Lawyers for Mexican say execution violates treaty

By Michael Graczyk

ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:57 a.m. August 5, 2008

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Condemned prisoner Jose Medellin looked to the federal courts to keep him from the death chamber Tuesday for his part in the gang rape, beating and strangling of two teenage girls 15 years ago.

The Mexican-born Medellin, 33, faced lethal injection in a case that has drawn international attention after he raised arguments he wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help after he was arrested in the girls' murders.

Late Monday, Medellin was moved from death row at a prison outside Livingston to Huntsville, where he would be the fifth Texas inmate executed this year. His transfer came after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected requests for clemency and a reprieve.

“The board's action is against the interests of the nation and risks the safety of thousands of American traveling and living abroad,” said Donald Donovan, one of Medellin's lawyers, referring to the warning by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico of possible protests there Tuesday. “We must now rely on the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent Texas from breaking a commitment made by the president and Senate on behalf of the country as a whole.”

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, has said Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin is the first among them who is set to die.

Mexico ties flooding in Nogales to U.S. Border Patrol-built wall

By Brady McCombs

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Mexican officials say a concrete barrier constructed by the U.S. Border Patrol in a storm-water tunnel beneath Nogales appears to be on Mexican soil and was the main cause of serious flooding July 12 in Nogales, Sonora.

The flooding caused about $8 million in damage in Nogales, Sonora, the officials say.

The 5-foot-high wall on the floor of the tunnel in front of a gate was put in without notifying the International Boundary and Water Commission, said Sally Spener, spokeswoman for the U.S. section of the commission. The commission requests that any agency doing work on the border that could affect storm drainage send it plans.

"We do have concerns about structures that are placed on the international boundary that could affect storm-water flow," Spener said.

The U.S. side of the commission hasn't yet determined if the barrier caused the flooding, Spener said. It's important to remember the Mexican side of the tunnel was old and in poor condition, she said.

A delegation from the commission, including Commissioner Carlos Marin, was en route to Nogales on Tuesday.

While in Arizona, the delegation will be analyzing whether the structure is in Mexico, what role it played in the flood and what should be done to remedy the situation, she said.

Officials with the Mexican section of the commission say the barrier reduced the flow of storm water through the tunnel by 40 percent, said Jesús Quintanar, a representative in Nogales of the Mexican side of the commission. The barrier was put up in January by the Border Patrol without letting anyone else know, he said.

World Court opens hearings on Mexican appeal on executions

The Associated Press

Published: 06.19.2008

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Mexico made an emergency appeal to the U.N.'s highest court Thursday to block the execution of its citizens on death row in the United States.

Lawyers for the U.S. cautioned, however, that the court's interference could complicate Washington's efforts to save the lives of Mexican convicts condemned to death by state courts.

Mexico contends the United States is defying a 2004 order by the International Court of Justice to review the cases of 51 condemned Mexican prisoners.

That ruling said the inmates had been denied the right to help from their consulate after their arrests. It said the death row prisoners were entitled to a reconsideration of their trials and sentences to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

Informally known as the World Court, the tribunal is the U.N.'s judicial arm for resolving disputes among nations. Its decisions are binding and final, but it has no enforcement powers.

Mexico's chief advocate Juan Manuel Gomez-Robledo told the court the cases had not been systematically reviewed, and the U.S. was "in breach of its international obligations."

Mexico asks World Court to stay executions in U.S.

By Arthur Max

ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:03 p.m. June 5, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Mexico appealed to the U.N.'s highest court Thursday to block the executions of Mexicans in the United States, arguing U.S. officials have failed to comply with a judgment ordering a review of their trials.

The International Court of Justice said Mexico asked the court for an “interpretation” of an earlier ruling to clarify its meaning when it asked the U.S. to “review and reconsider” the cases of the condemned prisoners.

Until that can be done, Mexico said the United States “must take any and all steps necessary” to ensure that none of its citizens is executed, and asked the court to take urgent measures to intercede.

The court, informally known as the World Court, ruled in 2004 that the convictions of some 50 Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad can have access to their home country's consular officials.

The court, which sits in The Hague, said the Mexicans should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

Illegal Alien's Defense Attorney Works for Mexican Government

By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 21, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - An illegal alien is facing the death penalty after being convicted May 8 of capital murder in the 2006 death of Houston police officer Rodney Johnson. The attorney who tried and failed to have him found not guilty by reason of insanity was paid by the Mexican government, according to newspaper and television reports.

The Mexican government retained Danalynn Recer to defend Juan Leonardo Quintero through its Mexican Capital Legal Assistance program, which pays for the defense of Mexican citizens whose conviction in U.S. courts could result in a death sentence -- even those, like Quintero, who confess to the crime.

Mexico ex-official: Health care should have no boundaries

SHERYL KORNMAN

Published: 05.08.2008

Health care is a human right, not a "commodity or a privilege," Dr. Julio Frenk, a former health secretary of Mexico, said Wednesday at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

"It is unethical to limit health care on the basis of migratory activity," he said.

People without health insurance - among them Mexican immigrants in Arizona - should not be denied medical care, he said.

Border regions such as Arizona's with Mexico "are areas of cultural conflict," just as they are along geographic borders everywhere, as globalization pushes people into closer contact.

"The forces of globalization can be turned into a public good," Frenk said.

He also spoke about the spread of communicable disease across borders throughout the centuries and of the value of preventing disease with the access to health care.

Calderon’s Latest U.S. Visit: More Macho Mexican Meddling

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

Mexican president Felipe Calderon has just returned from a trip to the U.S.

Wait a minute! Didn’t Calderon visit the U.S. just two months ago?

Yes, he certainly did. I reported on his February hobnobbing with the American ruling class in this article and this blog entry.

If you keep up with Mexican news, you also know that it’s not like Calderon has nothing to do in Mexico. There’s an ongoing political crisis over the desperately-needed reform of Mexico’s state oil monopoly PEMEX. In fact, filibustering opposition politicians have seized the podiums in both federal legislative chambers, forcing other legislators to meet elsewhere.

But apparently Calderon felt his trip to the U.S. was so important that he had to leave Mexico. After all, he attended the fourth annual summit of the nation-merging SPP, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which is not popular with everybody in Mexico either.

Of course, this year the SPP summit was not officially an SPP summit. It’s been renamed the "North American Leaders’ Summit". President Bush, President Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper converged in New Orleans earlier this week, Monday-Tuesday April 21-22nd.

On the agenda for Bush and Calderon: the re-opening of the New Orleans Mexican Consulate, which had been closed in 2002 for budgetary reasons. It’s now being re-opened due to the growth in the Mexican population there since Hurricane Katrina. i.e. because they are displacing African Americans from construction jobs.

Mexico could save a lot of money by shutting down a lot of consulates. But that’s not in the cards. Consulates are, after all, centers of pro-illegal agitation. Mexican diplomats are never reprimanded by U.S. officials for their political meddling, although it certainly doesn’t fall under the rubric of legitimate diplomatic activity.

In his remarks at the re-opening, with President Bush standing right there, Calderon actually said that, with the consulate back in operation,

"…we can guarantee that Mexicans who live and work in Louisiana and Mississippi have the support of the government of Mexico. My commitment is that wherever there is a Mexican, there also is the backing of the government of Mexico.”

Mexicans riled by N.C. official's remark

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

MEXICO CITY — Recent comments comparing illegal immigrants to prostitutes and drug dealers first inflamed the local Latino community, and now the anger has spilled into Mexico.

Mexican politicians and residents are calling Mecklenburg County, N.C., commissioner Bill James' statements — printed Friday in one of Mexico City's leading newspapers — an example of growing hostility against Latinos in the United States.

James, a Republican, made the comments during an April 15 commissioners meeting while discussing government contracts and whether illegal immigrants pay taxes. Near the end of the talk, Commissioner Norman Mitchell, a Democrat, referred to a recent Charlotte Observer article that mentioned that illegal immigrants paid taxes. James interjected that prostitutes and drug dealers also pay taxes. "Al Capone paid taxes," he said.

James said Thursday his comments were meant to show that immigrants, prostitutes and drug dealers all engage in illegal activity.

"You're breaking the law. You need to get right with the law," James said. "It doesn't have anything to do with whether your hair is blond, brown or black. It doesn't matter what your skin color is, your eyes, whatever."

The controversy over James' comments reached Mexico at a time of growing concern about anti-immigrant feelings damaging U.S.-Mexico relations.

What about the legislated attitude against US citizens in Mexico - can not own property, can not work, can not protest publicly? -mm

Another illegal alien May Day demonstration on the way

By Michelle Malkin • March 13, 2008 12:09 PM

The shamnesty forces are at it again. Lucky for us, they learned nothing from the failed illegal alien protests of two years ago–when open-borders radicals took to the streets, tore down American flags, wielded ethnic supremacist signs, and spun out of control. The national backlash galvanized pro-immigration enforcement forces and paved the road to defeat of the Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill.

Not sure why they think a repeat will help their cause, but I’m not going to complain about their cluelessness. Bring it on:

Mexican prez: Closing border a 'mistake'

But Bush administration believes Calderon making good efforts toward security
Posted: February 25, 2008 10:45 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The White House believes the president of Mexico is "making very good efforts in trying to help secure the border," even though Felipe Calderon has described the two nations' economies as "complementary" and has warned anyone believing closing the border between the two will solve the "lack of competitiveness" in the U.S. is "making a very, very big mistake."

Mexican President Calderon recently spent nearly a week in the United States lobbying for his nation's interests. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Calderon said the number of people abandoning his nation and moving into the United States as illegal aliens soon will be reduced by new job creation in Mexico and economic growth there.

"It's possible to transform Mexico from a nation that loses its best people to migration into a nation capable of generating opportunity for Mexicans on their own soil,'' he told an audience at Harvard.

"We are neighbors, we are friends and we must be allies," he said. "Whoever is the next president of the United States, this country can count on Mexico to deal in that direction."

Calderon's message good but late

Published: 02.20.2008

Less than two years after taking office, Mexican President Felipe Calderon is getting mixed reviews from the Mexican people.

On the one hand, he gets high marks for reforming the tax system, fixing a massive public pension fund and launching a $25 billion public works initiative.

But he is also getting flak for not being vocal enough in protesting what many Mexicans see as the harsh and unfair treatment of their sons and daughters in the United States.

That is a fascinating turnabout. Not long ago, Mexicans were much too proud to think about the migrants who fled to the north searching for better opportunities.

Now they're demanding that their leaders go to bat for these expatriates against what they see as a cruelty born of American xenophobia.

And that's why Calderon last week conducted a whirlwind, five-day swing though the United States with stops in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and Sacramento, Calif. Aides say the main purpose of the trip was to focus attention on the Mexican immigrant community in this country.

Answering Felipe Calderon: McClintock and Tancredo speak

Answering Felipe Calderon: McClintock and Tancredo speak

By Michelle Malkin • February 15, 2008 03:09 PM

You’ll be glad to know that not all elected officials are willing to allow a foreign leader to land on American soil and trash our nation’s immigration laws and the character of its citizens.

You won’t hear President Bush stand up to Mexican president Felipe Calderon. As I’ve been reporting, they’ve been quietly hashing out the $1.4 billion Mexican stimulus/border security package known as the Merida Initiative. With virtual silence from Congress.

Two Republicans did speak up during Calderon’s tour of the U.S. this week.

Tom McClintock, the staunch California GOP legislator, had this reaction when Calderon spoke to the California legislature:

Mexico: Keep border door open

BY SAMANTHA YOUNG

Mexican President Felipe Calderón acknowledged tensions between the United States and Mexico over illegal immigration but stressed Wednesday that both countries have an interest in ensuring their citizens can cross the border legally and safely.

In an address to a joint session of the California Legislature, Calderón said the economies of the two countries are interdependent. For that reason, there must be ''shared responsibility'' for immigration on both sides of the border.

''I know that immigration is a controversial issue today in this great nation. But I strongly believe that Mexican and Mexican-American workers are a large reason for the dynamic economy of California,'' he said in prepared remarks.

``Our nations will never find prosperity by closing their doors.''

Calderón's trip to the United States -- his first as president -- has in large part been aimed at trying to reshape the immigration debate. He traveled to Massachusetts, New York and Chicago before arriving in California on Tuesday night, a state with strong economic ties to Mexico and its top trade partner.

Calderon's Tour Of America: Hobnobbing With The Very Rich, And Demagoguing The Illegal Alien Community

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has finally arrived for his first visit to the U.S. as president of Mexico.

As expected, Calderon’s principal emphasis is on Mexicans in the U.S. "to strengthen the ties and deepen the dialogues with the Mexican communities" north of the border.

(Why don't U.S. presidents come here to Mexico to "strengthen ties" with us gringos who live south of the border?)

Despite the fact that it's Calderon's first presidential trip to the U.S., he is not visiting the President of the U.S., George W. Bush, as Vicente Fox used to. I guess he figures Bush is a lame duck. He's right about that.

Neither is Calderon visiting any of the presidential primary frontrunners. I don't think he's worried about the next president. Last week in an interview with the LA Times, Calderon said of the U.S. primaries that

"It seems to me that the most radical and anti-immigrant candidates have been left behind and have been put in their place by their own electorate."[Mexican president foresees friendlier U.S., By Héctor Tobar, February 7, 2008]

In other words, whether Obama, Hillary, or McCain is elected, Calderon figures he'll have him/her in his pocket. He's probably right about that too.

Nevertheless, Calderon has been very busy, visiting representatives of the "Mexican Community" and various American politicians who see things his way as well. It's been quite a productive visit, from his perspective.

We've become accustomed to Mexican presidents and other officials openly meddling in U.S. immigration policy (and to the fact that our own leaders don't seem to object). This trip was no exception.

Calderón urges better cooperation in tightening border

By Ed Mendel
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Getty Images
February 14, 2008

SACRAMENTO – Mexican President Felipe Calderón said yesterday that illegal immigration should be replaced with safe and legal migration, arguing that the California economy needs the labor.

In a carefully balanced address to the Legislature, Calderón also called for improved border security and outlined steps being taken to create more jobs in Mexico to reduce the need for migration.

The president also touched diplomatically on one of the main themes of his five-day tour of the United States: urging the protection of human rights as the United States tries to crack down on illegal immigration.

“I know that immigration is a controversial issue today in this great nation,” Calderón told the lawmakers. “But I strongly believe that Mexican and Mexican-American workers are a large reason for the dynamic economy of California.”

A clear case of do as I say, not as I do. -mm

Mexican Prez Decries Anti-Immigrant Tone

Feb 11, 10:18 PM (ET)
By STEVE LEBLANC

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in the United States and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers.

On his first trip to the U.S. as Mexico's president, Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments.

"The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"I need to change in Mexico the perception that the Americans are the enemy, and it is important to change the perception that the Mexicans are the enemy," he said. "We are neighbors, we are friends and we must be allies."

Mexico launches appeal challenge to U.S. import rule

By Jonathan Lynn
REUTERS
6:15 a.m. February 6, 2008

GENEVA – Mexico is launching an appeal at the World Trade Organisation in a case involving a controversial method used by Washington to calculate duties on unfairly priced imports, a Mexican diplomat said on Wednesday.

Mexico's move is the latest challenge to a system known as 'zeroing' which has pitted the United States against the rest of the WTO's 151 members, and created confusion in the WTO's own system for resolving trade disputes.

Mexico said in a filing with the WTO, dated Jan. 31, that it intended to appeal against a decision by a WTO dispute settlement panel in a case involving U.S. anti-dumping measures on imports of stainless steel from Mexico.

Mexico Seeks US Probe of Border Tear Gas

The Associated Press

Mexico has formally requested the United States investigate recent incidents in which Border Patrol officers fired tear gas onto the Mexican side of the border, the government said Thursday.

After being upbraided by the country's top human rights agency for failing to press Washington enough on the issue, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department issued a statement calling the tactic "unacceptable."

The Border Patrol says the tactic is necessary to protect its officers from increasing attacks by people hurling rocks and other objects at them from Mexico.

"Independently of whether these incidents are a response to hostile acts against Border Patrol agents by private citizens on the Mexican side, the Mexican government considers these actions by U.S. federal authorities to be unacceptable," Foreign Relations said in a statement.

The department said it sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on Jan. 15 requesting "a thorough investigation." It added that a Mexican boy was injured in one of the incidents, but did not give details.

The Border Patrol reported 987 attacks - many with rocks - on its agents during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, the most since it began keeping track in the late 1990s.

Mexico entered U.S. 25 times last year

Louie Gilot / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 01/29/2008 08:38:09 AM MST

At a time when violence in Juárez is affecting El Paso, a report released Monday showed that Mexican police and soldiers made 25 incursions into the United States in 2007, including two in El Paso.

The Border Patrol documents, obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C., said that 21 of the incidents involved Mexican police officials and four incidents involved Mexican military personnel.

"Any reported incursion is thoroughly investigated by multiple agencies and what we try to do is, through diplomacy, work to prevent those incidents from re-occurring," Doug Mosier, spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso, said.

Mexico’s New Meddling Plan: "Zero Tolerance" Legal Assault On American Immigration Patriots

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states that "it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities (diplomats) to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State." Mexico is a stickler for enforcing the Vienna Convention in its own territory.

But when it comes to Mexican diplomats in the United States, they constantly meddle in U.S. internal politics as it relates to immigration. And our own government allows it.

Mexican historian and journalist Lorenzo Meyer describes the situation thusly:

"Times are changing. In the past, when Mexico's foreign policy was based on a principle of nonintervention, it was a taboo for Mexican leaders to talk about internal affairs of other countries, especially the United States. For Calderon’s government, it’s extremely important that Mexicans are able to continue migrating—it’s the country’s escape valve. There’s no other way Mexico can produce enough jobs for all its working-age residents." [Mexico Rebukes U.S. Candidates On Migrant Issues, TK

That’s certainly the way Mexico’s elite sees it. So they continue to push emigration.

Therefore it’s no surprise that at Mexico’s 19th Annual Conference of Ambassadors and Consuls, held in Mexico City on January 7th and 8th, 2008, and attended by hundreds of Mexican diplomats, that themes of U.S. immigration policy and improved methods of meddling were front and center.

At the opening ceremony the assembled diplomats were greeted by Mexican foreign minister Patricia Espinosa. She gave a speech in which she said that

"…in the face of the current situation, in which an adverse climate prevails for the Mexican communities in the United States, aggravated by the electoral debate in that country, we shall pay particular attention to the problems that confront our migrants."

(Notice that our electoral debate is an "aggravation" to the Mexican foreign minister)

Mexican officials are not pleased that amnesty was defeated in the U.S congress last year, or that states and municipalities are fighting illegal immigration. And they have plans to fight back.