Harsh new restrictions on asylum seekers are currently under consideration by the United States Congress. (Omar Martínez Noyola/Cuartoscuro)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the Mexican government to reject harsh new restrictions on asylum seekers, currently under consideration by the United States Congress and President Joe Biden.
In aletter addressed to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena Ibarra on Jan. 18, the international human rights NGO said that Mexico should publicly declare that it will not agree to any measures that would lead to an increase in summary expulsions of migrants to Mexico.
The restrictions proposed by Republican lawmakers would undermine the right to seek asylum and expose thousands of people to serious danger in Mexico, according to HRW. (Cuartoscuro)
“The proposals being considered in the United States could have devastating consequences for the rights of migrants and asylum seekers if implemented, undermining the right to seek asylum and exposing thousands of people to serious danger,” the letter said.
The proposed measures include allowing U.S. immigration officials to expel asylum seekers without hearing their claims; restricting the humanitarian programs that allow Cuban, Haitian, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants to apply to travel legally to the U.S.; and instating a permanent “transit ban,” requiring refugees to seek asylum in any transit country they pass through before being eligible to apply in the U.S.
The measures are being pushed by Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, some of whom are conditioning their support for US $100 billion in aid for Ukraine and Israel on inclusion of the immigration restrictions in the 2024 U.S. federal budget.
HRW argues that the proposals contravene international human rights standards and effectively reinstate the controversial Title 42 border expulsions policy, whichended last May. They would also establish a de facto “safe third country” agreement between the U.S. and Mexico —something Mexico has repeatedly said it will not accept.
The NGO stressed that the erosion of U.S. asylum provisions that started with the 2019 “Remain in Mexico” policy has left thousands of expelled migrants vulnerable to “kidnapping, extortion, assault, and other serious abuses at the hands of criminal groups and corrupt officials” in Mexico.
The letter was published on the same day that members of Mexico’s security cabinet traveled to Washington to discuss bilateral cooperation on various issues, including migration. The meeting follows up on the agenda set during the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Mexico last December, when the two countries agreed to establish a bilateral group to tackle mutual security concerns such as migration and drug trafficking.
“Mexico’s president should make it clear that he does not intend to be complicit in this attempt by U.S. congressmen to tear apart the U.S. asylum system,” saidHRW Americas Director Juanita Goebertus. “These proposals would violate basic rights and further empower the criminal groups in Mexico that profit from kidnapping and extorting vulnerable migrants.”
For mezcal, whose market pressures will only exacerbate current issues as the demand for it grows, SACRED provides a way for the average drinker to help out. (SACRED Agave/Instagram)
Drinking responsibly doesn’t just mean drinking and not driving anymore — in 2024, it also means supporting sustainability. We don’t have the time (or often, the desire) to meticulously research the spirits companies that we buy from, and we aren’t experts and have to trust the word of the companies themselves — which isn’t always as honest as we’d like.
There are now non-profits on the ground in Mexico who are working to change this. Agave expert Lou Bank discusses SACRED, and how they have worked to transform lives and promote sustainability in Mexico’s rural mezcal industry.
Meet Lou Bank, mezcal expert extraordinaire
The past few years my writing (and my palate) have led me to the rural Mexico, and its fields of agave. I have learned about the effects of climate change, over-consumption, capitalism, and loss of biodiversity that threaten mezcalerías and its traditional distilleries.
Bank started to hear similar stories in the 2010s when he was visiting small, family-run operations.
“It doesn’t take long for you to start recognizing that really, all the resources they need to make mezcal are at risk as the market grows. And as the bigger players get into it, you’ve got agave, and land that is starting to become more scarce. And then you add trees on top of that, because they use the wood to cook with, and then you add to that water,” he explained.
“And local workers are being poached by the larger multinational companies trying to scale up their productions. So increased mezcal consumption puts so much pressure on local families and their ability to continue doing what they’re doing, the way they’ve been doing it for multiple generations.”
Helping communities who need support most
SACRED is underwriting the program by purchasing 10,000 of the plants each year, and gifting those plants to mezcaleros and agave farmers in need of plants. (sacredagave.org)
As a fan of mezcal and an experienced non-profit fundraiser, Bank wanted to do something to help. During his travels in 2011, a mezcal maker he befriended approached him about raising funds for a local library, and Bank was struck with the idea that there were needs to be met in every community he visited. So he started to ask what they were.
“These families who continue carrying on these traditions in the face of all of these changes, they’re the ones who are going to be able to figure out how to solve the problem. What I can do is access resources for them, primarily monetary resources, but not exclusively, as they’re looking for resources to implement solutions to their problems. I want to be able to help them when they ask for it,” Bank said.
Thus began SACRED, an organization working with mezcaleros and their communities to raise funds for community-led solutions in rural Mexico. The nonprofit has so far helped to fund a library, six agave nurseries, four water catchment systems, and a community plaza/basketball court. They have also distributed more than 60,000 agave seedlings to local families that needed them for their mezcal production.
The sustainable agave of the future
The roads of the Sierra Madre mountains of Puebla, are bordered by cactus and dusty fields. It is here that the settlement of San Luis Atolotitlán proudly stands. The tiny town – less than 1,000 inhabitants – is a collection of squat, mostly adobe buildings, and still holds an old-world charm of the sort rapidly disappearing from Mexico today.
This is the home of Ildenfonso Macedas Ginez, a local mezcal master who met Bank in 2020. The town sits on part of the UNESCO-recognized Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biospehere Reserve, and in the past several years, federal restrictions have started to intensify, preventing locals from collecting agaves growing wild on the land.
When Macedas first approached Bank it was to see if he could help them get funding to paint a local grade school. Once that project was in motion they started to talk about land restrictions and Macedas suggested that the town could use a greenhouse for growing agave seedlings, and at some point in the future, other crops.
“Ildenfonso makes this really beautiful spirit and I love it,” says Bank. “So I figured, okay, I’m gonna sell one-and-a-half liter bottles as a fundraiser, people will pay $1,000 a bottle and that’s how we’ll raise the money for the greenhouse, but it took so long to get the booze bottled and into the US legally, and during all that time I had told the story of the community so frequently, that one of our supporters heard it and just gave us the money.”
The greenhouse, which was finished at the beginning of 2023 is now growing over 5,000 seedlings, supplying enough agave for 5 local families. Macedas says that as the project grows he believes more and more people will get involved. Local farmers are given agave seedlings to grow on their land with the only requirement that they sell the mature plants back to local mezcal makers.
Macedas and others involved in the project also plan to grow mezquite and pirul (American pepper) trees, used for cooking the agave, to help reforest the surrounding area.
International brand involvement
Projects like this can provide consumers a counterbalance to the effects of their consumption in a positive, direct way. For mezcal, whose market pressures will only exacerbate current issues as the demand for it grows, SACRED provides a way for the average drinker to help out.
“I would argue that there is not a single brand of tequila or mezcal with sustainable practices. Once you put something in a glass bottle and you ship it, it’s no longer sustainable. And when these brands go to a buyer at a liquor store or at a bar, and tell them they have a new tequila they want to sell, the first thing they ask is ‘ok, what are you doing to support the community that you’re sourcing from?” Bank explained. These companies realized they needed an answer for that.”
A lot of big names now support the work of SACRED, including major international brands such as France’s Pernod Ricard. When asked whether brands might use the work of SACRED for greenwashing Bank, took a pragmatic stance:
“I was a little nervous taking money from any brands because I felt like maybe that would be looked at as us being deferential to brands, as opposed to being deferential to mezcaleros, and that’s certainly not how I ever wanted to operate and wouldn’t even want people to think that.”
“If what we want is the world to continue to be a place where we can eat, breathe and have drinking water, we need to completely turn the ship around 180 degrees and how do you do that? You don’t do it by telling a company that’s trying to do some good to get lost, because it’s those companies that are going to be able to turn it three degrees instead of one degree.”
Over US $600,000 later, SACRED has supported 12 communities and improved the lives of hundreds of rural mezcaleros.
For folks who love mezcal, that’s a small glimmer of hope for its future and while supporting SACRED doesn’t completely balance the sustainability scales, it is one step towards a more sustainable and just future in the industry.
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of Mexico City Streets: La Roma. Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at www.mexicocitystreets.com.
The president has said he will send 10 or even 20 proposals for constitutional reforms to Congress next month. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro.com)
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will send at least 10 constitutional reform proposals to Congress next month as he seeks to embed major policy initiatives before he leaves office on Oct. 1, and aims — according to opposition parties — to have a bearing on the outcome of the upcoming elections.
Speaking at his morning press conference on Tuesday, López Obrador said he will submit “around 10,” but possibly as many as 20 proposals to the Congress on Feb. 5.
Via changes to the Constitution, he is aiming to increase the pensions workers receive in retirement, ensure increases to the minimum wage outpace inflation, give citizens the power to elect Supreme Court justices and other judges, reduce the number of federal lawmakers, put the National Guard under the control of the army and eliminate a range of autonomous government agencies, among other initiatives.
The ruling Morena party and its allies currently don’t have the two-thirds majority in Congress that would allow the government to push through constitutional reforms without the support of opposition lawmakers. However, that could change in September as citizens will vote to renew both houses of Congress at elections on June 2.
“Who is going to decide [whether the proposals are approved or not]? The people, because there are going to be elections,” López Obrador said Tuesday.
However, given that he intends to submit his proposals to Congress next month, lawmakers will consider them during the current congressional period, not the upcoming one that will commence Sept. 1 when deputies and senators elected on June 2 will commence their terms.
One proposed constitutional reform would choose Supreme Court justices and other judges by election rather than by nomination. (Suprema Corte de la Nación/Cuartoscuro.com)
The main opposition parties — the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) — have all indicated they will reject López Obrador’s proposals.
In that context, the El País newspaper reported that the president’s constitutional initiatives are “injected with the poison dart of defeat,” but have the potential to be the “electoral flag” of the ruling party as Morena presidential hopeful Claudia Sheinbaum and other Morena-backed political aspirants campaign across Mexico.
If the proposed reforms are rejected by Congress during the campaign period, López Obrador will effectively demonstrate that his initiatives can only be approved if voters support Morena party congressional candidates en masse on June 2. He could resubmit his constitutional reform proposals in September — his final month in office — if Morena and its allies succeed in winning a two-thirds congressional majority in the upcoming elections.
Lawmakers with the PAN, PRI and PRD — which together form a political alliance that is backing Xóchitl Gálvez in the presidential election — have asserted that the president’s aim in presenting his package of constitutional reforms is to influence the outcome of the upcoming elections.
PAN Deputy María Elena Pérez-Jaén, PRI Deputy Rubén Moreira and PRD Deputy Luis Espinoza are among the lawmakers who have made such claims.
Espinoza said that López Obrador is throwing an “electoral fireball” and declared that his proposed reforms won’t pass Congress. “Don’t bother sending them,” he added.
Plan to eliminate autonomous bodies meets significant opposition
The reform proposal that is generating the most controversy this week is López Obrador’s plan to disband autonomous agencies, an objective he has long spoken about, but not achieved.
“In the package of reform initiatives, I’m going to propose that all these organizations that were created to protect individuals and [negatively] affect the public interest disappear,” the president said Thursday.
Previous governments “needed to protect themselves and that’s why they established all these supposedly autonomous institutions,” he said.
On Friday, López Obrador said that his goal was to disband around 10 autonomous agencies “that were created to legalize corruption.”
Among those he would like to see disbanded are the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and the Protection of Personal Data (INAI), the Federal Telecommunications Institute, the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) and the Energy Regulatory Commission.
López Obrador on Thursday touted the savings that would come from getting rid of “factious, burdensome [and] unpopular” autonomous agencies, although he said Friday that “we’re not going to fire anyone” because employees will be absorbed into other government departments.
Current presidential candidate and former senator Xóchitl Gálvez joined opposition figures who spoke out when stalled commissioner appointments hobbled INAI last year. Now, the president hopes to dissolve the transparency institute. (Cuartoscuro)
The president has previously faced widespread opposition to his plan to eliminate autonomous government bodies, and it was no different this week.
“López Obrador will hit a wall because Mexico has the National Action Party and we will not permit his golden dream of ‘sending the institutions to hell,'” PAN national president Marko Cortés wrote on the X social media platform.
“Our country is not a dictatorship. The autonomous bodies are a fundamental counterbalance for our democracy. … President, stop trying to destroy everything that makes you uncomfortable, criticizes you or gets in the way of you gaining more power,” he said.
Miguel Flores Bernés, president of the economic competition commission at the Mexico branch of the International Chamber of Commerce, said that Cofece, Mexico’s antitrust agency, is in fact an “ally” of the president as it is “fighting every day to dismantle all the agreements … between businesspeople to raise prices.”
Jorge Bravo, president of the Mexican Association for the Right to Information, was also critical of López Obrador’s plan, arguing that autonomous agencies protect a range of “fundamental rights” of citizens.
Instead of getting rid of such bodies, “we need to strengthen them,” said José Abugaber, president of the the Confederation of Industrial Chambers, adding that doing so would benefit “transparency and democratic life” in Mexico.
AMLO’s other reform proposals
López Obrador frequently claims that Mexico’s judiciary is “at the service of a greedy and corrupt minority” of Mexican society as well as the country’s “conservative” political parties.
He asserts that the nation’s judicial system needs to be overhauled, and believes that allowing citizens to elect Supreme Court justices and other judges is a key part of that process.
One reform would attempt to once again place the National Guard under the control of the military. The security force was placed under army control in 2022, but then the Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional. (Carlos Carbajal/Cuartoscuro.com)
Ordinary citizens must contribute to the “renewal” of the judicial branch, López Obrador said when speaking about his proposal last May. “The people are the ones who can purify public life,” he added.
Arturo Zaldívar, a former Supreme Court justice who resigned from that position to join Sheinbaum’s campaign, expressed support for the proposal earlier this week, but said that only suitably qualified people should be permitted to stand as candidates for judicial positions.
López Obarador’s proposal to change the Constitution to allow the army to take control of the National Guard seeks to restore a previous state of affairs.
The president’s proposal to reduce the number of lawmakers by getting rid of plurinominal deputies and senators — positions that are assigned proportionally to parties that attract support from at least 2% of voters — was part of his ambitious electoral reform package that was rejected by Congress in late 2022.
López Obrador said last year that he intended to wait until September to submit constitutional reform proposals to Congress, but has evidently changed his mind — for electoral reasons, if opposition lawmakers are to be believed.
He has long made it clear that Morena and its allies need a congressional “supermajority” to fully execute the “transformation” of Mexico he claims he and his government have begun.
“You have to vote not just for the [Morena] candidate for president, you have to vote for the lawmakers, the candidates for deputies and senators, so that the transformation has a qualified majority,” López Obrador said last May.
The complaint focuses on RV Fresh Foods but extends to other companies in the Uruapan, Michoacán area. (Juan José Estrada Serafín/Cuartoscuro)
Avocado workers at a plant in Uruapan, Michoacán have taken their grievances to the United States government.
Claiming that RV Fresh Foods has violated their labor rights, a group representing local workers filed a petition this week under the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism — a tenet of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the free trade pact that superseded NAFTA in 2020.
Other avocado companies are facing similar allegations, including WestPak, Del Monte and Global Frut. (westpakavocado.com)
The National Central Confederation (Cocena), a labor group representing approximately 400 workers, has accused Uruapan-based RV Fresh Foods of obstructing collective bargaining and freedom of association under Mexican law.
Cocena also said the Mexican government has been inactive on the issue.
Seeking resolution via the USMCA is a groundbreaking move for the avocado sector, but not unprecedented amongst Mexican workers. A few months ago, the USMCA got involved in a labor situation at a Mexican mine in Zacatecas, and in 2022, labor rights at Goodyear México came under USMCA review.
Cocena chief Víctor Mendoza Pantoja, said he filed the petition to ensure compliance with the commitments outlined in the USMCA labor rights agreement. He presented the complaint in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, which focuses on RV Fresh Foods but extends to other companies in the Uruapan region affiliated with the Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico (APEAM).
The main allegations include making threats against unionization efforts and not allowing free association.
“We have had a lot of resistance from APEAM to unionize, because they control the cutting of avocados and they do not want to provide social security to [the] 63,000 workers who are involved in cutting, packaging, transporting and processing,” Mendoza said. Processing includes the production of guacamole.
The union chief also presented evidence of “bad practices” in RV Fresh Foods’ payroll department, including alleged tax evasion. He also said that Michoacán avocado workers are unjustly controlled by APEAM, a self-labeled “nonprofit civil association” that has 84 affiliated packing plants.
He said he hopes the evidence, and the desire to comply with standards recognized by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization, will prompt action from the Mexican Economy and Labor ministries.
He also pointed out that other avocado companies are facing similar allegations, naming WestPak, Del Monte and Global Frut. Thus, he said, the complaint serves as a pivotal moment in addressing broader labor issues within the avocado sector.
According to APEAM, it represents more than 34,000 avocado growers and is the only Mexican association cleared to export avocados to the United States.
Approximately 82% of Mexican avocados come from Michoacán, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Avocados from Mexico said recently that if guacamole is served at a Super Bowl party in the U.S., chances are 96% that the “green gold” came from Mexico.
The latest cold front to arrive in Mexico will bring the familiar combination of low temperatures, heavy rains and rough seas in different regions. (Omar Martínez/Cuartoscuro)
Cold Front 28 is moving down Mexico’s eastern coast bringing more freezing temperatures to the high-elevation areas in the north of the country and heavy rains to the south.
TheNational Meteorological Service (SMN) predicts intense downpours (75-150mm) in Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz, very heavy rains (50-75mm) in parts of Oaxaca and Puebla, and heavy rains (25-50mm) in parts of Campeche, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Yucatán. Lighter rains and scattered showers are also forecast for much of central and northern Mexico.
Cold Front 28 is forecast to create freezing conditions in the mountainous regions of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango. (SMN)
Residents in affected areas are advised to stay alert for warnings from Civil Protection, as heavy rains may be accompanied by storms and flooding in low-lying regions.
Meanwhile, the mass of Arctic air will trigger a “Norte” event affecting parts of central Mexico, with gusts of wind reaching 90-100 kilometers per hour in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and waves up to four meters high on its Pacific coastline.
Winds of 70-90 kilometers per hour and waves 2-3 meters high will also hit the coasts of Tamaulipas, and winds of 40-60 kilometers per hour are forecast for Tabasco, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas. These could be accompanied by tornados inland.
The Tabasco coast may see waves 1-2 meters high.
Chihuahua has been buffeted by freezing conditions this winter, and Cold Front 28 promises to bring more. (Gabriel Hernández/X)
Conditions will again sendtemperatures plunging in the mountains of northern Mexico, reaching as low as -10 degrees Celsius in parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango, and between -5 degrees and 5 Celsius in the high-altitude regions of central and southern Mexico. The coldest temperatures may be accompanied by snow and ice.
“The population is advised to take preventive measures like wrapping up warm and hydrating well, avoiding sudden changes of temperature, and paying special attention to the chronically ill, children and older adults,” the SMN warned.
At the other end of the spectrum, Friday may see 40 degrees Celsius in parts of Campeche, Chiapas, Colima, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, and 35 degrees Celsius in Morelos, Puebla and Sinaloa.
The weather in the Valley of Mexico will be cloudy and cool, with light winds and possible icy conditions in the surrounding mountains.
Adobe is the star of Casa del Soul, drawing on both pre-Columbian and colonial-era adobe structures. (Facebook)
It’s probably not a Western without at least one scene of a Mexican village with adobe structures. Perhaps cliché, but until the 20th century, Mexico really was built of the stuff.
Adobe technology emerged in the pre-Columbian period. After the conquest, Indigenous and European techniques and designs mixed to make houses and practical structures for over 400 years.
Casa de Nopal boutique hotel in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. The complex was one of many saved by American benefactor Spencer MacCallum, best known for his work promoting Mata Ortiz pottery. (Credit: Leigh Thelmadatter)
But adobe fell very quickly out of favor in the mid-20th century in favor of the now-ubiquitous cinder block and cement. Since independence, there has been a strong current in Mexico that seeks to be part of the “modern Western world,” and that means imitating mostly Europe and the United States.
A fledgling construction industry took advantage of this bias, promoting their products as the modern alternative to “backward” and “unhygienic” adobe. This campaign was so successful that adobe is still associated with poverty. Almost all modern Mexican construction uses “modern” materials, and many historic adobe structures have been lost because of lack of maintenance.
Almost nothing survives of pre-Colombian adobe in Mexico, with one important exception: the Paquimé archeological sites in northern Chihuahua, also known as Casas Grandes. Colonial-era structures have fared somewhat better, including elements of 16th-century monasteries near the Popocatépetl volcano. But most surviving adobe buildings are churches and municipal buildings, especially in the north, where arid conditions give a natural helping hand.
Some adobe construction still goes on in Mexico. There are still very remote — and yes, poor — areas where logistics make it expensive or physically impossible to build with industrial materials, so small adobe houses are still built. But overall, adobe construction is a dying art, with Mexico losing more and more of its local masters in traditional techniques, except in some unique cases.
Sustainable architecture in Mexico?
Circular adobe house as part of the El Panal project in Amealco, Querétaro. (María Hernández)
Ecologically conscious building has a certain prestige in the West. Adobe construction has surged in places like New Mexico — where it has also been used since pre-colonial times — for its insulative qualities and lower negative impact on the environment.
These qualities have been noted in design publications, in particular as a way to reuse the millions of liters of wastewater and tons of agave fiber produced by the tequila and mezcal industries. They note that the fiber is particularly suited for adobe brick-making.
But a similar readaptation of adobe seems to be very difficult in Mexico. Sustainability does not have the same prestige with all sectors, and mass-produced cinder blocks are cheaper to make and buy than handcrafted earth-and-fiber adobe blocks, even when the materials are available for free.
Despite this, there have been efforts to revive the use of adobe. They include architect Óscar Hagerman’s middle school in Chihuahua for Rarámuri children; the El Rosario library in Oaxaca, whose construction was sponsored by mezcal company Real Minero; and a recreation of the Ciudad Juárez house where Francisco I. Madero had his provisional government at the start of the Mexican Revolution. The list of adobe projects also includes the in-development Casa Adobe in Los Cabos, a multi-unit complex with adobe and mixed material units looking to capitalize on the eco-friendly market.
Too often, the adobe structures you will come across in Mexico look like this abandoned house in Canatlán, Durango. (Credit: Leigh Thelmadatter)
Utopia Libertad
A very recent and ongoing project of this type is with Utopía Libertad, one of 12 parks and community centers run by the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City. Abutting the borough’s men’s prison, the site is dedicated to sustainable development. Various buildings have been constructed with adobe and local stone, including its temazcales, classrooms, a small restaurant and buildings set aside for live collections of the area’s butterfly, turtle and axolotl species. The site also offers classes and workshops on adobe and other natural construction.
Casa del So(u)l
Interestingly enough, the popularity of adobe construction in places like New Mexico has not spread to Mexico. After many years in alternative construction in the U.S., Jack Anderson moved and built his home and hotel, Casa del Soul, in the town of Casas Grandes overlooking the Paquimé site.
Anderson’s specialty is “community minded” constructions, buildings that are developed with local culture and history in mind. So adobe is the star of Casa del Soul, drawing on both pre-Columbian and colonial-era adobe structures.
Casa Plúmula
Another important angle to appreciating Mexican adobe is in salvaging existing structures. Casa Plúmula, an older adobe structure profiled by Architectural Digest magazine after it was salvaged and updated, is located in the neighborhood of San Felipe del Agua on the northern edge of Oaxaca City.
The work was done by noted architectural firm Espacio 18. The exterior conserved as much of the original look as possible, including the tree that had grown in the yard, and the house looks like it has been there forever. However, the structure was reinforced with steel and the interior reshaped into a very modern layout.
Lecturer in Analytical Science for Sustainable Heritage at University College London Daniela Reggio notes that “in Spanish the narrative around sustainability in architecture is different.” Reggio says that she would recommend “a broader approach to fully understand certain technological and cultural choices,” adding that different cultures approach the subject in different ways and time frames.
In other words, Mexico needs to find its own path to sustainability based on Mexican culture as it is today and what the country needs for its future. Sustainability projects in other countries can certainly provide suggestions, but cannot provide guaranteed solutions for Mexico’s needs.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico over 20 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
The Mexicana flight, operated by partner airline TAR, became the first commercial arrival at Palenque airport since 2020. (Jorge Ceballos/X)
Three years since receiving its last arriving flight, the Palenque International Airport has officially resumed commercial operations in a fitting fashion — by welcoming an arrival from the newly relaunched Mexicana de Aviación to its tarmac.
Nineteen passengers made the trip from Mexico City’s Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) to Palenque, in the southern state of Chiapas. The arriving aircraft, a Brazilian-built Embraer ERJ-145, was welcomed by airport firefighters, who sprayed the plane with their water cannons. Disembarking passengers were then invited to join a traditional Maya ceremony and ribbon-cutting alongside local dignitaries.
The reopened airport is now under the control of the National Defense Ministry. (Sedena)
The reopened airport was recently given over to the National Defense Ministry (Sedena) — along with airports in Uruapan and Puebla — and will be administered by the military’s Olmeca-Maya-Mexica Airport, Railroad and Auxiliary Services Group. The group also operates the Mexicana de Aviación airline, as well as the Tulum airport inaugurated last month.
The airport now includes a station of the new Maya Train railroad, linking the city and its surrounding areas with Chiapas and the Yucatán peninsula.
It is hoped the return of scheduled flights and the arrival of the Maya Train will boost tourism to the city, famed for its extensive Maya ruins and miles of untouched jungle.
“We are a destination with great wealth in every sense, that is why we invite every citizen to visit us and enjoy our waterfalls, our rivers, to live the experience Palenque offers tourists,” airport administrator Julio Alberto Mendoza Espinosa announced at the reopening ceremony.
Palenque Airport first opened in 2014 during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto but saw regular flights suspended in 2020, after troubled carrier Interjet collapsed into bankruptcy.
Flights from AIFA to Palenque will operate four afternoons per week, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.The airport now also hopes to return to international service with flights to Guatemala, although no official date for the proposed TAG Airlines service has been announced.
The peso has lost 15% of its value against the dollar since Sheinbaum won the presidential election in June. (Moíses Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
Mexico City police have arrested two alleged members of a counterfeiting and drug trafficking ring, and seized around 200,000 pesos (US $11,600) in apparent fake cash.
The Mexico City Security Ministry (SSC) announced on Wednesday the arrest of a 35-year-old woman and a 66-year-old woman at an address in the Iztacalco borough of the capital for which police obtained a search warrant.
Suspected drugs and an unlicensed vehicle were found alongside the money, security services say. (Pablo Vázquez Camacho/X)
The women have been identified as Janeth “N” and María de Lourdes “N,” alleged members of a crime group that reportedly also includes Colombian nationals.
The SSC said in a statement that the arrests came after an investigation that identified “a criminal cell dedicated to the production and distribution of possibly counterfeit bills and the sale of narcotics.”
In addition to detaining the two women, police seized “109 doses and 15 packages of a green and dry herb similar to marijuana, five cell phones, a blue vehicle without license plates and 85 banknotes of different denominations that lack security seals and could be false,” the ministry said.
In a separate statement on Thursday, the SSC said that police searched the property where the two women were arrested and found 159,200 pesos in “possibly fake bills” as well as US $300 in a drain.
Most of the likely bogus banknotes were old and new 500-peso bills. Photos also showed that a smaller number of apparently counterfeit 1,000-peso and 200-peso bills were also seized.
The detained suspects allegedly used fake money at street markets in Iztacalco, the Security Ministry said Wednesday. It also said the two women “are possibly related to other extortion events.”
Ayahuasca contains the psychoactive compound dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. (Shutterstock)
“May you live in interesting times,” goes a saying claimed to be an ancient Chinese curse. It’s a saying we hear a lot these days in a world gone slightly mad.
In the arena of mental health and medicine, it would have been hard to imagine a decade ago that the conversation about psychedelics —any plant or substance containing psychoactive substances that alter cognitive functioning — would go mainstream and be seen as a credible treatment for mental health disorders like PTSD, depression, anxiety or addiction.
These days, John Hopkins University, Imperial College London, Cornell and University College London have departments for Psychedelic Research. Independent organizations like The Beckley Foundation and MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) are hosting collaborative research projects and data sharing platforms on psychedelics.
Michael Pollan’s book, which became a TV series, “How to Change Your Mind”, penetrated a public consciousness that previously had seen any serious, intelligent person shunning psychedelics as the plaything of the hedonistic hippy crowd. But all that has changed.
Once-fringe psychedelic researchers, like Paul Stamets, Rick Doblin, Amanda Feilding, scientists and psychologists have become popular public figures.
Celebrities like Prince Harry, Sting and Miley Cyrus have detailed their healing ayahuasca experiences in the press; Lindsey Lohan praised the drug for “salvaging the wreckage of my life”. Will Smith in his 2021 autobiography went so far as to write, “In my fifty-plus years on this planet, this is the unparalleled greatest feeling I’ve ever had”, and Chelsea Handler’s Peruvian ayahuasca ceremonies with a shaman were documented in the 2016 Netflix miniseries “Chelsea Does.”
The cat is out of the bag. An ancient Amazonian plant brew, ayahuasca has spread through contemporary North America and Europe like wildfire. But what exactly is it? What does it do to your brain? Is it legal? Is it safe and how do you begin to explore where to seek out the treatment? Mexico has become a popular place for ayahuasca retreats, and they’re selling out fast for 2024.
What is ayahuasca and how does it work?
Ayahuasca is a thick tea-like brew made by boiling the Amazonian yagé jungle vine, (Banisteriopsis caapi) together with leaves from the chacruna (Psychotria viridis), a flowering shrub which contain the psychoactive compound dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. This is not to be confused with 5-MeO-DMT, which is found in bufo, a toad toxin dried and smoked for psychedelic purposes. “It’s a bit like a bitter thick soup, and not very pleasant,” says Marianne, a film producer who has participated in numerous ceremonies in Mexico. Marianne’s path to curing her drug and alcohol addiction began with her first ayahuasca ceremony.
Indigenous and mestizo communities in South America have used ayahuasca for centuries to treat physical ailments, mental and spiritual problems and difficult social issues. A Peruvian tradition called vegetalismo regards ayahuasca as a plant that can convey knowledge to people.
Ayahuasca can be dosed in varying amounts depending on the potency or concentration of the brew, which is usually determined by the curandero (healer) who brewed it. Commonly, a threshold dose is 30 milligrams, an average dose is 50 and a high dose would be around 70 milligrams. The drink is usually taken in a ritual ceremony, which can include from three to 100 participants and is led by a shaman or shaman-trained guide. Sessions, which last several hours, typically involve consuming two or three doses of ayahuasca, with effects beginning after 30 to 40 minutes.
“Drinking ayahuasca induces an intensely powerful visionary and physical experience, in part ecstatic and spiritual, and often quite challenging, as ‘the mother’ (the term aficionados refer to the brew) helps a person work through traumatic experiences, repressed memories or whatever is causing depression or anxiety. It’s very mysterious, because it can change people’s negative perspective to a positive, over the course of a weekend,” says Mexican retreat host and guide Rosa.
Psychologist Katrina Michelle works with patients to integrate psychedelic experiences — a process to consciously understand the impact of the powerful insights gained, and apply them to one’s life — and stresses the importance of doing this.
A brief history of how ayahuasca came out of Amazonian indigenous cultures
Ayahuasca is an hallucinogenic drink made from the stem and bark of the tropical liana Banisteriopsis caapi and other botanical ingredients. (Shutterstock)
The first Western accounts of ayahuasca’s curative and divinatory purposes were written by Jesuit missionaries who traveled through Brazil in around 1740, and English botanist Richard Spruce made the first scientific report of the use of ayahuasca in Brazil in 1851. By the early 20th century, Raimundo Serra, a rubber tapper who learned how to collect and prepare ayahuasca from Brazilian shamans, introduced ayahuasca as the central sacrament in the rituals of three Brazilian syncretic churches: the Santo Daime, the União do Vegetal and the Barquinha, which combine shamanic, spiritualist and Christian elements.
Importantly, the Santo Daimechurch has legal protection for their religious practices, including the use and importation of ayahuasca. I have met numerous people who take ayahuasca legally in both New York and Los Angeles under the umbrella of theSanto Daime church. This church now exists in other countries including Canada, Spain, Holland, Germany and even Japan.
Yet in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Mexico, DMT is classed as a Schedule I controlled substance under the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971. The International Narcotics Control Board, which oversees the treaty, has ruled that ayahuasca itself is not included. If countries want to outlaw it they need to pass specific legislation, which Mexico has not done. But in 2022 and 2023, various shamans entering Mexico with ayahuasca were arrested. Current court cases could be crucial for setting a precedent for where ayahuasca stands in Mexican law. It could be recognized as a legitimate, time-honored healing medicine of curanderos or relegated to the categories of synthetics, like fentanyl and other opioids that are causing so much harm.
Can ayahuasca change my brain?
Results from a DMT study conducted by Imperial College London in March 2023 provide the most advanced picture yet of the human brain on psychedelics. The recordings, made using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), reveal a profound impact across the human brain, particularly in highly evolved areas instrumental in memory, complex decision-making, planning, language and imagination.
“The stronger the intensity of the experience, the more hyperconnected were those brain areas,” Christopher Timmermann, who heads the DMT research team at Imperial, told The Guardian in 2023. DMT’s use in combination with psychotherapy to treat depression is a growing field of research.
“We suspect that while the newer, more evolved aspects of the brain dysregulate under DMT, older systems in the brain may be disinhibited. A similar kind of thing happens in dreaming. This is just the beginning in cracking the question of how DMT works to alter consciousness so dramatically,” Robin Carhart-Harris, professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Guardian.
Prestigious psychedelic research centers and foundations, like MAPS and the Beckley Foundation, are planning further research projects this year to study DMT’s therapeutic effects for PTSD, chronic depression, alcoholism and addiction, Parkinson’s and even cancer.
Finding a qualified and safe ayahuasca guide
Unlike other psychedelic substances like psilocybin and LSD, ayahuasca will commonly induce the physical side effects of intense nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.“Most people are prepared to go through the discomfort to experience the benefits, but it’s not an experience for everyone,” guide Rosa tells me.
Responsible shamans or the plethora of Western guides (who ideally should have trained for at least two years with an Indigenous shaman), should offer a thorough intake process in conjunction with your doctor. You won’t be suitable for the experience if you take SSRIs or antidepressants or have high blood pressure or a heart condition. Each participant is commonly asked to cut out caffeine, alcohol, sugar, meat and sexual relations for up to a week before an ayahuasca ceremony. You can understand a person’s incredulity around putting themselves through such an intense experience, but for those desperate to change stubborn mental health challenges, ayahuasca’s growing popularity has provided confidence to go for it.
In my personal conversations with experiencers over the years, “no pain, no gain” reoccurs as a common maxim. Marianne, who took part in an ayahuasca retreat near Cancún, tells me
“It is so worth it; it changed my work, relationships, attitude and daily life.”
All names of practitioners have been changed to protect their identity.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal or medical advice. The writer and Mexico News Daily assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content on this site. Individuals should always consult with qualified professionals regarding the use of DMT or any other substance for medical purposes, as well as consider their jurisdiction’s applicable laws and regulations.
Henrietta Weekes is a writer, editor, actor and narrator. She divides her time between San Miguel de Allende, New York and Oxford, UK.
From left to right: Xóchitl Gálvez, Claudia Sheinbaum and Jorge Álvarez Máynez. The candidates will debate a range of topics in three televised events. (MND)
Three presidential debates will be held before voters go to the polls on June 2 to elect a successor to Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
All three debates will be held in Mexico City, according to a proposal that was presented to the INE’s General Council by the election agency’s debates committee earlier this week and approved on Thursday.
All three candidates are vying to replace outgoing President Andres Manuel López Obrador. (lopezobrador.org.mx)
The first debate will be held April 7, the second will take place April 28 and the third will be staged May 19. Each debate will be held at a different venue in the capital, with the first to be staged at INE headquarters.
The INE General Council determined that the three presidential candidates — Claudia Sheinbaum, Xóchitl Gálvez and Jorge Álvarez Máynez — must attend all three debates, which will be shown live on free-to-air television.
Each debate will have a central theme: “The Society We Want” in the first debate; “The Route Toward the Development of Mexico” in the second; and “Democracy and Government: Constructive Dialogues” in the third.
Among the topics set to be considered at the three debates are health; education; the fight against corruption; the economy; infrastructure and development; poverty and inequality; climate change; insecurity; migration; and foreign policy.
The three candidates will face questions submitted by the public in the first and second debates.
Gálvez, the candidate for an opposition alliance made up of the National Action Party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the Democratic Revolution Party, was critical of the decision to hold all three debates in Mexico City.
“I’m concerned that all the debates are in Mexico City, as if the south and north of the country didn’t exist,” she said Wednesday.
In 2018, just one debate was held in Mexico City, while the other two took place in Tijuana and Mérida.
The first debate will take place at the INE headquarters in Mexico City. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)
Álvarez, a federal lawmaker who was announced as the Citizens Movement party candidate last week, proposed holding one debate per week during the three-month presidential campaign for a total of 13 debates.
“More debates will guarantee a better election,” he wrote on social media.
Sheinbaum, the candidate for an alliance made up of the ruling Morena party, the Labor Party and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico, is the clear favorite to win the June 2 election, according to poll results.
Gerardo Fernández Noroña, who competed against Sheinbaum for the Morena nomination and is now a member of her campaign team, predicted that the former Mexico City mayor will “thrash” Gálvez in the debates.
He also asserted that the Mexican people have already decided that the so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico initiated by President López Obrador “must continue.”
