Right to asylum is a principle that has been planted within Mexico's foreign policy, President López Obrador said today.
The right to asylum is “sacred,” President López Obrador said today as his government moves to implement stronger measures to reduce migration flows to the northern border.
Speaking at his morning press conference, the president said that previous federal governments – even “conservative, retrograde” ones – always respected that right, declaring that “it’s already been planted within Mexico’s foreign policy.”
As part of a deal to stave off tariffs threatened by United States President Donald Trump, Mexico last week undertook to increase security measures to curb irregular migration, a commitment which includes the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border.
Even before that commitment, human rights and migrant advocacy groups warned that the government’s increasingly militarized approach to combating people’s transit through Mexico posed a threat to migrants’ rights.
But the president pledged today that migrants in Mexico will be both respected and protected.
“The right to asylum that we have to guarantee is a sacred right for all Mexicans and in these times in which we are attending to the migration issue, we are always going to treat migrants with respect and give them protection . . .” López Obrador said.
“I’ve said it [before] and I repeat it, in this situation we’re going through now, we’re going to be very respectful of the government of the United States, of President Donald Trump and more than anything of the American people, but at the same time we’re going to respect migrants’ human rights,” he added.
“How is that balance going to be maintained? Well, that has to do with the noble function of politics, sometimes it’s scorned [but] it’s possible to avoid confrontation, that’s why politics was invented, to avoid confrontation, to avoid war.”
In an unusually short press conference by the president’s standards, López Obrador said the government’s “complete” plan to curb migration will be presented tomorrow.
A woman covers up against high temperatures in Hermosillo.
Local authorities in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora, are taking emergency measures in the face of some of the worst heat the city has ever experienced.
Temperatures of 48 C made Tuesday the hottest June 11 on record in the Sonora capital, exceeding the 45 degrees recorded on June 11, 1993.
On both Monday and Tuesday, the 48-degree temperature also won Hermosillo the distinction of being the hottest city on the planet, beating out desert cities in the Middle East.
In response, Hermosillo authorities have opened seven emergency shelters to protect homeless people from the potentially deadly heat.
The shelters will remain open during the day throughout the summer.
One Hermosillo official said the temperature could rise above 50 C in the next few days.
Civil Protection director Santa Aguilar Castillo said that starting at 1:00pm every day, the agency will search for people in the streets and take them to the shelters. Anyone who doesn’t wish to go will be offered fresh water and electrolytes.
Authorities also cancelled classes in three Hermosillo schools that are located in rural areas because of concerns about the heat. The Sonora Health Secretariat is asking residents to take precautions, including remaining hydrated, avoiding exposure to the sun and using sunscreen.
Visitors to Maviri beach in Sinaloa captured these images of the stinging jellyfish.
A beach in Sinaloa has been closed after hundreds of visitors were stung by jellyfish both in the water and on the beach.
State Civil Protection chief Francisco Vega Meza said that closing Maviri beach in Topolobambo bay was necessary to protect visitors because the creatures are usually not visible.
Yellow and red flags have been placed near where the jellyfish have been seen.
Because jellyfish prefer warm water with high salinity and usually live 30 to 60 kilometers from the coast, the slightly cooler temperatures and lower salinity near the coast create a natural barrier.
But this year, less rain than usual has meant warmer, saltier coastal waters and a more welcoming environment for jellyfish near the beaches. Authorities hope that the start of the rainy season will reduce the salinity and drive the jellyfish away from shore.
Between June 8 and 11, almost 500 people were treated for painful jellyfish stings, mostly on their legs.
The beach will remain closed at least until Monday, when authorities will reevaluate the situation and decide whether to allow visitors to return.
Vega said that stings can be treated by washing the affected area with sea water and using cold compresses. Anesthetic cream with lidocaine can be used to control the pain.
If a victim experiences cramping, muscle spasms or fever after being stung by a jellyfish, medical attention should be sought immediately.
Alejandro Encinas predicts a nearly fivefold increase in migrants returned by US.
A senior government official has predicted that the United States will return as many as 50,000 asylum seekers to Mexico in the coming months, a figure that would represent a nearly fivefold increase on the number of migrants already returned under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
With the number of migrants seeking asylum in Mexico also on the rise, Alejandro Encinas, undersecretary for human rights, migration and population, said yesterday that the government will have to quickly strengthen its capacity to attend to the “refugees.”
As part of a bilateral deal reached last Friday that ended United States President Donald Trump’s threat of a 5% tariff on Mexican goods, Mexico committed to send 6,000 members of the National Guard to the southern border to deter the entry of undocumented migrants and agreed to allow the return of all migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. as they await the outcome of their claims.
In a joint declaration issued on June 7, the two countries said that “those crossing the U.S. southern border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico” and “Mexico will authorize the entrance of all of those individuals for humanitarian reasons.”
The statement also said that Mexico will offer returning migrants “jobs, health care and education according to its principles.”
The expanded implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocols, as the “Remain in Mexico” policy is officially called, will stretch government resources, especially in northern border cities where there are already large numbers of migrants.
A Mexican immigration official said last week that nearly 10,400 asylum-seekers have already been returned to Mexico as their cases are processed in United States immigration courts, while many more migrants are still waiting in border cities for an opportunity to file claims with U.S. authorities.
The director of a migrant shelter in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, this week condemned the new migration pact, stating that already overwhelmed shelters will be unable to cope with the increased number of arrivals from the U.S.
The number of migrants crossing the northern border into the United States has increased significantly in recent months, fueling Trump’s anger as he attempted to pressure Mexico to do more to reduce migration flows.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said yesterday that 593,507 migrants have arrived at the southern U.S. border from Mexico this year, and that asylum applications in Mexico have increased 196%.
The agency called for “an urgent meeting of states in the region to map out coordinated action to address this growing displacement challenge effectively and sustainably, in ways that prioritize protection of lives and well-managed borders.”
An immigration official said over 10,000 asylum-seekers have already been returned.
UNHCR Mexico official Joseph Herrero told the newspaper Milenio that more than 27,000 Central Americans have filed asylum claims this year and that 30% of those are minors.
More than 1,000 children are currently housed in the country’s 53 migration detention centers, according to the National Immigration Institute, some of which are severely overcrowded.
Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero said yesterday that there is an “emergency situation” in Mexico with regard to migration, citing statistics from the United States Customs and Border Protection that show that more than 144,000 people were arrested after illegally crossing the northern border last month.
The measures to curb migration that Mexico has agreed to adopt respond to that situation, she said.
“We’re going to have a special Mexican model,” Sánchez said, adding that it will comply with the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
“We’re going to sponsor work visas for migrants and we’re going to give attention to their human rights,” she said.
President López Obrador said yesterday that the sale of the presidential plane will help to fund the attention given to migrants – and efforts to curb their entry into, and travel through, the country.
After predicting that the number of people seeking asylum in Mexico will reach 80,000 before the end of the year, undersecretary Encinas also said that migrants’ rights will be protected.
“We will have to strengthen . . . our commitment with regard to migration and attention to refugees because we’re not going to renounce what has been one of the clear, historical characteristics of Mexican policy – to guarantee [the right to] asylum, refuge and dignified treatment for those people who come to our country to seek a different opportunity in life.”
At least five marine species are at risk due to overfishing in Mexican waters, a non-governmental organization has warned.
After conducting an audit of the fishing industry in Mexico, the ocean conservation organization Oceana said that red snapper, grouper, bluefin tuna, sharks and octopus are all endangered due to overexploitation.
The NGO said the failure to update the National Fishing Charter (CNP), a document that details which species are at risk, has allowed the endangered species to continue to be caught in large quantities when their fishing should have been restricted.
The National Fisheries Institute (Inapesca) has updated the CNP only six times since the year 2000 when it should have been updated annually, Oceana said.
The charter sets regulations for 735 different marine species in 83 different fisheries, of which fishing in 66 – or 80% of the total – is currently subject to restrictions.
However, Oceana said that overfishing in those fisheries continues to occur.
Esteban García-Peña, the organization’s Mexico director, said that in addition to Inapesca’s shortcomings, the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca) has granted permits for the fishing of grouper, bluefin tuna and red snapper during the closed season for those species.
Oceana said it is the responsibility of Inapesca to notify Conapesca about the overexploitation but noted there is a lack of communication and collaboration between the two agencies.
Another factor contributing to overfishing is the significant increase in the number of fishing boats.
Between 2011 and 2018, statistics show, 2,670 new vessels began operations even as fish stocks were in decline.
The Secretariat of Agriculture (Sader) said in a statement this week that it had detected irregularities in the granting of new fishing permits by Conapesca in the years before the new government took office last December.
Between 2007 and 2018 – a period encompassing the terms of the last two federal governments – the number of fishing licenses granted increased exponentially when they should have been restricted.
Sader said that “presumed acts of corruption” in Conapesca have been referred to the relevant authorities.
Around 295,000 people are directly engaged in fishing in Mexico and the sector generates revenue in excess of 38 billion pesos (US $2 billion) a year.
But Oceana warned that the livelihoods of those employed in the industry are threatened by the “scant availability of species to fish.”
The NGO said it is crucial for the government to implement “strategies and actions for the protection and restoration” of overexploited fisheries.
Oceana director García-Peña contended that “fishing blindly, as we say is occurring in the fishing sector in this country, puts food security at stake.”
A federal court yesterday issued a new provisional suspension order against the new Santa Lucía airport that also instructs federal authorities not to make any changes to the site of the abandoned Mexico City airport project.
The court order came in response to injunction requests filed by the #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste) collective, made up of civil society organizations, law firms and more than 100 citizens.
The Mexico City-based administrative court ordered construction at the Santa Lucía project to stop until the federal government proves that it has all necessary air safety permits.
The government has already been served with federal court orders instructing it to cease construction until it proves that it has all necessary environmental permits to build the US $4.1-billion airport.
The directive to leave the abandoned Texcoco airport intact came just one day after the project chief of an ecological park planned for the site said the foundations of the X-shaped terminal and part of a runway will be left under water as the result of the restoration of a drained lake.
The #NoMásDerroches collective has filed 147 separate injunction requests that could hold up or threaten construction of the new airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in México state.
Bumper boys ready to make a deal. They say you could find a piece of the Titanic at SanFe.
Ropa de paca – clothing in bundles, huge plastic bales dumped out on to folding tables or tarps spread out on the ground for visitors to dig through.
Massive piles of mostly T-shirts that run for blocks through the tarp-covered streets of the Tianguis de la San Felipe de Jesús.
Almost all the clothes appear to be from the United States and arrive by the truckload, sold to the vendors in the hundreds of kilos.
Take a tour of the churches, baseball fields and community centers of Pittsburgh or Orlando, the T-shirts discarded memories of “The Hall Family Reunion” or “Christian Meetup 2013” at 30 pesos a pop.
“Barato! Barato!” the vendors holler: dresses and blouses for 50 pesos, pants for 40 or an armful of T-shirts for a couple of hundred.
You might just be buying back the one that was stolen off your car, but where else can you find used mirrors?
There are estimated to be 40,000 vendors at “SanFe” every Sunday and hundreds of thousands of visitors. There aren’t any reliable international statistics, but this tianguis is said to be the largest street market in Latin America, and if that’s the case, it’s hard to imagine anything in the U.S. or Canada actually being larger.
The saying goes, “In SanFe you can find everything from a pin to a piece of the Titanic.” And that may very well be true, but it could take a number of visits, as you’re not likely to cover the entire seven kilometers of tent rows in a single day.
The San Felipe street market runs through four Mexico City colonias – San Felipe de Jesús, Esmeralda, Providencia and 25 de Julio – right on the edge of Nezahualcóyotl and Ecatepec in the state of Mexico, with the main passage along Villa de Ayala from Estado de Zacatecas to Avenida Gran Canal, where it splinters off on to side streets.
What began decades ago as locals selling odds and ends among rural cornfields and lagoons, along what was once a major river – the Gran Canal, has turned into a massive marketplace of car parts, used clothing, housewares, refrigerators, furniture and antiques.
As small rural towns became huge arms of the city, SanFe made a name for itself as a place to buy used tools. As the tianguis overtook the streets, the municipality tried to move the sellers indoors in the 60s, building the Mercado 25 de Julio to specialize in tools and hardware.
While some sellers joined in for the indoor sales, many remained on the streets and the street market just kept growing into the monstrosity it has become today.
Bales of used clothes ripe for the picking at SanFe.
Knock-off shoes, counterfeit concert T-shirts that were overproduced, genuine human hair and kilometers of rusty bolts and wrenches – you can find it all at SanFe. Some vendors are hyper-specialized down to car rearview mirrors or used bike tires, and the origin of much of the product is not necessarily on the up and up, but there’s an impressive amount to see.
And, well, a piece of the Titanic could certainly be considered “found” rather than “stolen.”
• Tianguis de la San Felipe de Jesús runs every Sunday from 8:00am to 6:00pm along Avenida Villa de Ayala from Calle Estado de Zacatecas in Colonia Providencia to Avenida Gran Canal in Colonia San Felipe de Jesús, then north to Mercado 25 de Julio.
This is the 14th in a series on the bazaars, flea markets and markets of Mexico City:
The number of kidnapping cases in Mexico City surged 271% in the first four months of 2019, while public security funding for the capital’s 16 boroughs has been slashed.
There were 26 abduction cases between January and April, according to the National Public Security System, compared to just seven in the same period last year.
If it continues at the same rate, the year will end with 78 kidnapping cases in the capital, which would be the highest number since 2009.
The surge recorded so far this year far exceeds the nationwide increase of 28% and coincides with a reduction in federal funding for security.
Mexico City’s 16 boroughs were allocated 176.5 million pesos (US $9.2 million) this year via the federal government’s security enhancement program known as Fortaseg, a reduction of 53% compared to the 378.1 million pesos they received in 2018.
Sprawling Iztapalapa in the east of the city, central Cuauhtémoc and Gustavo A. Madero in the north suffered the biggest budget cuts, and 17 of the 26 kidnappings in the first four months of the year – 65% or two out of every three – occurred in those boroughs.
Isabel Miranda de Wallace, president of the non-governmental organization Alto al Secuestro (Stop the Kidnappings), believes that the budget cuts – part of President López Obrador’s wider austerity measures – have made existing policing deficiencies even worse.
In January, she wrote to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum to warn her about the risks posed by funding cuts to the police’s anti-kidnapping unit.
De Wallace said that Mexico City police are not only operating with scant resources but with poor quality equipment, adding that they don’t have the technology needed to effectively combat and investigate kidnapping.
The victim’s family claim that in the 72 hours after he was abducted, police failed to properly investigate the case. Officers also allegedly failed to correctly secure the crime site and are under investigation for possible collusion with the perpetrators.
The National Citizens’ Observatory (ONC), an independent organization that monitors security conditions, said the case is an “example of how bad decisions end lives.”
The organization also noted that the federal government has cut the budget of the National Anti-Kidnapping Coordination by 30% and failed to officially appoint someone to head it.
It is clear that combating this crime “is not a priority for the new administration,” the ONC said.
The Ronquillo case has reopened old wounds for Alejandro Martí, whose 14-year-old son was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico City in 2008. He blamed the crime on “brutal impunity” and systemic flaws that deter immediate action or reaction by authorities.
He wrote on Twitter: “Mexico is bleeding as never before in history” and “the terror continues in spite of everything.”
Martí became an advocate for legal reforms after his son’s death and founded México SOS, a foundation dedicated to end the crisis of insecurity.
Design described as originating in Saltillo, Coahuila. carolina herrera
Another major international fashion designer is in hot water in Mexico over cultural appropriation, having been accused by the federal government of plagiarizing indigenous Mexican designs for its latest catalogue.
In a letter published in the Spanish newspaper El País, Culture Secretary Alejandra Frausto asserted that several articles of clothing featured in Carolina Herrera’s Resort 2020 collection copied liberally and without due recognition from designs used in indigenous textiles from several regions of Mexico.
“Some of the designs used in the collection form part of the world view of indigenous peoples of specific regions in Mexico.”
In her letter, Frausto pointed to specific examples, citing two dresses that use a design typical of the famous serapes and ponchos made and worn by indigenous people in Saltillo, Coahuila, a dress with a distinctive floral pattern employed by indigenous women in Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec and another dress with a pattern identical to embroidery work used by an indigenous community in Hidalgo.
“This pattern comes from the community of Tenango de Doria in Hidalgo. Contained in these patterns is the very history of the community, and each element has special personal, familial and communal significance.”
A brief introduction in the Carolina Herrera catalogue claims the collection was inspired in “a sunrise in Tulum, the light of Lima, a stroll through Mexico City . . . and the colors of Cartagena.” Vogue magazine called the new collection “young, fresh and true to the brand’s roots.”
But Frausto was not convinced and in her letter demanded a public explanation from Venezuelan-born Herrera and the design firm’s creative director, Wes Gordon.
She wants to know what led the collection to use patterns with clearly documented indigenous origins and indicate whether they intend to compensate the indigenous communities and original designers with funds generated from the collection’s sale.
“This is about an ethical principal . . .” Frausto wrote, requiring the attention of the United Nations panel for sustainable development.
This is not the first time that major designers and clothing lines have found themselves at the center of controversy for copying indigenous Mexican designs. Zara, Mango, Isabel Marant, Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors and Etoile have all been criticized in the past.
Oaxaca musician-turned senator Susana Harp told El País that the Mexican government is currently working onlegislation that would grant intellectual property protections to the cultural knowledge and identity of afro-Mexican and indigenous groups.
The senator, who heads up the Culture Commission in Congress, said the law would allow indigenous communities to prohibit fashion designers from using their designs.
“These communities are asking for respect, they’re not [necessarily] asking for money. They want designers to come to them and ask for their permission.”
Harp said that not all designers copy indigenous designs indiscriminately without asking permission, highlighting French luxury furniture designer Roche Bobois, which pays royalties to huichol communities for every piece of furniture sold that incorporates their distinctive indigenous designs, and Mexico City designer Carla Fernández, who clearly acknowledges the origin of each piece of her collection.
Better think twice before cooking up a pot of sargassum stew.
Scientists in Mexico and the United States have detected high levels of arsenic and heavy metals in sargassum that washed up on Quintana Roo beaches.
Rosa Elisa Rodríguez Martínez, a researcher at UNAM’s reef systems unit in Puerto Morelos, said the “serious levels” of arsenic and heavy metals such as cadmium represent a risk to both human and animal health.
She said that arsenic levels 60% higher than those permitted in human and animal food products were detected in the sargassum samples taken from beaches in Puerto Morelos and Playa del Carmen in the north of the state and Othón P. Blanco in the south.
Rodríguez said heavy metal levels as high as 120 parts per million were detected in some of the samples.
She explained that the scientists who carried out the tests sought the assistance of nutrition experts to determine whether the seaweed could still be used as fodder for livestock or compost.
Rodríguez added that more meticulous sargassum testing, including samples collected from beaches in other parts of the state, needs to be completed to establish just how toxic the seaweed is.
She recommended that anyone considering preparing meals with the macroalgae hold off until further test results are released.
The samples were analyzed at laboratories of the National Autonomous University (UNAM) and the Ecology Research Center in Miami, Florida.
Massive quantities of sargassum have been predicted for Mexico’s Caribbean coastline this year, which could cause a significant decline in tourist numbers.
Most of the macroalgae collected from beaches is disposed of but entrepreneurs are increasingly using sargassum in a range of commercial products including food and beverages, paper, cosmetics, shoes and construction materials.
