New Mexico Mercury

Uniting Frontiers: The Cabalgata Binaciónal Villista

It’s early morning on March 8 and some thirty or forty Mexican riders and horses are working their way through US Customs at Palomas, Mexico. This is the fifteenth annual Cabalgata Binaciónal Villista or Binational Villa Cavalcade, an effort to unify a border that has often been in conflict, no more so than on March 9, 1916 when General José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known as Pancho Villa – ordered about 100 of his soldiers to cross the border and raid Columbus, New Mexico...

Insight New Mexico - Dr. Jose Armas

V.B. Price talks with Dr. Jose Armas, longtime journalist and expert on Latino Affairs, about the Martinez administration's track record on public education, immigration policy, local business investment, Tesla and more.

The ACLU’s Border Checkpoint

Driving on 1-25 north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, motorists are forced to detour through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint set up to enforce immigration and drug laws.  Often, a friendly agent will ask the vehicle occupant (s) to affirm U.S. citizenship status before sending the traveler on his or her way.  Occasionally, agents will simply peer into a car and wave travelers on without first asking questions. Other times, drivers are asked to pull over for a vehicle search that might include a go-over by a dope-sniffing dog.

On Wednesday, March 19, travelers heading north on 1-25 encountered another checkpoint for the first time ever: the “Know your Rights Checkpoint” organized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)...

The Deportee Chronicles: Life After Diesel Therapy

Fernando Santos’ life these days doesn’t exactly fit his old nickname:“Drifter.” Instead of wandering the land, the former U.S. resident takes care of others who answer the call of the road at the budget hotel he manages in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

An easy-going man with a stocky build and a ready laugh to boot, Santos says he could never imagine how his life would eventually turn out when he was a young man gangbanging on the streets of Los Angeles and Denver...

The Deportee Chronicles: The Girl from Guajajalmiton

More than 768,000  people were deported from the United States during 2012 and  2013  alone.  While mass media coverage of the ongoing immigration debate focuses on events in Washington and other parts of the United States, little attention has been paid to the lives of people in Mexico and other counties who have already been deported.

A large group of people who were largely invisible on this side of the border are now in the same condition on the other side of the line.  In an effort to help fill the media gap,  Frontera NorteSur begins an occasional series on the faces, the lives and the dreams of deportees now residing in Mexico. Today's article is the story of one young woman who was suddenly ordered out of a country she called home...

The Pink Store

Crossing the border between Columbus, New Mexico and Palomas, Mexico, you see a large store painted pink called The Pink Store. It is, to me, the symbol of this small, poor town, a symbol of wellbeing or, sometimes, trouble.

Founded 25 years ago by Ivonne and Sergio Romero, a very special couple, it has a wonderful restaurant and a marvelous selection of ceramics, silver, jewelry and folk art from all over Mexico.  When it is full of customers, you know that things are going well in Palomas. When there are no customers, it’s a signal of problems in the town...

The New Free Trade Fever

20 years after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, little interest has been shown until now by the governments of the signatory countries for reopening the trade pact. But a similar agreement between Mexico and the European Union, signed in 1997 and enacted in 2000, is under review and could be expanded.  

Three working groups from the European Commission are expected to be in Mexico February 11-13 for discussions that could lead to changes in the current agreement, especially as they pertain to the energy, agricultural, financial services and telecommunications sectors...

Answering response to ‘Reforms in Mexico’

On January 24, I submitted an article entitled “Reforms in Mexico” and writer Margaret Randall filed a very articulate response, finding my ideas “extremely troubling.” She raised three issues to which I would like to respond.

1. My characterization of two-time presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador as “loony” when, in fact, she believes that he is a “genuine revolutionary reformer” and “widely believed to have won the election in his first bid for the presidency.” I agree with part of her criticism. Using the word “loony” was wrong because he’s a very intelligent individual. The word “hypocritical” would have been more accurate...

Farming in the New Age of Drought

“Record rainfall in September brought most us nearly up to ‘normal’ annual precipitation levels, greened up the rangeland, but the rain came so hard and fast that much of it ran off,” reads part of the introduction to the upcoming New Mexico Organic Farming Conference.

“Acequias were damaged and fields were buried in sediment.  And we’re still desperately short of water in the rivers and dams.  Without good snowpack this winter, we face exceptional irrigation shortages in 2014.”

The above words set the tone for the 2014 conference, which is scheduled for the weekend of February 14-15 at the Marriott Pyramid North hotel in Albuquerque...

Mexico: The Politics of a State Meltdown

As a massive federal police and military deployment gains momentum in the Mexican state of Michoacan, polemics and debate shroud the first major such operation undertaken by the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

At stake in the campaign is not only the reassertion of state power, but also the strategic control of the Pacific coastal port of Lazaro Cardenas, one of the key portals of the Asia/NAFTA economy, as well as the productive mountains and farmlands whose products and people travel a network of highways leading across Mexico and into the United States...