‘People will find a way to cross’
BY PAIGE LAUREN DEINER, SUN STAFF WRITER
Dec 22, 2005

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. — Ignacia Perez Valadez remembers when there was only a chain-link fence separating this border city from San Luis, Ariz.

She said her grandchildren used to wiggle under the fence to play soccer in the open fields on the United States side. That was more than 12 years ago and since then, the United States has constructed a large metal fence that separates San Luis Rio Colorado from its U.S. sister city.

If Congress has its way, Mexicans living all along the nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States will one day look at a similar obstruction.

The U.S. House of Representatives, acting to curb illegal immigration, passed a measure last week that would extend walls along those portions of the border where they currently do not exist.

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Border Patrol saves two illegal aliens in canal
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Dec 22, 2005

The rescue of two illegal aliens Thursday morning were the 59th and 60th rescues made since Oct. 1 by the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma sector.

At 4 a.m., a group of more than 20 illegal aliens who crossed into the United States near San Luis, Ariz., was spotted by Border Patrol on a remote-video-surveillance camera.

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Man sentenced for immigrant trafficking, money laundering

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) -- A Texas man who brought Mexicans to North Dakota to work at Asian restaurants has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison.

Shan Wei Yu, 51, of McKinney, Texas, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court for illegal immigrant trafficking and money laundering.

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Guards gave prison gang riot weapons, officials say
Louie Gilot
El Paso TImes
Friday, December 23, 2005

Prison guards organized and provided the weapons for the fatal gang riot at the Cereso prison in Juárez, Juárez officials said Thursday.

Guards not only provided one gang, the Aztecas, with knives, shields and helmets, but also let 600 Aztecas members into the segregated area housing members of the rival Mexicles gang, said Patricia González, the attorney general for the state of Chihuahua.

González also said that the riot was the result of years of lawlessness and corruption at the prison.

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Mexico Admits Poor Treatment of Migrants
By MARK STEVENSON
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; 10:39 PM

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's federal Human Rights Commission acknowledged on Wednesday that the country uses some of the same methods in dealing with illegal migrants that it has criticized the United States for employing.

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Inside ICE: Volume 2, Issue 25
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Newsletter

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Living 'in a state of fear'

Police buildup in border town fuels hopes of security
By ABE LEVY
Associated Press

LAREDO - Alarmed that rival drug cartels in Mexico's Nuevo Laredo might spread violence into the United States, federal and Texas politicians in 2005 began sending money and resources in waves to this border town.

Gov. Rick Perry pledged $10 million to sheriffs in border counties. A binational intelligence-sharing plan began as a way to weed out the region's violent offenders. Congress proposed spending $10 million annually to fund a Laredo-based police task force.