Applications for asylum have been made by 45,000 Haitians this year, up from 5,900 in 2020.
Mexico’s refugee agency is near the point of failure due to a surge of asylum applications from Haitian migrants in recent months, the head of the agency said.
Andrés Ramírez spoke plainly on Monday about the scale of the problem. “We’ve almost collapsed at COMAR due to these tremendous numbers of arrivals of Haitians, but our position is: we are registering them all,” he said at the International Congress on Migration at Anáhuac University.
The number of applications by Haitians has increased by almost eight times this year. In 2020, 5,900 applications were made, compared to 45,000 this year as of November 16.
When the children of Haitians born in Brazil and Chile are included, the figure grows to 52,000, which is more than the number of applications from all nationalities in 2020.
However, arrivals from the poorest nation in Latin America should come as no surprise: applications from all nationalities decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, save for Haitians.
Ramírez said dire living conditions in Haiti made deporting the migrants back to the Caribbean country potentially illegal. “We know perfectly well that the situation in Haiti is terrible. It is a chaotic situation, an absolutely exhausted parliament, a situation in which there has been an earthquake, a hurricane, an assassination. It is the poorest country in Latin America by far … sending or deporting Haitians to Haiti is practically a crime, it is something that we are definitely and absolutely against,” he said.
He added that mass migration of Haitians from places like Chile and Brazil was due to economic strife, social deterioration and in some cases discrimination.
Meanwhile, after a protest on Tuesday by Haitian migrants in Tapachula, Chiapas, the local director of the National Immigration Institute (INM), Héctor Martínez Castuera, was less charitable.
“The problem with some groups of Haitians is that they do not respect order … We told them that the preference was for women, pregnant women and their family nucleus; people in a state of vulnerability and in alphabetical order … so they came and pushed and wanted to go first before anyone else,” he said.
There are around 30,000 Haitian migrants stranded in Tapachula waiting on their refugee applications, the news website Infobae reported.
A monument to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in Medellín, Spain. (File photo)
Mexicans have not yet overcome the pain of the Spanish conquest and “try to hide” the nation’s history, according to the author of a new biography about conquistador Hernán Cortés.
Spanish historian Esteban Mira Caballos told the newspaper El Universal that when he travels to Mexico he’s surprised that people pretend that the events of the early 16th century — when Cortés led an expedition that defeated the Aztec empire — didn’t happen.
“But for good or for bad, he [Cortés] is an intrinsic part of their history,” Mira said.
“… We can’t make history up, we can’t … [say] now that the Mexicas [Aztecs] defeated Hernán Cortés because that didn’t happen. History was as it was, and we have to accept it as it was,” he said.
Mira, an expert on the Spanish conquistadors that conquered the Americas, also said that Mexicans still speak about Cortés as if he died yesterday.
Author Esteban Mira says he is surprised at how many Mexicans try to rewrite history concerning Hernán Cortés. Crítica
“The personage died five centuries ago; if people are raped in Mexico, they say, ‘Hernán Cortés brought rape.’ If there is corruption in Mexico, they say, ‘Cortés brought corruption,’ but the historical figure died five centuries ago. … For reasons I’m unaware of, Mexicans haven’t assimilated their history; their past is a process that is ongoing,” he said.
One Mexican who refuses to let bygones be bygones is President López Obrador, who has sought apologies for the 1521 conquest from Spain’s King Felipe VI and from Pope Francis.
Mira described Cortés as a warrior of his times and accepted that he committed atrocities and “acts of barbarism” and made decisions about good and bad and life and death.
However, the conquistador, a deeply religious man, didn’t see the massacres and pillage perpetrated by the Spanish as being incompatible with his faith, he said.
The historian said it’s important to look at historical events from the perspective of those who participated in them and in consideration of the times in which they lived. Mira said that his book, Hernán Cortés Una biografía para el siglo xxi (Hernán Cortés, A Biography for the 21st Century) does just that.
Cortés was guided by values that are not the same as the values of today, he stressed.
Esteban Mira’s book attempts to take a fresh look at the Spanish conquistador, using more recent historical discoveries.
“He wanted a lot more than money — he wanted something else,” Mira said. “He wanted honor for his lineage and even more, he’s the only conquistador of all those I’ve researched that thought about [being remembered by] posterity … and he achieved it.”
“Whether we speak poorly or well of him, five centuries later, he’s still … [being spoken about], which is what he expected,” Mira said.
However, Cortés is not well-known in Spain, the historian conceded.
“Mexicans sometimes think that in Spain we hold him up as a hero … but there are very few people who know who Hernán Cortés is,” Mira said.
“I’m a teacher, and when I talk about the conquest I have to tell my students who Hernán Cortés was because they think he was a pro-[Francisco] Franco general or from the Napoleonic Wars. The majority of the population in Spain doesn’t know who he was,” he said.
Canelo the mountain dog and his rescuers at the peak of the volcano.
A dog that followed a group of hikers up the Pico de Orizaba volcano and stayed on the peak for almost a month has been rescued.
A group of mountain climbers led by Puebla man Hilario Aguilar scaled Mexico’s highest peak to rescue Canelo, a mixed breed hound.
The dog’s presence on the top of Pico de Orizaba, located in Veracruz, became widely known after a photo of him went viral on social media.
According to a report by the newspaper Milenio, Canelo followed a group of hikers who were giving him food along the way. He remained on the peak for almost a month, surviving freezing temperatures and snow.
Canelo was carried down the volcano by his rescuers. A video posted to social media showed his head poking out of a green and black backpack. One mountain climber noted that the dog was malnourished and that his ribs were visible. He also had an injured paw and very red eyes due to solar radiation, Aguilar said.
“… The ultraviolet rays and reflections of the sun on the snow could have left him blind,” he wrote on social media.
After his rescue, Canelo was handed over to Fátima del Ángel Palacios, a mountain climber and animal lover. She will nurse him back to full health before he is possibly put up for adoption.
In other intrepid dog news, video footage recently posted to social media showed a canine atop the Temple of Kukulcán, the imposing pyramid at the Chichén Itzá archaeological site in Yucatán. Tourists are not permitted to climb the 30-meter-high pyramid, but the rule apparently doesn’t apply to daredevil dogs.
Health Minister Jorge Alcocer: not a fan of the media.
New coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths are well below the levels seen in recent months as the third wave of the pandemic extended across Mexico, but there are now signs of a fourth wave, according to the federal health minister.
“Today we were presented signs of a fourth wave but I don’t want this [information] to reach the press,” Jorge Alcocer told a virtual mental health and addiction prevention conference last Friday.
Despite his wish, video footage of the minister making the remarks reached the media this week.
Alcocer described journalists as “distorters of the truth” before warning people to take care due to the (apparently) deteriorating coronavirus situation.
For his part, health policy analyst Xavier Tello told broadcaster CNN that Mexico is likely to face a fourth wave given that European countries such as Germany and Austria are currently experiencing large outbreaks.
He said data shows that previous waves began in Mexico 60 to 85 days after large outbreaks started in Europe.
Tello noted that although 85% of adults are vaccinated only about 50% of the total population is fully vaccinated.
“… We still need to vaccinate minors, we need to vaccinate adolescents and we need to vaccinate children and that’s something that is not in the plan,” he said, although the government announced last week that it would offer shots to youths aged 15 to 17.
Tello said that case numbers were still declining at the moment but predicted they will begin to rise at the end of this year or the start of 2022, largely due to Christmas and New Year’s gatherings and parties.
Pan American Health Organization assistant director Jarbas Barbosa agreed that a 50% population-wide vaccination rate won’t be sufficient to stop a fourth wave.
“Mexico has made a very significant effort to vaccinate its population. It has 50% of its entire population with two doses – it’s significant vaccine coverage but not yet sufficient to guarantee that the country won’t again have … [new] outbreaks,” he said Wednesday.
“Continuing with the vaccination is necessary, [Mexico needs to] reach a higher vaccination coverage, protect everyone with … [two doses],” Barbosa said, adding that other virus mitigation measures such as social distancing, face mask use and hand washing must also be maintained.
“What we’re seeing in Europe is that a lot of countries that have vaccination coverage of 60-75% [are seeing] significant new growth in the number of cases. There is no sign that the pandemic has ended.”
In other COVID-19 news:
• President López Obrador said Tuesday that health authorities will consider the possibility of offering third, booster shots to some sectors of the population.
“The booster vaccine will be analyzed in some cases, especially for the elderly but that still has to be decided by the doctors, the specialists,” he said.
All adults in the United States are now eligible for booster shots if six months have elapsed since they had their second Pfizer or Moderna shot.
• Almost 131.4 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico after just under 188,000 shots were given Tuesday.
About 76 million adults have been vaccinated and only 15% of that number are awaiting their second dose, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.
He also said that additional shipments of the Pfizer vaccine will arrive in Mexico this month and next and be used to inoculate youths aged 15 to 17.
• The Health Ministry reported 3,698 new cases and 326 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday. Mexico’s accumulated tallies are currently 3.86 million cases and 292,850 fatalities.
There are just over 19,000 estimated active cases, including more than 2,800 in Mexico City and over 2,500 in Baja California, the only state in the country that is high risk orange on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map.
The other 31 states are all low risk green on the map, which will remain in effect through Sunday. The Health Ministry will publish a new map for the coming two weeks on Friday.
Artisan Sirenia Bardovino Pineda poses with some of her creations in her Santa María Chigmecatitlan shop. Photos by Joseph Sorrentino
“People in this pueblo have magic hands,” said Jesús Iván Ríos Piñeda, who served as my guide during a day in Santa María Chigmecatitlán, Puebla, which is located two hours south of Puebla city. People use their magic hands here to make intricate figures and other items from palm fronds or from plastic strips called rafia.
The Mixtecas, indigenous people who occupied — and still do — parts of Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrero, have used palm fronds to weave mats, baskets and other items for hundreds of years, since well before the Spanish arrived. In 1642, this knowledge was brought to what is now Santa María Chigmecatitlán.
According to local oral history, the pueblo was founded when a group of Mixteca from Oaxaca, after wandering for 30 years, stopped at a mesquite tree and hung a canvas depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe on one of its branches. After that, they saw a coyote walking among some vines nearby.
The group decided to name the pueblo after the Virgin and the coyote: Chigmecatitlán is Mixteca for “dog among the vines.”
The pueblo’s founding is celebrated every December 8 with the canvas being hung again on a mesquite tree. Ríos said coyotes still live in the area but to date, none have appeared during the celebration.
María Verónica Peralta Ordones learned the town’s palm frond weaving techniques from her grandmother.
Although the Mixtecas had woven utilitarian items for centuries, weaving palm fronds into figures probably didn’t start until the early 20th century. Artisans in Santa María Chigmecatitlán are most famous for their miniature figures — as small as one inch high — that are exquisitely detailed.
These miniatures didn’t appear until the mid-1960s, when the Gallardo Osorio family started to make them. Other families began making miniatures soon afterward.
The fronds used to make the figures are typically found near the pueblo and cut in March or April and again at the end of the year, when there is little or no rain. Once dried and cleaned, they’re ready to be used.
“Only people in this pueblo make miniature figures,” said María Verónica Peralta Ordones as she sat at her worktable. “I learned from my grandmother, first making chiquihuites (baskets) and purses. Before, people made chiquihuites, but now make mostly figures.”
If someone wanted to learn how to make the figures, Peralta said, they’d start with weaving a very small mat she called a tejida, “It would take probably 15 days, working constantly,” she said. “And one must have agile fingers.”
Before making a figure, Peralta first places the palm fronds in a damp cloth for 30 minutes to moisten them. This makes them flexible. Using a needle, she then deftly slices them into very thin strips. Then her fingers take over.
As I watched in amazement, she somehow looped, twisted and wove those strips first into the body of an angel, then into its base and head. After connecting the head, she added its eyes, mouth and hair using a needle and colored thread. Finally, she wove and attached a belt, trumpet and wings.
To say her fingers moved expertly would be a gross understatement. They moved, as Ríos had said they would, magically.
“To do this work,” Peralta said, “one needs much patience, caring and love.”
She completed the angel, just over one inch in height, in less than an hour, but other figures take considerably longer. “A Catrina figure [the iconic Day of the Dead skeleton figure] of 12 centimeters takes about nine hours to make,” she said.
A nativity scene she made with a couple of dozen miniature figures required 20 days of work. “Challenges do not frighten me,” she said. That piece took second place at a Fonart (the federal handcrafts agency) regional competition in 2011.
A short walk from Peralta’s workshop is Mario Cabrera Ibañez’s store, Yuchi Ñuuu. “The name is Mixteca for ‘bits of palm,’” he said.
Artisan Mario Cabrera Ibañez makes both miniature palm figures and ones as big as three feet tall.
In addition to dozens of miniature figures on display, there were several large pieces in the store. One, of the Virgin of Guadalupe, was close to three feet tall.
“That took me 15 days to make, working eight hours a day,” said Cabrera. “I prefer to make miniatures, but it is all the same.”
In addition to working in palm, Cabrera and his family make items from rafia, thin plastic strips that imitate the fibers of natural raffia palm leaves. “My children work in rafia, which is faster,” he said. “I work in palm, which is more difficult. I sometimes work in rafia, but I prefer palm because of tradition.”
Just a short drive away, Sirenia Bardovino Pineda was weaving some chiquihuites out of rafia in her store. “I prefer rafia because it comes ready,” she said. “I do not need to clean or paint it.”
She said it takes about an hour to make a small chiquihuite.
“To learn how to make one takes two to seven days, depending on the person.” One of the most popular items made from rafia is the sonaja (rattle), of which there are at least 200 types. Bardovino said that, in addition to her store, she sometimes sells at fairs in other pueblos and cities. But, she mentioned, people often want to pay less. “There is a lot of bargaining,” she said.
Peralta estimates that there are 50 families — most of them related — in the pueblo who make the palm figures. Each family has its own unique style. But, sadly, it may be a dying art.
“I do not think young people will continue making these because it is difficult to survive economically,” she said. “Few young people make them, but I hope my granddaughters continue making them. My daughter also knows how to make them. More young people are musicians or join the military. They leave. Many know how to weave, but they prefer to do other things.”
Like everywhere, the pandemic has impacted the Santa Maria Chigmecatitlán, with fewer people coming to buy figures. But it did have one positive effect. “More young people stayed and learned how to work in palm,” said Peralta.
There were no tourists in town the day I was there and no customers in the stores. Some of the artisans said they sell their wares at fairs in different cities, but that requires a lot of traveling and expense.
“Many people have a second job,” said Ríos. In addition to making the figures, he works in construction. “I have to in order to survive.”
Yet, despite the difficulties, all the artisans I spoke with want to continue this work.
One of Mario Cabrera Ibañez’s miniature figures. Yuchi Ñuuu Facebook
“I have a special affection for my work because I learned from my grandparents,” said Peralta. “My work helps me remember my grandparents.”
“I love my pueblo,” she added. “I love its people, its history. I love my work. It is a remembrance of my grandparents and a connection with my family. I want to continue working in palm. Mother Nature gave us this culture.”
• Items in Mario Cabrera Ibañez’s store Yuchi Ñuuu can be seen on his Facebook page.
•María Verónica Peralta Ordones Peralta may be contacted at 224-104-9208
• Sirenia Bardovino Pineda can be reached at 224-115-5982.
The peso has depreciated 6.4% on the dollar this year after losing 2.68% against the U.S. currency over four consecutive trading sessions this week. It is now at its worst comparative level since March.
One dollar was worth 21.43 pesos on Wednesday afternoon.
The dollar has continued to strengthen due to the expectation of a stable monetary policy after U.S. President Biden nominated Jerome Powell for a second term at the head of the Federal Reserve.
An analyst at Banco Base, Gabriela Siller, said that at levels above 21 pesos per dollar the exchange rate could become volatile and surpass the year’s peak of 21.63, which it hit on March 8.
She added that uncertainty about the next head of the Bank of México could make matters worse after President López Obrador withdrew Arturo Herrera’s nomination, and instead put forward Deputy Finance Minister Victoria Rodriguez for the position. “A nomination that doesn’t indicate respect for the Bank of México’s independence could generate uncertainty in the financial markets, given a greater perception of risk in Mexico, which would put additional pressure on the exchange rate and interest rates,” she said.
Omotunde Lawal of Barings, an investment management firm, stated the concern for Banxico’s independence in explicit terms. “I think that is why the peso is falling out of bed. People are worrying that this is a roundabout way for [López Obrador] to interfere with the central bank,” she said.
However, the peso’s poor show was as much a sign of the strength of the dollar, Monex Europe Analyst Ima Sammani said. “Markets are taking advantage of every moment of dollar strength that they can get in this environment, which is visible in business after Powell’s expected re-nomination,” she said.
Inflation is at its highest level in more than 20 years, a report from the federal statistics agency INEGI shows.
Data for the first half of November revealed the inflation rate was 7.05%, up 0.69% since the end of October. That figure is worlds away from the Bank of México’s target of 3%, plus or minus one percentage point.
The rate has continuously surpassed Banxico’s target since March, and is at its highest level since April 2001 when it hit 7.08%.
The figure exceeded the expectations of experts consulted in a Reuters poll, who had anticipated a rate of 6.84%.
The hike was driven by increases in electricity rates and the cost of some agricultural products.
A high rate of inflation is expected to continue into 2022. Banxico Deputy Governor Jonathan Heath said inflation was a matter of urgency. “Now our year-end estimate for December is between 7.1% and 7.3%; it really is a very serious problem. It means without a doubt that we are facing the problem of the highest inflation in the last 20 years,” he said.
President López Obrador said it was a global problem. “It is a worldwide phenomenon, there is a crisis that is now a post-pandemic crisis and is manifesting itself in all countries. We have inflation equal to that of the United States … [which is] more than 6%, Brazil has inflation of 11%,” he said.
He added that his landmark electricity reform was necessary to help manage inflation. “Fortunately, we are managing to stabilize prices. That is why we need the electrical reform, so that the price of electricity does not increase,” he said.
An economist at Capital Economics, Nikhil Sanghani, said he expected Banxico to continue its moderate approach. “The strength of this inflation data will put pressure on Banxico to act more aggressively to quell inflation. But for now, we believe its tightening cycle will continue to be gradual,” he said.
Banxico raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25% this month for the fourth time in a row, setting it at 5%, and raised its expectations for inflation for the end of this year.
Its next monetary policy announcement, the eighth and last of the year, is scheduled for December 16.
An architect's drawing of the new store in Santa Fe.
Big-box retailer Costco has opened a new store on the west side of Mexico City with an investment of US $60 million and the creation of 280 new jobs.
The store is located in La Mexicana park in Santa Fe, a business district in the borough of Álvaro Obregón, characterized by high-rise buildings and a large shopping mall.
The new store has a total area of 21,200 square meters, making it the largest Costco in Mexico, and includes a new section of La Mexicana park on its roof with a soccer field, two basketball courts and other recreational areas.
Transport links to the area are set to improve in 2023 with the opening of the Mexico City-Toluca intercity railroad.
Costco has 39 stores in Mexico and 815 worldwide, the lion’s share of which are in the United States and Canada. It also has stores in Puerto Rico, the U.K., Spain, France, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Iceland and Australia, and an online store in a handful of the countries.
The sites in Mexico are well distributed across the country, mainly in central and northern states. The chain has 5.7 million members in Mexico and more than 100 million globally.
Oaxaca health workers protest outside Insabi headquarters.
A group of disgruntled health workers from Oaxaca blocked access to a federal government building in Mexico City for eight hours on Tuesday, trapping some 300 workers inside.
About 60 doctors, orderlies, paramedics and psychologists arrived at the headquarters of the National Institute of Health for Well-Being (Insabi) at 12:00 p.m. to attend a meeting with officials to resolve working conditions in Oaxaca. More than 2,000 health employees who worked on the front line in the fight against COVID-19 have been dismissed.
Gabriela Colín Altamirano, a doctor, told the newspaper Reforma that Insabi officials stood them up. The health workers – members of a union of temporary health workers – proceeded to block the entrances and exits to the Insabi building, located in the southern Mexico City neighborhood of Guadalupe Inn.
It was after 9:00 p.m. when Insabi employees were finally able to leave the building, Reforma reported. It was unclear whether Juan Antonio Ferrer, the institute’s director, was among the workers trapped inside.
The health workers planned to remain at Insabi headquarters until they were given the opportunity to meet with officials. They set up tents to camp outside the building on Tuesday night.
One of the banners they hung outside the facility read: “They call us essential. They treat us as disposable.”
A police roadblock on a highway near a location where bodies had been found.
As President López Obrador visits the state of Zacatecas with a new security plan in mind, the homicides continue: eight bodies were discovered hanging from trees and bridges in Fresnillo on Tuesday, adding to the 13 publicly displayed corpses hanging from overpasses last week, three in the same area. Forty murders were reported in the state last week.
Seven of the bodies found on Tuesday were identified as men from Fresnillo aged 15-77 years, the news website Infobae reported.
Three were found hanging from a bridge over the Aguanaval River in San José de Lourdes, three were discovered hanging from a tree near Montemariana and another two were found in trees off the highway that connects San Ignacio and San Gabriel.
Fresnillo is seen by its residents as the least safe city in the country: 94.3% of the adults reported feeling unsafe in a survey by federal statistics agency INEGI in September.
Last week’s gruesome discoveries saw 10 bodies found on highway 45 in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc on the border with Aguascalientes on November 18, and three corpses found hanging from a pedestrian overpass outside of Fresnillo on November 15.
A turf war has raged since mid-2020 in Zacatecas between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which seeks to expand in the north of the country.
From December 2018 through September 2021, Zacatecas saw 2,192 murders.
In Cuauhtémoc, one traffic cop armed with a rifle and a pistol is single-handedly trying to ensure the safety of the municipality of 11,275 people after municipal police decided not to go to work.
Earlier this week the mayor asked residents to remain in their homes at night. The plea worked, the newspaper Milenio reported: the streets are dead quiet after 8:00 p.m. as citizens seek to avoid getting caught in the crossfire between warring sicarios.
President López Obrador traveled to Zacatecas on Wednesday to meet with Governor David Monreal and form a plan for the state’s security. “We are going … to support David Monreal and give all our support to the people of Zacatecas. The entire cabinet of the federal government is going, today and tomorrow, to a security meeting. The entire security plan is going to be reinforced,” the president said at his morning news conference on Wednesday.
