“Crimes at the Border” Synopsis and Video – PBS’ Frontline segment (looks good, video available online – I am going to watch later)

In a cemetery in the border town of Tijuana, there is a shrine to a young soldier, Juan Soldado, who is the patron saint for migrants trying to cross illegally into the United States. It’s the place where FRONTLINE/World reporter Lowell Bergman arranges to meet a smuggler, or pollero, who has agreed to talk about the business of human smuggling on condition that we not reveal his identity. We call him “Rafael.” He’s been a smuggler for ten years and he tells Bergman how he got started in the business.

“I had this friend who had a lot of money and he was like 16 and I was like 18 at the time and I was like, dude, how did you make all that money?” recalls Rafael. “He didn’t want to tell me at first, and then when he told me, I didn’t believe him. So he took me to the people and they offered me a job too.”

To show how the smuggling business works, Rafael drives Bergman around Tijuana, which, though peaceful during the day, has turned into one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico due to the drug trade and human trafficking. Rafael says danger is part of the allure of the business – “an adrenaline rush” when he sneaks people across the border.”*

watch the video or read more following link below

• Ricardo Salinas Breaks Ground for What Will Be the Most Modern Television Studio in Latin America – Mexico City
• Brazil replaces Mexico as China’s top market in Latin America and boosts its surplus as well.
• In El Salvador, a grim reflection, and a glimmer of hope – The president has bestowed the country’s highest honor on six Jesuit priests massacred 20 years ago, more evidence that peaceful change is possible, if slow to come.
• The mayor of a wealthy suburb (San Pedro Garza Garcia) of Monterrey said Monday that he has sent his family to the United States for their own safety as he pursues his campaign against extortion and kidnapping gangs.
• Expert: Juárez violence a ‘terrorist war’
• Mexican Mennonites Impacted by Drug Violence
• Mexican farmers reeling from worst drought in decades
• Mexico City’s famed dance-for-peso halls fading
• Americans Running South: Why We are Flocking to Mexico for Work
• On the mayor’s agenda: ‘Civilize’ Mexico City – Marcelo Ebrard
• Juárez violence: Drug-war brutality persists despite presence of military
• Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.
• Mexico’s top domestic security official said Friday that sectors of the general public have cooperated with drug cartels in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, and the government is about to launch new social programs there to combat gangs.
• Susana Iglesias, writing from the streets – Mexico City native is winner of the first-ever Aura Estrada Prize, an international competition for young women writing literature in Spanish.
• Police in Peru say gang members killed people to drain their fat for cosmetics
• Mexican authorities predict fewer Mexican immigrants will be back home for Christmas
• Mapping Out Mexico – Navigating your way through Mexico can be tricky business sometimes – MexicoMaps.com
• Mexican migrants are spending more money on taxes in the United States than on the remittances they send home to relatives, according to a new study by Mexico’s largest bank, BBVA Bancomer.
• Ana Maria Perez Gonzalez, said to be the oldest woman in the world, died in Mexico this week. She was 119.
• US indicts 19 members of Hispanic street gang – Maryland branch of the “Latin Kings”