Reeling Mexico hopes travel deals bring back the tourists

During a visit to San Diego in April, Pratik and Priti Chavda thought they’d slip over the border into Tijuana just to do a little shopping, have a quick meal and say they had made it to Mexico. But upon hearing the plan, staffers at their hotel sounded the alarm.

“Swine flu! Drug cartels! Don’t go!” Pratik Chavda, 32, recalls them warning.

Six months later, the Chicago couple have finally made it south of the border, where they’re enjoying a meal of grilled shrimp with a panoramic view of a golden sunset. And they didn’t even have to wait for a table.

What started out as a gangbuster year, with international tourist arrivals up about 6% in the first quarter, came to a screeching halt in late April when Mexico became the first to report an outbreak of the H1N1 virus. The flu scare, coupled with news accounts of gruesome drug-related violence, caused visitors to stay away in droves. From April to June, tourist arrivals plummeted by more than 19% over the previous year.

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Reeling Mexico hopes travel deals bring back the tourists

I lived in El Paso many years ago. I did a lot of business on BOTH sides of the border. It was common to cross the border, go to Juarez and have dinner, drinks, do some shopping and so forth. But I’m talking about 25 or 30 years ago. I wouldn’t go to Juarez today for anyone.

I was in Nogales, AZ. about 22 years ago, a business trip, and a friend of mine wanted to go across the border to eat lunch. He claimed that there was a place he knew that had the best Chinese food you’ve ever eaten. He was RIGHT! It was delicious, and cheap too. We have several courses and drinks and spent about $6.00 each.

We were walking back to the border when the gunfire started. The Federales and some drug dealers were engaged in a running machine gun battle and it was coming our way. We broke into a dead run and were less than 50 yards from the border, screaming at the top of our lungs, “U.S. Citizens!” because INS and Border Patrol were in place, waiting for this gun battle to head their way and were in the process of shutting down that particular crossing.

Needless to say, we made it over the border, took cover behind some *Jersey Barriers* that were set up, and we waited. The Federales either caught the guys or killed them, the gun battle never made it that last city block to the border. And that was the last time I ever went to Mexico as a tourist.

It was also about the time I began to develop a serious attitude concerning border security and the HUGE influx of ILLEGALS we were seeing at the time. It was nothing compared to the surge of ILLEGALS today, but even 22 years ago, it was a concern for me. And sadly, nothing has been done, by ANY U.S. president to remedy this situation.

And then there’s this;

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen killed fifteen people on an isolated ranch in northern Mexico, including a prominent farmworker leader, in the latest grisly attack in an area overrun by drug gangs, local police said on Friday.

Margarito Montes, a well-known organizer of agricultural laborers, was among the bodies found riddled with bullets in trucks in the town of Hornos in southern Sonora, a state bordering the United States, a police spokesman said.

The cause of the crime was unknown but the killings had many of the hallmarks of hits by drug cartels, who often use automatic weapons to murder people in groups to send a message to rivals.

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Attacks kill at least 21 in Mexican border cities

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) - Firefighters found six bodies inside a burning car in Tijuana, and 15 people were killed in three separate shootings in another northern Mexican border town besieged by drug violence, authorities said Tuesday.

Near Mexico’s southern border, meanwhile, the bullet-ridden bodies of eight men suspected to be drug traffickers were found in a Guatemalan frontier town.

In Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, four bodies were found in a burning compact car’s seats and two in the trunk, according to a police report Tuesday.

The victims’ identities and the motive for the killings were not released, but the Mexican city is on a major route for drugs heading north and has recently seen a wave of violence between warring gangs. The bodies were found Monday night.

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Attacks kill at least 21 in Mexican border cities

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the president has given ANY indication that our borders are going to be closed? And closely guarded by National Guard troops?

Yeah, I know, it’s not going to happen. It’s been many years since we had a president that possessed the fortitude to actually address the problems that this nation faces. At least to address them in a realist manner.

Where border security issues are concerned, it looks like border states are going to have to stand on their own if they want to actually have border security. I can’t speak regarding California, Arizona or New Mexico, and their efforts to secure their part of the U.S./Mexican border, but I know what Texas Governor Rick Perry is doing;

HOUSTON - Special teams of Texas Rangers will be deployed to the Texas-Mexico border to deal with increasing violence because the federal government has failed to address growing problems there, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday.

“It is an expansive effort with the Rangers playing a more high-profile role than they’ve ever played before,” Perry said of the Department of Public Safety’s elite investigative unit.

The forces, dubbed “Ranger recon” teams, are the latest effort “to fill the gap that’s been left by the federal government’s ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border with Mexico,” he said. SOURCE

Texas isn’t going to take this stuff laying down. Texas was born from a fight for freedom, freedom FROM Mexico. Texans have been fighting Mexicans since Texas came to be. It’s nothing new here, it’s just what we do. And today, Texas is once again in a fight to stop Mexican drug cartels from coming to power here.

Some folks, particularly U.S. Senator Kay Bailout Hutchison, claims this is a reelection stunt. She says that Perry only ordered this because he’s looking for votes. I beg to differ Sen. Hutchison.

I believe that Gov. Perry has, as have most Texans, had all of this BS he can stand. I believe he sees the dangers that Texas and it’s citizens are facing from these cretins in Mexico. I believe he is acting to protect Texas and the good folks OF Texas.

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Gunmen kill 17 people at a drug rehab in Mexico

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - Gunmen broke into a drug rehabilitation center, lined people against a wall and shot 17 dead in a particularly bloody day in Mexico’s relentless drug war. The brazen attack followed the killing of the No. 2 security official in President Felipe Calderon’s home state.

The attackers on Wednesday broke down the door of El Aliviane center in Ciudad Juarez, lined up their victims against a wall and opened fire, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the regional prosecutors’ office. At least five people were injured.

Authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico’s most violent city, with at least 1,400 people killed this year alone.

Most of the homicides are tied to drug gang violence, which has taken a heavy toll across Mexico. Earlier the same day, gunmen ambushed and killed a senior security official in the home state of President Felipe Calderon.

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Gunmen kill 17 people at a drug rehab in Mexico

Mexican logic: Pay attention Gringos, if jue weel not juse our steenkin’ drugs, we weel blow juer steenkin head off of jure steenkin’ cholders! Adios mi amigo, Vaya con dios!

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Mexican cartels plague Atlanta

ATLANTA — In a city where Coca Cola, United Parcel Service and Home Depot are the titans of industry, there are new powerful forces on the block: Mexican drug cartels.

Their presence and ruthless tactics are largely unknown to most here. Yet, of the 195 U.S. cities where Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are operating, federal law enforcement officials say Atlanta has emerged as the new gateway to the troubled Southwest border.

Rival drug cartels, the same violent groups warring in Mexico for control of routes to lucrative U.S. markets, have established Atlanta as the principal distribution center for the entire eastern U.S., according to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center.

In fiscal year 2008, federal drug authorities seized more drug-related cash in Atlanta — about $70 million — than any other region in the country, Drug Enforcement Administration records show.

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Mexican cartels plague Atlanta

And this comes as a surprise to ANYONE?? Actually, Atlanta does surprise me by being the city of choice, there’s a lot of well armed redneck southern boys around Atlanta, you would think that there might actually be a few patriots among them that could, or would take some initiative where a bunch of wetback drug dealers, and their need for removal was concerned!

An added attraction for the cartels, say Nahmias and Rodney Benson, the DEA’s Atlanta chief, is the explosive growth of the Hispanic community.

Nahmias calls northeast suburban Gwinnett County, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, the “epicenter” of the region’s drug activity.

It is a certainty that Obama will do nothing to alleviate this situation, but the immediate blame is NOT on his shoulders. We can thank one George W. Bush for the debacle that this nation has become concerning the open borders and out of control ILLEGAL invasion! That is a failure that can be squarely placed on his shoulders.

I see a number of blogs and sites espousing their lamentations regarding Bush over Obama. You likely won’t see that here. Those 2 ignorant douchebags are the very reason that America is in the predicament that it’s in! Bush refused to close the border after 9-11, thus allowing this nation to be totally over-run in the 8 years of his presidency and Obama doesn’t know where the damned border is.

The time is fast approaching America, the time when the average citizen will have no choice but to stand for what’s right or be consumed by ALL the wrong that is taking place in this once great nation…

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Immigrant deaths along South Texas border rose 40 percent

McALLEN, Texas – The number of immigrant bodies – Mexican and those still unidentified – dealt with by the Mexican consulate in three South Texas counties rose 40 percent in 2008 over the previous year.

The Mexican Consulate in McAllen, which takes the cases for Hidalgo, Starr and Brooks counties, handled 67 bodies in 2008 found by U.S. authorities, as well as those retrieved from the Rio Grande on the Mexican side, The McAllen Monitor reported in Sunday’s editions. A year earlier there were 39.

Officials believe an intensified Border Patrol presence as well as new segments of a levee-border wall in Hidalgo County are pushing illegal immigrants to riskier routes.

“I am sure that they are risking themselves through more isolated areas around checkpoints,” said Erasmo Martinez, Mexico’s consul in McAllen.

The Border Patrol as added about 300 agents since October 2008 and the levee-border wall segments blocking the more populated areas around McAllen drive immigrants into more rural areas especially west of McAllen, said Dan Doty, Border Patrol spokesman for the sector.

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Immigrant deaths along South Texas border rose 40 percent

I have been called a lot of names for my stance on ILLEGALS and their invasion of this nation, particularly the state of Texas. I live in Texas, what happens here is of great concern to me. I care about what happens in other places as well, but Texas is MY most immediate concern.

After all this time we do get news concerning the increase in the number of ILLEGALS that cross our borders, there are many of them dying in the desert, on BOTH sides of the border. I am fairly certain the river itself claims many lives too. The Rio Grande has NO conscience and NO mercy. Neither do I, and whatever it takes to decrease the number of ILLEGALS in this state, and our nation, works for me.

I am pretty sure that I will be thought of as a mean and nasty person for this post, but you know, I only post what I truly believe, and I believe that even with a 40% increase in ILLEGALS deaths along the South Texas border we are still being inundated, almost to the point of being over-run. I still believe that a great many of these ILLEGALS are here for nefarious purposes and not to do the honest work that Americans just won’t do.

I have NO sympathy for the lost lives of the ILLEGAL invaders. I hold NO sympathy for their families either. These people are INVADERS and they are breaking the existing laws of this United States of America. They are still making every attempt to INVADE this nation. I also believe that what we are currently facing is a violent invasion, and in my opinion there is only one way to deal with those that launch a violent invasion against your home and loved ones. KILL THE INVADERS!

I believe that we, as citizens of this great state of Texas, are legally empowered to KILL these invaders under the auspices of the Castle Doctrine! I want to hear someone tell me that they won’t stop an intruder from entering into THEIR home with deadly force.

Yes, I am a hard-assed old patriot! Yes, I am an America 1st and to HELL with all the rest patriot! What I am NOT is a bigot. I don’t care where these people come from nor what color these INVADERS are. They can be green with purple polka dot, they are still INVADERS! I am also NOT one of the PC wussies that plays with words in order to NOT offend the weak-minded liberals that are destroying this nation! I hold my head high when I say this.

Folks, either WE, The People get an America 1st attitude and we turn the current direction of this nation around or we’re not going to have a nation to turn around when the failings of the Bush administration, coupled with the debacle that IS Obama comes, to it’s full fruition!

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