Tagged: Trump administration

24,000 homicides – Mexico on pace for most violent year in history as drug wars spiral out of control

(ZERO HEDGE) — by Tyler Durden

As our elected officials in Washington D.C. continue to debate whether or not Trump’s proposed border wall would be an effective deterrent to those looking to come to the U.S. illegally, the one thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that Mexico’s drug wars are spiraling out of control…a fact that the Trump administration will almost certainly leverage as it seeks additional funding for border security.

As PanAmPost notes, Mexico has recorded a staggering 24,000 homicides in 2017 through September with 73% of those murders being tied to organized crime.

2017 might be the most violent year in Mexican history, one NGO claims. Semáforo Delictivo said that, due to the 24,000 homicides between January and September, the year is proving even worse than 2011, when President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs led to 22,000 homicides.

President of the organization, Santiago Roel, said that 73 percent of murders committed in the first eight months of the year were related to organized crime. He said that in 2007, there were 2,828 executions. Now, a decade later, 18,017 have been reported.

All high-impact crimes have increased during the current year, including abductions, homicides and grand theft auto at gunpoint. According to Roel, the main cause of violence and corruption is the “Mérida Plan,” which focuses on eradicating drug cartels.

Moreover, some 85,000 insured vehicles have been stolen over the past 12 months, with 60% being considered ‘violent’.

According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions, violent car robberies are at their highest point in the country’s history. Between October 2016 and September 2017, 85,943 insured cars have been stolen. Sixty percent of the robberies were violent.

Recaredo Arias, the association’s Director General, said that elements of organized crime have been identified in these cases, and that more urgent measures are needed to combat the problem.

The states of Guerrero, Sinaloa, Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Michoacán, Zacatecas, Morelos, Tabasco and Tamaulipas, have the highest numbers of violent car thefts, he said.

Meanwhile, as Fox News pointed out earlier this week, the drug wars south of the border are seemingly on the precipice of becoming way more sophisticated after 4 men were arrested by federal police carrying a drone equipped with an improvised explosive device wired for remote detonation.

Mexican Federal Police arrested four men Oct. 20 in Guanajuanto who were driving a stolen vehicle equipped with a 3DR Solo Quadcopter drone attached to an IED, Small Wars Journal reported. The drone had a range of about half a mile, but modifications would have allowed it to fly farther.

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Brutal gang fight in Mexico prison claims at least 28 lives

(OUTLOOK INDIA) — At least 28 people died after a brutal fight broke out in the Mexican Pacific resort of Acapulco prison.

This outbreak is said to be one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the country’s penal system in the recent years.

Acapulco is the biggest city of Guerrero and the incident took place on the same day when the Homeland Security (DHS) secretary John Kelly was visiting Guerrero, which lies in the southwest of the country, reported the Guardians.

As per the Guerrero state security official, Roberto Alvarez, the fight broke out between rival gangs in presence of the maximum security wing of the prison.

Bodies were discovered throughout the wing, including the kitchen area, as well as the area for conjugal visits.

Acapulco being the center of opium poppy production has been a major concern to US officials. It is also one of Mexico’s most lawless states.

Kelly, is one of the main links between the Mexican government and the Trump administration on migration and security cooperation.

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Trump relocating immigration judges to speed deportations

(BREITBART) — by John Binder

President Donald Trump is looking to speed up the deportation of illegal immigrants by relocating some immigration judges to detention centers.

In a letter from the Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained by Reuters, the Trump Administration is moving 50 judges to detention facilities in areas like Adelanto and San Diego, California, as well as Chicago, Illinois.

Additionally, the DOJ will ask immigration judges to hear cases from 6am to 6pm with two rotating shifts to hear more cases.

A source close to the DOJ told Reuters that judges will be able to volunteer for the some 50 deployments to detention centers, but if not enough signed on, judges would be assigned.

Last month, Breitbart Texas reported on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo that requested the Trump administration allow federal immigration courts to use “expedited deportation proceedings” for any illegal immigrants living in the U.S. for two years or less. The process is currently limited to those only living in the U.S. for up to two weeks.

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Homeland Security head tours border as wall plan takes shape

(ABC NEWS) — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will wrap up a two-day tour of the nation’s border with Mexico on Friday as plans take shape to build a wall along the 2,000-mile divide between the two countries.

Kelly has told lawmakers that he would like to see wall construction well underway within two years, but he held open the possibility that it wouldn’t extend to areas where there are natural physical barriers.

Fences already cover about 700 miles of the border.

Kelly was scheduled to tour one of the most fortified stretches of the border separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The two cities in the border’s largest metropolitan area are separated by a double fence, much of it topped with razor wire.

San Diego is often cited as an example of how walls can slow illegal crossings, but critics say the structures only forced people to more dangerous areas where many have died in extreme heat.

The San Diego-Tijuana area of about 5 million people has the nation’s busiest border crossing, where tens of thousands of motorists and pedestrians enter the U.S. every day. It’s also one of the busiest crossings for cargo.

On Thursday, Kelly toured southern Arizona — the busiest corridor for illegal crossings from 1998 to 2013.

Southern Texas is now the most preferred route as large numbers of Central American families and children make their way to the U.S.

San Diego was the busiest route for illegal crossings until the late 1990s, when a surge of agents helped push crossers toward the remote mountains and deserts in Arizona.

Kelly was visiting the border in Arizona and California for the first time since he became secretary last month. Last week he toured the border in southern Texas.

Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, rose to run the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities in 31 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Kelly told a House panel on Tuesday that Trump’s immigration and travel ban made “an awful lot of sense” but probably should have been delayed at least long enough to brief Congress about it.

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