But the governors of Nayarit and Tabasco do not share the sympathies of the nearly 37,000 people who voted.
After the referendum, Nayarit Governor Antonio Echeverría García invited the directors of the United States beverage company to visit his state to look for opportunities to invest.
“Nayarit is your home and we are your friends. Here we will always have our doors open to businessmen who want to invest and create jobs that have direct impacts on families’ economies,” he said in a post to Facebook on Tuesday.
“After the decision made by the citizenry of Mexicali not to accept the installation of the Constellation Brands beer brewery, I want to extend an invitation to the directors of the company to come to Nayarit and assess the possibilities of investing in our state.”
He said that unlike Baja California, where the main complaint from citizens who opposed the plant for years was the threat it posed to the region’s water supply, Nayarit has enough water to support such a project.
“Fortunately, our territory has sufficient water capacity, as well as a legal framework that offers guarantees of security and certainty for [the company’s] investments,” he said.
Echeverría was not the first governor, however, to let the company know that his state is interested in being its Plan B.
Seeing the company’s years-long struggle with the citizens of Mexicali, Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López announced last week that the state was ready to offer Constellation Brands investment guarantees and sufficient resources to build the brewery there.
“There is sufficient water to be able to establish a beer brewing industry in Tabasco,” López told a press conference, claiming that the state has a third of Mexico’s fresh water.
An official from the state Economic Development Ministry, Federico García Mallitz, said that National Water Commission data showed that a possible Constellation Brands brewery in the state would not negatively affect the population’s potable water supply.
“The studies we have about the aquifers give us hard data that allow us to decide if a beer company would have a negative impact or not, and in Tabasco [water] is a competitive benefit, so we wouldn’t have any problems,” he said.
García estimated that the project could generate around 1,000 direct jobs and another 10,000 indirect jobs in the state, taking into account such necessary products as cardboard containers and other packaging.
Governor López said that the investment would be a boost for employment and the economy in the state, which he noted has the highest rate of unemployment in the country.
For its part, Constellation Brands did not readily accept the federal government’s announcement that it was to halt all operations on the plant, but rather issued a statement on Tuesday saying it was “ready to enter into the necessary talks with President López Obrador” about the future of the project.
The closure of schools, universities and some businesses due to the coronavirus outbreak has resulted in a significant decline in traffic in Mexico City this week.
The Mexico City Security Ministry (SSC) said in a statement that there were 61% fewer vehicles on the road at 8:00 a.m. Monday compared to the same time on a regular work and school day. At 6:00 p.m., the start of the evening peak hour, traffic was down 49%, the SSC said.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum posted a graph to her Twitter account that showed that traffic was 1% lighter at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday compared to the same time the day before – a 62% reduction compared to a normal weekday.
Sheinbaum also reported that there have been 60% fewer passengers on the capital’s metro and Metrobús systems this week.
Many have heeded the call to stay at home but for some, such as street vendors, not going out to work is untenable because they depend on their daily earnings to support themselves and their families.
Still, pedestrian traffic is notably lighter in the normally bustling streets of the capital’s downtown area.
The government department responsible for the historic center reported that pedestrian numbers on Calle Madero, Mexico City’s busiest pedestrian street, were down more than 70% and that there were between 30% and 50% fewer shoppers than normal across the downtown area.
To encourage even more people not to go out, Sheinbaum told a press conference on Tuesday that the government will launch a Quédate en Casa, or Stay at Home, campaign.
She said that the campaign will be promoted via advertisements at metro and Metrobús stations and on television, radio, social media and in newspapers.
The challenge, Sheinbaum added, is “not to infect [others] and not become infected” with Covid-19. She reiterated that people with coronavirus symptoms should not go to a medical center or hospital but text “covid19” to the number 51515 to get medical attention from the government.
The mayor also said that authorities will impose sanctions on businesses not complying with the directive to shut. Businesses could have their permits temporarily revoked and also face fines of between 30,994 and 217,200 pesos (US $1,300-$9,000).
A lawmaker shows bite mark following a tiff in the legislature.
Rather than a peaceful transition of power from one party to another, the process came to fisticuffs and even biting between two deputies in the Baja California Sur Congress on Tuesday.
Fighting broke out between Lorena Lineth Montaño, of the Social Encounter Party (PES), and Rosalba Rodríguez López, of the ruling Morena party, over a dispute to install the latter’s newly appointed finance director.
Deputies from the National Action Party (PAN) supported the PES deputies in blocking the Morena lawmakers from installing the appointee in the congress’s finance department.
The argument became heated and Montaño and Rodríguez engaged in a physical confrontation, even going so far as to bite each other hard enough to leave bruises and teeth marks.
The two were broken up by fellow lawmakers and threatened with having charges filed against them.
“We regret the lack of dialogue on the part of the opposing deputies who engaged in these acts,” said Sandra Guadalupe Moreno Vázquez, a deputy from the alliance called Juntos Haremos Historia (Together We’ll Make History).
“We condemn any act of aggression toward our fellow female deputies. We urge them to respect the law and the constitutionality of the state congress,” she said.
Of the same party, Deputy Carlos “Chaky” Van Wormer Ruiz said that “it’s a difference of opinions and we should deal with it in plenary meetings. … We won’t solve anything in the streets.”
Six people were arrested on Wednesday morning after breaking into and looting a Chedraui supermarket in Oaxaca city. Security videos show that at least 30 people broke windows and forced a door to enter the supermarket in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The thieves targeted home electronics, domestic appliances and mobile telephones, loading them into four pickup trucks parked outside the supermarket.
Police were alerted to the heist by an alarm at the supermarket and arrived at the scene a short time later. In addition to arresting six of the looters, they also seized some of the stolen goods. Authorities are conducting an investigation aimed at locating and arresting the other people who participated in the crime.
State police said that additional officers would be deployed to supermarkets to avoid more cases of looting. There are fears in some quarters that the crime could become more common as the Covid-19 outbreak worsens.
Calls for widespread looting in México state have been making the rounds on social media in recent days, with some posters claiming that food shortages are imminent.
Authorities in Oaxaca have announced that they have obtained 10,000 Covid-19 rapid tests and that a range of businesses must close across the state to limit the spread of the contagious disease.
Health Minister Donato Casas said that only one state-run laboratory is authorized to carry out coronavirus tests.
“In our state laboratory we can carry out up to 40 tests in five hours with the technology we have,” he said.
With regard to limiting the outbreak of coronavirus in Oaxaca, where there were four confirmed cases as of Tuesday, Governor Alejandro Murat said that stricter measures need to be imposed because the disease could now be spreading among the community.
He said that he had issued a decree for all bars, movie theaters, sports centers, gyms and museums to close temporarily in all of Oaxaca’s 570 municipalities. Businesses that flout the restriction will be closed and fined, the governor said.
Police in Oaxaca city are already asking people who are outside without a valid reason to return to their homes and state authorities will now ask their municipal counterparts to enforce the same restriction in other parts of the state.
Predicting that the health crisis would last 12 weeks, Murat said that “the most important thing today is social distancing and isolation.”
He also said that the government is taking steps to ensure that families have the financial means to get through a prolonged partial shutdown of the economy. However, the governor stressed that people’s health must be prioritized.
“We will overcome the economic [impact] but we can never recover a [lost] life,” Murat said.
Schools in Oaxaca – as in all other states – are now closed for extended Easter holidays and large events have been postponed or canceled. Murat said that health checks have been ramped up at airports and bus stations, and that public transit services have been reduced by half.
The governor highlighted that Oaxaca has four new hospitals that are jointly run by the army and the state government. The new facilities have set aside 200 beds for Covid-19 patients in serious condition, he said.
“No other state has four new hospitals to respond to this pandemic,” Murat said, adding that they are equipped with modern medical equipment and sufficient supplies.
He also said that his government has reached an agreement with several companies for food to be provided to people who are struggling financially due to the coronavirus-fueled downturn in the economy.
Once the health crisis passes, 3.6 billion pesos (US $150.4 million) will be invested in infrastructure projects to help revitalize the economy, Murat said.
Asylum seekers wait outside the COMAR offices in the center of Tapachula. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Asylum seekers in Chiapas are being told to go home or endure months in detention centers where they are denied basic needs such as water, clean sanitation and access to health care. Those who file a claim for international protection must wait months for the outcome, during which time they have to navigate a complex system and many struggle to access their basic rights.
Mexico does not currently have, and has no plans to introduce, a cap on asylum applications, according to Andrés Ramirez, head of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). However, since June 2019 there has been a change in policy aimed at restricting the migrant flow through the country. So while COMAR’s budget is a fraction of what is needed to investigate asylum claims efficiently, the National Immigration Institute (INM) has been given additional support in the form of the National Guard and the army.
In May 2019, the U.S. government threatened to impose increasing tariffs on Mexican goods “unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory.” The following month, the government launched the Migration and Development Plan, and by November 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard boasted of a reduction in the flow of migrants from south to north from 144,116 (in May) to 42,710.
Publicly this reduction has been attributed to employment programs and rescuing migrants from traffickers. However, it is also likely to be, at least in part, due to the harsh conditions that migrants must endure to obtain international protection in Mexico.
Detainees are given the “choice” of returning home to face the life-threatening situations that they fled or enduring months of difficult conditions in detention. Some of those “rescued” by the INM choose not to request asylum rather than spend months in a detention center.
Yoni, a Honduran woman, said that her unaccompanied teenage daughter was told she would have to stay in Siglo XXI for ”two to five months” while applying for asylum. On seeing the conditions, her daughter asked to be sent home. It was nine more days before the teenager was allowed to phone anyone and 26 days of detention before she was finally deported.
Those who do stay at Siglo XXI are faced with medical neglect. Dr. Arturo Nepomeceno Lozano, the assistant deputy director at Tapachula hospital, said the doctors at Siglo XXI do not appear to be attending to the detainees. His hospital regularly sees patients with urinary tract infections caused by severe dehydration, or diarrhea or bronchitis. He has treated patients who have been “told to stand in the sun while they are denied shade or water.”
One mother from El Salvador wept as she told how her 9-year-old daughter’s appendix had burst inside Siglo XXI. The girl suffered from “increasing stomach pains and fever for 13 days … before she was finally transferred to the hospital, after the pain had left her unable to stand. The other detainees threatened to revolt if the girl was not given medical attention.”
“The doctor didn’t even physically examine my child,” the woman said. “He just gave us some antibiotics that did nothing to reduce the fever or the pain. The doctor accused her of faking the illness and being a spoiled child.”
The girl, who went on to spend six weeks in the hospital, was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix, peritonitis and typhoid. She required three operations to remove and repair a significant part of her intestines as a result of the serious infection that had spread from her appendix. “The doctors have said that it is possible she won’t be able to have children,” her mother said through tears.
It wasn’t just medical neglect that the girl had to endure. Before being transferred, the staff in the detention center “forced her to stand outside in the rain when she had a fever,” said her mother.
COMAR’s Andrés Ramírez explains the asylum system in his office in Mexico City. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
When the Salvadoran mother was finally allowed to accompany her daughter to the hospital, she was not allowed to bring her other three children, all under the age of 13. She was forced to leave them unaccompanied in the detention center and was denied any form of communication with them until three days later when they were unexpectedly delivered late one night to the hospital.
Siria Villator belongs to the Fray Matías Human Rights Center, one of the few organizations in Chiapas that has been granted access to Siglo XXI. She is granted restricted access to a common area but not to the main living areas. She said “it was bad before but now it is really bad.” She has heard about cells used for “solitary confinement as punishment.” INM spokeswoman Natalia Gómez denies that there are any such cells or that punishments are meted out.
Jonny, 18, spent seven and a half months in the detention center. He says was regularly called a “fucking migrant” and staff would throw bars of soap at his face. “But [the staff] are not all bad — maybe only 40% of them,” he said in an attempt to be lighthearted.
Detainees at Siglo XXI also talk of unsanitary conditions. In one dormitory dozens of people sleep on mattresses on the floor, covered only with dirty sheets. A young man from Honduras explained that the turnaround is so fast that the new arrivals sleep in beds with old soiled linen from the previous occupants.
The INM also has the ability to detain undocumented migrants in temporary holding facilities called estancias provisionales. These shelters have a capacity for 10 people and are designed for holding periods of less than 48 hours, confirmed Brenda Ochoa, who has permission to visit the detention facilities as a representative of Fray Matías. She says conditions are frequently overcrowded and the cells are “used as a punishment.” On one visit, “there were over 40 people, including pregnant women, being held in in the cell, meaning that not all of them could lie down at once.”
In their rush to flee desperate circumstances, asylum seekers are in most cases unable to prepare for the complicated bureaucratic process that awaits them.
“Most asylum seekers will have left their home suddenly with little savings, planning or information,” explained Florian Heopfner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Very few people will understand the process,” he said.
The process involves an understanding of the two government departments: the INM and COMAR. Asylum applications are managed by COMAR whereas deportations and detentions are managed by the INM. COMAR has a presence in only four federal entities: Mexico City, Chiapas, Veracruz and Tabasco; the INM is present across Mexico and is supported by the police, the National Guard and the army.
“We didn’t know how things worked or what the COMAR office was when we arrived,” explained a 23-year old Honduran father. He, his 20-year-old wife and 10-month-old daughter were detained for 22 days inside Siglo XXI after a week of sleeping rough in Tapachula. “It’s like a prison,” he said. “They lied to us when we arrived. They said we would have to stay (in the detention center) for at least three months if we wanted asylum.”
The young father stayed in a male dormitory, shared with dozens of others, and his wife and child stayed together in a separate area; each day, they were allowed to spend one hour together as a family. The young mother said she was “allowed only three diapers per day” and so was “forced to leave her baby in soiled diapers” when she ran out.
In cases where asylum seekers cannot get to a COMAR office, the INM has a duty to inform the refugee commission of their request for asylum, explained Andrés Ramírez, head of COMAR.
However, the INM doesn’t always provide this information , leading to a bureaucratic wall between the asylum seeker and protection.
Institute spokesperson Gómez acknowledged that these are not the first complaints that have been made, but she said the INM has “no ability to investigate complaints.” She asserted that “the only way an investigation could happen would be if a formal complaint is made to the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH).”
The CNDH has investigated 36 complaints regarding the INM in Chiapas since the beginning of the year. However, in Ochoa’s experience, many people are unwilling to make formal complaints as they believe it will affect their asylum status.
This is the first of a two-part series that examines the unofficial barriers that serve to discourage people from filing claims for asylum.
Paseo de la Reforma will be the site of new projects.
The Mexico City government has authorized the construction of 17 real estate projects along the capital’s most emblematic boulevard as part of efforts to combat the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The government gave the green light for 14 projects on Paseo de la Reforma in the central borough of Cuauhtémoc, as well as three along the avenue’s extension in the boroughs of Álvaro Obregón and Cuajimalpa.
A notice published in the government’s official gazette on Tuesday said that developers must register their interest in building one or more projects within 15 days. If their application is approved, they must commence construction within 30 days of the lifting of restrictions put in place to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Signed by Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the notice said that the projects, as a result of their “nature and location,” have the potential to stimulate the economy.
The developers will be required to obtain all environmental and other permits that apply to construction projects. The government also said that the projects must be sustainable, incorporating features such as solar panels, rainwater collection systems and green walls.
The developers should seek to offer jobs to people who live near the area where the project will be built, the government said.
They will also be required to provide information about their projects to people who live and work in the area within 15 days of commencing construction. The information can be provided either online or in booths set up near the construction site.
Economic activity is expected to decrease significantly as a result of the outbreak of Covid-19 in Mexico and the measures put in place to contain it. Unemployment is expected to increase in April and tens of thousands of businesses in Mexico City alone are predicted to close.
The Mexico City government has ordered the closure of many non-essential businesses as well as the cancellation or postponement of large events, and is encouraging residents to stay home as much as possible.
There were 66 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the capital as of Tuesday, more than any other federal entity.
President López Obrador claimed on Wednesday that there was corruption in the granting of permits to the United States beverage company Constellation Brands for the construction of a brewery in Mexicali, Baja California.
López Obrador made the accusation at his regular news conference, two days after the government announced that it would halt the US $1.4-billion project because about three-quarters of voters opposed it in a referendum last weekend.
“Of course there was [corruption]. … It’s just a matter of thinking: how can a permit be given to build a brewery that uses water where there is a shortage of water?” he said.
The project was given the green light by the government of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was in office from 2012 to 2018. Farmers and other Baja California residents opposed it on the grounds that it would threaten the local water supply, a claim that the company consistently rejected.
Both the Ministry of Environment and the National Water Commission said last week the brewery would not have an adverse effect on the region’s water supply.
But the concern now is not water but future investment.
López Obrador asserted that the decision not to allow Constellation to open its Mexicali brewery would not hurt Mexico’s prospects of attracting new investment.
On the contrary, he said, putting an end to corruption and establishing an “authentic rule of law” will allow Mexico to lure more private and foreign capital.
Business groups, on the other hand, say that the cancellation of the brewery, where Constellation planned to make beers such as Corona and Pacífico to export to the United States, will hurt investment.
“Production of the most famous Mexican beer in the world is prohibited in Mexico – who’s going to want to invest in a country with such contradictions and absurdities?” asked Mexican Employers Federation President Gustavo de Hoyos.
López Obrador, who also canceled the previous government’s new Mexico City airport project after a controversial public consultation, told reporters that it was unclear whether the federal government would have to pay compensation to Constellation, which has invested about $900 million in the brewery.
He said that a decision about compensation would not be made until the government meets with representatives of the company and carries out a review of how the brewery permits were granted. The president added that he is willing to listen to Constellation’s point of view about the consultation and cancellation of the brewery, which is about 70% complete and was expected to begin operations at the end of 2021.
The company said in a statement Tuesday that it had listened to the government’s “messages ” and was ready to meet with López Obrador and his cabinet to discuss alternatives.
Constellation “will continue working with local authorities, government officials and members of the community on next steps related to our brewery construction project in Mexicali and options elsewhere in Mexico,” said CEO Bill Newlands.
The governor of Nayarit has already extended an invitation to Constellation to invest there, highlighting that there is sufficient water in the Pacific coast state to support a brewery.
A pair of armored trucks transporting ingots of a gold/silver alloy were attacked and robbed by a commando of armed men in Caborca, Sonora, on Monday.
The precious metals for the ingots, called doré bars, had been extracted from the La Herradura mine, operated by the Canadian mining company Penmont.
The SEPSA security company trucks were intercepted by a convoy of at least 10 vehicles around 2:00 p.m. on Monday. The assailants blocked the highway with a truck to force the armored cars to stop.
The six SEPSA employees were assaulted by the thieves. One sustained minor wounds requiring hospitalization, while the others were treated by paramedics and released at the scene.
Penmont did not release the market value of the doré bars that were stolen.
It was not the first instance of highway robbery of precious metals mined by Penmont in the area. Thieves stole 47 doré bars in November of last year from another Penmont-owned mine.
The estimated 722 kilograms of doré stolen in November were from the Noche Buena mine, not far from La Herradura, and valued at around US $8 million according to the exchange rate and gold price at that time.
The open-pit La Herradura mine is in the Sonoran Desert about 20 kilometers east of the popular Gulf of California tourist destination Puerto Peñasco, Sonora.
The foundation run by renowned businessman Carlos Slim has announced that it will donate 1 billion pesos (US $41 million) for medical resources and public health education to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
The organization said in a press release that the donation will go toward the purchase of medical equipment to treat patients in intensive-care units, such as ventilators, sonograms and video-laryngoscopes, in government hospitals across the country.
The donation will also fund personal protection equipment, or PPE, such as gloves and face masks, sanitation and disinfection operations in public hospitals, improving the country’s diagnostic capacity and restructuring of the health system.
It will also support the Public Education Ministry with its PruebaT (T-Test) online educational platform, by which it can educate children about how to protect themselves and others from spreading the virus.
For customers and employees in essential businesses that must remain open, the donation will fund educational materials about general risk prevention and hygienic practices they can follow both at work and at home.
It will also finance special medical attention for the elderly, people with chronic underlying conditions and pregnant women.
In addition the foundation announced that any employees of Carlos Slim’s companies with symptoms of a respiratory infection, or those who have been confirmed to have the coronavirus or who have had contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19, will be obliged to self-quarantine in their homes.
His companies have also implemented new hygiene policies to prevent transmission of the disease, such as frequent cleaning of work spaces, allowing employees to work at home when possible, and canceling business trips, meetings and other events.
