Immigrants Are Dying in U.S. Detention Centers. And It Could Get Worse.
Osmar Epifanio González Gadba, 32, hanged himself in March after three months in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in California while awaiting deportation to Nicaragua. Jean Carlos Jiménez-Joseph, 27, from Panama, hanged himself in ICE custody two months later, after 19 days in solitary confinement. The morning of his death, a … Read more
Pardinas: Mexico Needs an International Commission to Explore Espionage Claims
Mexico is experiencing a dramatic crisis in leadership and should call an international commission to investigate reports that spyware bought by federal agencies to uncover criminal activity was instead turned on critics like lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists, said Juan E. Pardinas, one of Mexico’s leading transparency advocates and one of the espionage targets. Pardinas … Read more
If NAFTA Ends, Ford’s Move to China Will Be Just the Start
Ford announced this week that instead of building its new Focus – the best-selling car in the world – in a new $1.6 billion dollar Mexico-based plant, it will ship cars for North American customers from China. Ford has promised that its decision won’t reduce its workforce. Yet even if that is true, American workers … Read more
AQ VIDEO: A Mexico Border Tour With Alfredo Corchado
“This is the Ellis Island of the Southwest,” says author and journalist Alfredo Corchado. He knows from experience. Born in Mexico, Corchado’s family moved to El Paso when he was a boy, and he was a waiter in their restaurant just two blocks from the border itself. In this short video, Corchado shows AQ Editor-in-Chief Brian Winter how … Read more
Mexico Can’t Fix Its Criminal Justice System Alone
This month, facing public outrage over a spate of killings of journalists, Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto responded with promises of institutional change and improved cooperation between federal and state investigators. For Mexicans, this kind of official rhetoric has become part of a time-worn routine that does little to correct the country’s national crisis of … Read more
Trump Deportations Hit Immigrants With Strong U.S. Roots
This article has been updated It didn’t feel much like a homecoming when Luis Fernando Ortiz, 22, stepped off the plane in Mexico City after a decade away. His wrists and ankles were rubbed raw, chained for the duration of a 12-hour journey by bus and plane from Kentucky. His car, apartment, and family – … Read more
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s Retirement Is a Loss for Bipartisanship
Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Miami) struck fear into the hearts of Democrats and career diplomats alike during her 2011-2013 tenure as Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. A tough questioner, she championed hardline conservative views with the aplomb of a 30-year House veteran. But she is also one of those increasingly rare creatures – … Read more
Mexican DREAMers Use Fiction to Share Their Immigration Reality
Paper plays an outsized role in Amalia Rojas’ life. A lack of papers – or at least a lack of the right ones – diverted her college dreams when, at 18, she found out she hadn’t been born in the U.S. and didn’t have the legal status she needed to apply for financial aid. Six … Read more
Why U.S. Tax Reform Threatens Mexico’s Financial Future
While tweets and speeches may continue to cause consternation in Mexico and Canada, the existential threat to NAFTA seems to have passed. President Donald Trump is now talking about giving “renegotiation a good, strong shot” rather than rescinding the free trade agreement entirely. On the docket will be intellectual property, labor rights, e-commerce, rules of … Read more
Does AMLO Have a Venezuela Problem?
This story has been updated, and a correction has been appended below. Attack ads comparing Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the late Hugo Chávez helped sink his first bid for the Mexican presidency over a decade ago. Now, with 14 months to go until the 2018 presidential election, he is once again the front-runner and … Read more
Tijuana Is for (Opera) Lovers
Leave the stereotypes aside. Tijuana’s annual Ópera en la Calle is a symbol of the city’s rich and evolving cultural identity.
Trump’s Border, As Seen on TV
This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. Those looking for affirmation of President Donald Trump’s “bad hombres” idea of the border are more likely to find it in fiction than in fact. Through much of its history, Hollywood has portrayed U.S.-Mexico relations through a lens of antagonism, or … Read more
Curating on the Divide
This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. Over the last two decades, inSite has established itself as a pioneering curatorial and artistic program for contemporary art in Latin America. In five editions held at the Tijuana-San Diego border, inSite has supported more than 150 commissions by Mexican and … Read more
Border Beat: Tijuana’s Homegrown Electronic Sound
This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. “Fusion” is often less than the sum of its parts, whether in music, food or anything else (I’m looking at you, Snuggie). But that’s not the case when it comes to Nortec — a merger of traditional northern Mexican and electronic sounds that … Read more
I Visited Flint, Michigan and a Mexican Boomtown to Study NAFTA’s Effects. Here’s What I Found.
Hundreds of miles from the border – in either direction – U.S.-Mexico interdependence is a fact of life.
