A Cuban migrant “crucified” himself yesterday in Chiapas to protest arbitrary deportations and demand safe passage for migrants.
For three hours, Denis Hernández Barona chained himself to a wooden cross outside an office of the National Immigration Institute (INM) near the Mexico-Guatemala border in Tapachula to draw attention to what he explained was a dire situation for migrants.
Hernández also began a hunger strike last week in protest against a recent increase in deportations, saying he would rather die than return to Cuba.
He called on the federal government not to deport Cuban migrants in light of the political oppression they face in their home country. He demanded that authorities instead grant refugees a 20-day exit pass to leave Mexico and seek asylum in the United States.
He also denounced the tactics used by immigration authorities to lure migrants.
“Many of those who were deported in recent days were victims of a trap, because when they entered the immigration station to receive their exit passes, they were herded on to buses in the middle of the night to be loaded on to planes [back to Cuba].”
In just over a week, the INM has deported 123 Cuban and 71 Haitian migrants. Activists say that migrants from both Caribbean countries face political persecution and economic hardship back home.
Currently, hundreds of migrants from Central America, Cuba, Haiti and various African countries remain camped outside the immigration office in Tapachula. On April 1, the INM implemented an emergency measure to issue a limited number of humanitarian visas, with priority given to women, children and seniors over 65.
Other migrants also protested yesterday by burning effigies of Donald Trump, President López Obrador and Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero.
The president of an immigrants’ rights advocacy organization charged last week that increased deportations were carried out in response to pressure from the United States. Wilner Metelus said the situation was particularly unjust for Haitians because of their country’s economic and political situation.
“I believe these deportations are happening because of political pressure on Mexico from [United States] President Donald Trump, but to me these decisions seem wrong and discriminatory.”
Metelus alleged numerous cases in which Haitian migrants were lied to by immigration officials, who promised them humanitarian visas that never materialized.
According to federal statistics, 13,643 undocumented migrants were deported from Mexico in the first two months of this year, while more than 30,000 were detained in the first three months, a figure that has risen significantly since January, when 7,500 illegal migrants were arrested.
The number went up to 9,900 in February and 12,746 in March.
Claire Donahue, the “glass lady,” spearheaded a glass-crushing initiative.
Like many Mexican communities, the twin towns of La Ventana and El Sargento in Baja California Sur suffer from serious waste management problems. The community’s single garbage truck breaks down regularly and its inadequate landfill is reaching capacity.
The two contiguous towns sit at the apex of pristine La Ventana Bay on the Gulf of California. They are blessed with scenic beauty, good weather and El Norte, the steady wind blowing across the Bay in winter that makes for perfect kiteboarding and windsurfing.
In fact, La Ventana Bay is regularly listed as either the No. 1 or No. 2 destination in the world for practitioners of these sports.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the area is suffering from rapid growth. Its infrastructure, including waste management, simply isn’t up to dealing with the increasing population and business activity.
Five years ago, this led a group of residents to found the non-profit No Más Basura (NMB), or No More Garbage, to develop a program to remove recyclables from the waste stream. Not only does it offer a popular weekly recycling event for the community, it’s actively engaged in educational programs K-12 to help raise a new generation of recyclers and to train local businesses in recycling methods. The group also organizes several annual community-wide clean-up days.
Though quiet as a kitchen blender, the crusher quickly reduces a weekly bottle collection to crushed glass.
One major focus is minimizing the impact of Easter Week on local beaches as some 5,000 people, many from nearby La Paz, gather to party for three or four days. In addition to organizing trash removal and recycling, NMB fields ambassadors from local schools who patrol the beaches to ask campers to take home as much of their trash as possible and to dispose properly of the rest in provided receptacles.
NMB is confronting the two major problems that dog virtually all recycling efforts — raising money to fund the operation and what to do with the recyclables once collected. Recyclers might think: “Good for me. I’ve gotten rid of that stuff in the right way.” But it’s doubtful that too much thought is given to where “that stuff” is going and how.
Most recyclable material is of little, if any, value. So, creative ways must often be found to make use of it. Fortunately, plastics, aluminum and metals are marketable. NMB gives all the plastic to the local schools for them to sell in La Paz. The aluminum and mixed metals are sold to a recycler and the proceeds help buy gas for transportation.
Cardboard is another matter. Since the Chinese banned imports of waste cardboard, the market has collapsed. Prices are so low in La Paz that it’s not worth the gas to take it there. However, NMB is looking into ways to get the commodity to the recycler without making a special trip. Another solution is providing cardboard to Rancho Cacachilas, a local sustainable resort, where it is used as mulch for its extensive organic gardening.
Styrofoam is another significant problem for recyclers. NMB does not accept Styrofoam items such as plates, cups and food containers, but a significant amount in the form of packing materials is provided to a local manufacturer of “eco blocks,” some 80% of which are polystyrene. Eco blocks are used in construction, replacing standard concrete blocks.
Unique to this area, because of unusually high kiteboarding and windsurfing activity, is the presence of discarded sails made of virtually indestructible ripstop polyester. To take sails out of the waste stream, NMB offers them to a local seamstress who manufactures colorful, strong, reusable shopping bags and purses. This also helps keep plastic bags out of the landfill.
Samples of crushed glass.
But one the biggest headaches facing recyclers is what to do with glass bottles. Each week NMB collects as many as 3,000 bottles — primarily beer, wine and liquor. There is, however, no market for the commodity.
Recycling processors are increasingly reluctant to crush glass for reuse by bottle manufacturers because so much of the glass they receive is contaminated. The cost for removing labels, eliminating contaminates and cleaning glass prior to crushing is prohibitive.
Enter the NMB “glass lady.”
Claire Donahue, a diminutive seasonal resident of La Ventana and NMB member, met with program manager Javier Ponce about two years ago to discuss the glass issue. Claire had some experience in creating art glass and was intrigued by the challenge of dealing with the huge weekly bottle collection. She and Javier decided NMB should crush its own bottles and find local uses for the product.
After doing the necessary research, she located and purchased a glass crusher for NMB to use. It sits in a palapa on her beachfront property where she crushes bottles from each weekly collection.
“Meanwhile, we are moving ahead with plans to build a bodega for the glass crusher on 1.65 hectares on the outskirts of town.”
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Label removal was the first hurdle. Claire discovered that labels from most beverage companies are not easily removed. Many are virtually impossible. These “dirty” bottles are crushed to be used by local builders and homeowners for drainage fields or construction footers as a partial replacement for the sand or gravel.
But even if this dirty crushed glass goes to the landfill, it’s still a win since it takes significantly less space than uncrushed glass.
Claire has discovered about a dozen manufacturer’s bottles whose labels are easily removed after soaking. They are washed and turned into clean glass for use in concrete countertops, floors and walls. For countertops, for example, various combinations of colored glass are added to the concrete and ground smooth. Local builder Édgar Ramírez is offering this alternative to customers and experimenting with other uses.
Clean crushed glass is also suitable for decorating pavers, benches, water features and other landscaping applications including mulch. The commodity may also be used as a filler in concrete and road paving.
From an environmental perspective, Claire notes that glass bottles, despite being overtaken by plastic containers, are a better choice. It takes twice as much fossil fuel to make a plastic bottle than a comparable glass container and, in the process, plastic bottle manufacturing releases five times the greenhouse gases and requires 17 times as much water compared with plastic. And they help decrease the plague of plastic going into the oceans.
As soon as practical, she would like to turn the operation over to a third party, either a local entrepreneur or an educator interested in creating an internship program for local high school kids.
Interns would provide part of the labor and proceeds from the sale of the glass and products they’d create could go to a charity of their choosing, a scholarship fund or even back into the program. The internship would also teach many general skills important to anyone entering the workforce.
“There is a lot of excitement about the potential for raw crushed glass as well as the products that can be made locally with it. We hope that a successful project will inspire others in their creative treatment of ‘waste’ for the betterment of our community.
“A community like La Ventana/El Sargento is a great place to be involved in a project of this sort since you really feel like you can make a difference.”
The writer is a newspaper and magazine journalist, photojournalist and the author of two books.
The tourist industry’s biggest event of the year and the largest of its kind in Latin America starts tomorrow in Acapulco.
The 2019 Tianguis Turístico will bring displays from all 32 states to promote their tourist attractions while about 1,200 buyers from 60 countries around the world are expected to attend the five-day event.
Among those international visitors are representatives of 45 countries that are ready to sign agreements and close hotel deals for the upcoming vacation periods.
Representatives of 120 international media outlets will be covering the event, along with 30 domestic ones.
Tianguis Turístico will open its doors tomorrow at noon with a ceremony led by President López Obrador, who will be joined by the Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco and Governor Héctor Astudillo Flores.
The show comes at a time of great uncertainty in the tourist industry due to what it sees as insufficient marketing on the part of the new federal government. Visitor numbers have declined and some industry leaders predict the situation will worsen unless more resources are allocated for promotion.
A legislative proposal by Mexico’s ruling party to create an anti-corruption chamber in the Supreme Court (SCJN) and increase the number of justices from 11 to 16 is a ploy to enable President López Obrador and his government to control the court, an academic and opposition lawmakers say.
Raúl Mejía, an associate professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE), said the proposal is a way for the López Obrador administration to get an “effective majority in the court” because it would be able to appoint eight justices to the SCJN instead of just three.
He said the number of corruption-related cases doesn’t justify increasing the number of Supreme Court justices.
Mejía, a former SCJN official, added that if the government was able to stack the court with its own hand-picked justices, a situation would likely be created in which the “judicial counterweight to the Congress” is eliminated.
Citizens’ Movement (MC) Senator Clemente Castañeda said the government’s intent is to seize power in the court, while Emilio Álvarez Icaza, a senator not affiliated with any political party, called on the Morena party and López Obrador to give an assurance that the proposal isn’t an attempt to control the SCJN.
Another senator, Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said the appointment of additional justices is “absolutely unnecessary” and would be a financial burden on the country.
Damián Zepeda of the National Action Party (PAN) was also critical of the Morena party proposal.
“A new chamber isn’t needed. It’s nothing more than a pretext to dominate the court by increasing the number of justices because if you have five new justices plus the two already appointed [by López Obrador], you’re just one away from having the majority with the president’s casting vote,” he said.
López Obrador will be required to make a third appointment to replace Justice José Fernando Franco, whose 15-year term will end in 2021.
The president yesterday distanced himself from his party’s proposal, saying that it was a matter for Congress rather than the executive branch of government.
“It’s a matter for the legislative power. My respectful opinion is that we don’t need more [judicial] apparatuses. What’s needed is to put an end to corruption from top to bottom,” he said.
United States President Donald Trump is “shooting himself in the foot” by threatening to close the border with Mexico, according to the president of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).
Carlos Salazar Lomelín said the only thing Trump achieves by making such threats is to slow down cross-border trade, which generates economic losses for both Mexico and the United States.
The U.S. president had threatened to close the border “or large sections of the border” this week if Mexico didn’t immediately stop all illegal immigration into the United States through its southern border.
However, Trump pulled back on the threat Thursday, stating that he was giving Mexico “a one-year warning” to stop drug and migration flows. If the government doesn’t comply within that period, tariffs will be imposed on Mexican auto imports and the border will be closed.
Trump’s words are also a factor in the delays, Salazar contended.
He said it was “logical” that whenever Trump makes a threat, the process to cross the border slows down, causing trucks to stack up and making it impossible for them to make timely deliveries.
“He doesn’t realize that he’s shooting himself in the foot,” Salazar said, explaining that it’s not just Mexican companies who are affected and complain about the situation but those in the United States as well.
“You don’t [just] affect Mexico, you affect both countries . . .” he said.
Meanwhile, the Business Roundtable – an association of chief executive officers of United States companies – has written to United States officials to express its concern about delays at the border and the possibility of a future closure.
“Shutting down the U.S-Mexico border or slowing cross-border trade would severely damage the operations of American businesses and hurt American workers. Closing the border would back up thousands of trucks, impact billions of dollars of goods each day, cripple supply chains and stall U.S. manufacturing and business activity,” the letter said.
“Even the threat of a border closure injects significant uncertainty for American companies who depend on legal workers who cross the border each day to operate their businesses. Instead, we urge the administration to keep U.S. land ports of entry open to legal commerce to support U.S. economic growth and competitiveness.”
The current situation at the border will be a key issue at a summit in Mérida, Yucatán, next Friday at which business leaders from Mexico and the United States will meet.
President López Obrador and Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard are also expected to attend the United States-Mexico CEO dialogue, a biannual event organized by the CCE and the U.S Chamber of Commerce.
Discussion of the pending ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, and the provisions in the new trade accord, will also be on the agenda.
The United States is Mexico’s largest trading partner, while Mexico ranks third for the U.S. behind China and Canada.
Mexico sent exports worth more than US $295 billion across the northern border by land last year, according to the United States Department of Transport.
Scene of the fire that knocked out power on the Yucatán peninsula.
For the second time in a month a fire beneath electrical transmission lines has been blamed for a major power outage on the Yucatán peninsula.
The power went out at 3:35pm yesterday for 1.63 million customers of the National Electricity Commission (CFE) in Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche. The figure represents about 85% of the CFE’s clients on the peninsula.
The utility said the burning of brush between towers on the transmission lines between Ticul, Yucatán, and Escárcega, Campeche, caused the outage.
The CFE said power was restored by 7:00pm, although there were reports until 8:00pm that parts of Cancún were still without electricity.
A similar outage occurred on March 8 when transmission lines were affected by the burning of sugar cane, cutting off electricity to at least 351,000 customers in Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
El Popo sends a vapor plume drifting across the skyline.
Images taken with drones have helped prepare 42 evacuation routes for communities surrounding the Popocatépetl volcano.
The National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) together with state and national Civil Protection personnel prepared evacuation plans for a digital platform on which residents can identify the closest escape route.
The videos of the escape routes will be shareable on social media.
Civil Protection emergencies subdirector Salvador Cervantes stressed that it was important for the public to know exactly where the escape routes begin and how to arrive safely at the temporary shelters.
State Civil Protection authorities explained that they hope to create a culture of disaster prevention in which residents will know how to reach out to authorities and take responsibility for the preventative measures that can be carried out beforehand.
Authorities said they are working to improve conditions on the escape routes, which in some cases include treacherously narrow stretches of road and bridges in need of repair. However, the state government emphasized that all routes are currently navigable in case of a major eruption.
The volcano’s alert warning was upgraded two weeks to yellow Phase 3. The next highest level is in the red zone and warns area residents to be prepared to evacuate.
Clocks will advance one hour in most of Mexico at 2:00am tomorrow for the annual switch to Daylight Saving Time as debate over the pros and cons of the practice continues.
Summer time will remain in effect until the last weekend in October.
The only regions of the country that are not affected by the time change are the 33 municipalities that border the United States and the states of Sonora and Quintana Roo.
Daylight saving was introduced in Mexico as a power-saving measure in 1996 and, according to the Secretariat of Energy (Sener), it works.
At the conclusion of summer time last year, Sener said that turning the clocks forward an hour had prevented the emission of 548,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and generated savings for consumers of just under 1.4 billion pesos (US $73 million).
Ricardo Bernal Vargas, president of the Industrialists Association of Michoacán (AIEMAC), said in that state, average energy savings of 10% are seen during the summer time period, which can translate into significant financial savings for businesses.
He explained that the power savings mainly come from the reduced need to turn on lights during working hours.
Despite the benefits, a lot of Mexicans oppose the time change, including many who say that it has a detrimental effect on health.
Arguing for the elimination of Daylight Saving Time, Mexico City lawmaker Carlos Castillo Pérez said in February that people’s performance at work and school can be affected both by its commencement and its conclusion, contending that the time changes can cause extreme fatigue, irritability, insomnia, anxiety and poor concentration “while the body adjusts to the new schedule.”
This week, the Mexico City Congress approved a motion to ask Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum to eliminate summer time in the capital, while the Baja California Sur Congress has sent a request to its federal counterpart to scrap the practice across the country.
Baja California Sur Deputy Perla Guadalupe Flores Leyva this week accused federal lawmakers of ignoring the request and said she had written to President López Obrador about the issue.
However, efforts to get rid of Daylight Saving Time are under way at the federal level.
Ruling party Senator Félix Salgado Macedonio presented a proposal late last month that seeks to revoke the presidential decree that allowed the time changes to occur.
“There is no data that supports . . . the argument that was initially put forward to establish the seasonal schedule nor sufficient evidence of the beneficial consequences of said schedule. On the contrary, there is evidence that proves [the time change] harms health and affects citizens’ daily lives,” his proposal says.
With López Obrador – a longtime opponent of the summer time regime — in office and the ruling Morena party and its coalition partners’ commanding a majority in both houses of Congress, the chances of Daylight Saving Time disappearing seem to be greater than at any time in the recent past.
But it could ultimately be up to the people of Mexico to decide summer time’s fate: López Obrador has floated the possibility of holding a national consultation on the matter.
The flight attendants’ union has announced that 2,200 of its members employed by Mexican flag carrier Aeroméxico will go on strike on May 31 to press for a 10% salary increase.
Union leader Ricardo del Valle explained that the flight attendants delivered their list of demands to the airline this week, and that the workers hope to come to an agreement before the strike date.
Other demands includes improvements to social security benefits.
Del Valle said the union is a democratic organization whose members elect the leadership with a universal and secret ballot, and is accountable to its members.
The offending photo that was used in an advertising campaign.
A mezcal industry group has called on a maker of the spirit to withdraw advertising that has been called racist.
An image of a fair-skinned woman on a horse flanked by four indigenous women appeared on social media late last month to promote the company Mezcal Oro de Oaxaca.
The young woman, a social media influencer with 205,000 followers on Instagram, also posted a photo of herself in an agave field with two other models.
The two-photo post linked to Mezcal Oro de Oaxaca’s Instagram profile and featured the hashtag #orodeoaxacaexperience, which appears to have been created as part of a wider social media campaign for the company.
Scores of other Instagram users were critical of the post for its allegedly racist content.
“Who are the [indigenous] ladies? Your retinue of servants? Because that’s what it looks like. Another brand, again, making a pig’s ear of it. There’s a campaign behind this, there would have been creative people who approved what you’re doing . . .” Food Police MX wrote.
Twitter user Pilar Rosas offered that it was “horrible that Mezcal Oro de Oaxaca is continuing to fuel racial stereotypes in its ‘advertising campaigns.’”
Luis España, president of the National Chamber of Mezcal, said he wrote to the company to ask for an explanation about the advertising and to request its removal from social media.
“We can’t intervene in the company’s advertising policies but in this case . . . [the photos] generated a lot of noise and ridicule for the [mezcal] industry, which is why we decided to intervene to ask for an explanation and for the errors to be rectified,” he said.
Mezcal Oro de Oaxaca responded that it decided to use the photograph in question because it showed an authentic “Mexican” moment.
The indigenous women featured in the image voluntarily approached the horse-riding female model to ask if they could appear in a photo with her, the company said.
