central, Estévez cited foreign ministry documents showing 85 Russian diplomats currently accredited in Mexico – up from the 49 diplomats in the country prior to the Ukraine invasion. That figure compares to 11 Mexican diplomats in Moscow. It also surpasses all other countries with missions in Mexico. The United States by comparison has 46 diplomats at its embassy in Mexico City.
Estévez noted: “It’s an open secret that Russia abuses the diplomatic figure to infiltrate spies.” She also quoted former U.S. deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in Mexico City, Ambassador John Feeley, who observed:
“Mexico is a very convenient place for Russian handlers to hold periodic meetings with their undercover agents that they have in the United States. They can travel to Cancún as tourists and interview them without risking entry to the United States.”
MORENA-led congress disavows Zelenskyy address
Russia’s new ambassador also arrived shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a video address to the lower house of Congress. Zelensky thanked Mexico for its support at the UN, where the country has voted for motions condemning Russian annexations and withdrawing troops from Ukraine. But he also alluded to the ambivalence toward the Ukrainian cause in Latin America, stating:
“I want to now be absolutely sincere with you: the world is unfortunately still full of hypocrisy. Russia says it supposedly wants peace, even though Russian killers are still in our territory and taking the lives of our people daily. …
“There are also leaders, who have not visited Ukraine even once and have not seen what Russian aggression brought here and why it is important to defend life, but simply to achieve some populist (trope) that says Ukraine supposedly isn’t ready to pursue peace.”
Opposition audience only
Zelensky spoke to a mostly opposition audience gathered in a side room, while the members of the ruling MORENA party and its allies carried on other business in the main chamber. Lawmaker Gerardo Fernández Noroña – a shit disturber affiliated with the quasi-communist PT (a MORENA ally) and frequent visitor to Venezuela – demanded the resignation of Santiago Creel, the National Action Party (PAN) speaker of the lower house, for allowing the speech.
Ignacio “Nacho” Mier, MORNEA leader and head of the political coordination board overseeing the lower house, issued a statement afterward disavowing the Zelensky speech, stating
“It is not a message to the Mexican Congress, but a forum for a friendship group, and all the expressions indicated there are in a personal capacity.”
The friendship group in question was the Mexico-Ukraine friendship group, one many that exist in Congress. The groups include a Mexico-North Korea friendship – in which a PT member spoke of “the importance of this friendship group because North Korea is a country that has generated great changes in defence of its sovereignty,” according to a Congress bulletin – and Mexico-Russia friendship group.
The latter met early on after the Russian invasion of Ukraine – with the Russian ambassador to Mexico insisting, “Russia didn’t start this war, it’s ending it.”
AMLO’s indifference toward Ukraine
AMLO infamously presented a peace plan for Ukraine in September 2022, which proposed a five-year ceasefire and nominated the UN secretary-general, president of India and Pope Francis as mediators. A Zelenskyy representative branded it a “Russian plan.”
The Mexican president has largely displayed displeasure with NATO for backing Ukraine. He also chided Biden for welcoming Zelensky to the United States with the words, “Welcome to America,” pettily pointing out that “América” is all of the hemisphere rather than just the United States of America. “What happened President Biden, with all due respect,” he said, “we are all America.”
LOS ‘AMIGOS DE ANDY’
AMLO has promoted austerity throughout his administration – something he considers an anecdote to corruption and a practice that analysts say reflects a belief that austerity is a synonym for honesty.
The president often makes periodic pleas of poverty, pulling out his wallet to show he carries little cash and doesn’t have credit cards. It’s effective in a country where politics is considered a path riches and many politicians (including AMLO’s allies) boast inexplicable fortunes.
The president has also urged young people to avoid the trappings of money, telling them after El Chapo’s conviction in 2019, “True happiness isn’t money, isn’t in material things, isn’t in cheap luxury, isn’t in fame”.
AMLO’s sons and some of his close collaborators fail to share his fondness for austerity – which he promotes as “republican austerity” and “Franciscan poverty.” In an exposé, journalist Carlos Loret de Mola and reporters at Latinus – who the president rails against frequently – showed the friends of one of the president’s sons, Andrés López Beltrán profiting handsomely from government contracts for the redevelopment of the new Mexico City airport on Lake Texcoco, which AMLO had canceled upon taking office. Loret de Mola, wrote in El Universal:
“Los amigos de Andy have become privileged contractors of his father’s government. …To begin with, they were left with a juicy business due to the cancellation of the Texcoco airport.”
In an investigation for Latinus, the Loret de Mola team showed “Los amigos de Andy,” receiving contracts worth more than $100 million pesos (more than $5 million) through a series of shell companies and bidding processes with “simulated” competition. The contracts were for redeveloping what was supposed to be a major international airport, which was roughly one-third completed when construction was halted by AMLO upon taking office, arguing the project was rife with corruption.” The site is instead being redeveloped as an ecological park.
The other ‘Casa Gris
Anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) – which AMLO accused of being against his government in a letter to Biden, demanding it lose USAID funding – followed the Latinus report with an investigation showing another of the president’s sons was living large.
The MCCI report showed José Ramón Beltrán and his family residing in a property in the Coyoacán borough of Mexico City owned by the personal assistant of the director of the newspaper La Jornada. The newspaper produces relentlessly pro-AMLO coverage and ranks among the three biggest advertising contracts of the current federal government, according to MCCI, despite La Jornada having limited circulation.
Figures presented by MCCI show La Jornada receiving government advertising worth 368 million pesos throughout the six-year Peña Nieto administration – a figure jumping to 750 million pesos during the first three years of AMLO’s government.
AMLO: My sons are not corrupt
MCCI previously showed José Ramón López Beltrán living in the Woodlands near Houston, enjoying a home owned by an executive with a Pemex contractor. Latinus previously reported the army obtained medicines for López Beltrán during the COVID pandemic, which were not yet approved by COFEPRIS, Mexico’s version of the FDA.
López Obrador reacted viscerally to the reports on his sons. He insisted at his May 4 morning press conference:
“Do the math. Watch the report. It’s nothing. It’s desperation. It’s calumny. … These contracts must exist. But my sons have nothing to do with them. My sons are not corrupt.”
The defence secretary’s luxury trips
Another MCCI investigation, citing hacked emails obtained through Guacamaya Leaks, found defence secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval travelling often with family – and often in luxury on military jets or first class tickets. Sandoval and family took luxury trips to New York City, Moscow, Italy and the Dominican Republic, which often including sporting events, shopping excursions and stays in luxury hotels.
AMLO, who repeatedly has implemented belt-tightening in the federal government – to the point that employees cannot charge their cellular phones at work – responded to the investigation with bemusement. “So what,” he said at his morning press conference. “What is the problem?”
CURIOUS CRIME FIGURES
Are some Mexican states recording suspicious crime figures? Anti-crime NGO Causa en Común issued a recent report, which noted, “Even taking into account the ‘cifra negra’ of unreported crimes (93%), some statistics could show manipulation or concealment of information.”
It observed a 10% increase in victims and a 7% increase in common crimes during first quarter of 2023, when compared to the same period of 2022. But some figures didn’t square, according to the report. It cited as examples during the first quarter of 2023:
Sinaloa reported 185 victims of “other crimes against life and personal integrity,” in comparison with 136 victims of intentional homicide (first degree murder) and 130 disappeared persons.
Sinaloa also reported just 67 cases of drug dealing in the entire state; Tamaulipas reported 61 cases and Zacatecas 113 cases. All three states are notorious for organized crime activity. León, Guanajuato, in comparison, reported 4,642 cases.
Zacatecas reported an 84% reduction in victims of extortion.
Mexico State, Mexico’s most populous state with a population of more than 15 million, recorded 25 kidnapping victims versus 1,475 victims of “other crimes against personal liberty.”
Tlaxcala only reported 3 cases of family violence in the first quarter of 2023 – a 97% reduction over the previous year.
López Obrador responded to the report by accusing Causa en Común director María Elena Morera of being friends with convicted former public security secretary Genaro García Luna – who oversaw the creation of the Federal Police, a force AMLO disbanded in 2019. (Causa en Común is known for its work promoting improved policing and keeps a count of murdered police officers in Mexico.)
HOW ‘LOS CHAPITOS’ CAME TO DOMINATE FENTANYL PRODUCTION
Collectively known as Los Chapitos, or “the little Chapos,” the four siblings were once mocked by adversaries as entitled princelings more concerned with flashing their wealth on Instagram than the grubby work of moving tons of cocaine into the United States. Yet the brothers have resuscitated a drug empire teetering after their father was locked behind U.S. bars and diversified the business by embracing a new line of synthetic drugs.
Their early bet on fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin, helped supercharge an opioid epidemic that has placed them squarely in the crosshairs of American anti-narcotics agents.
HIGHWAY THEFTS SKYROCKET
Highway thefts cost Mexican companies an estimated 5.8 billion pesos in 2022 ($289 million) – an increase of roughly 45% of 2021, according to a survey from the Nuevo León Transformation Industry Chamber (CAINTRA) of its members. Railway thefts, meanwhile, increased to 710 million pesos, more than double the amount lost the previous year.
Some 35% of CAINTRA members reported thefts on highways in Mexico State and Puebla, while 31% reported thefts on roadways in the state of Veracruz.
AMLO TRASHES MEDIA REPORTING ON MILITARY SPYING
“Mexican President López Obrador’s recent attempts to discredit journalist Nayeli Roldán, three critical news outlets, and Article 19 are more proof that his administration prefers harassing journalists over solving the country’s catastrophic press freedom crisis.”