Search

Results

Trusted truckers step out of line at the border

29 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"Be vigilant at all times," Jesus counsels his disciples in this Sunday's gospel. Guards at the U.S.-Mexico border vigilantly search for contraband but worry that a program that offers trusted trucking companies speedy passage across U.S. borders is being hijacked by Mexican drug smugglers. Large shipments of illegal drugs have been discovered in recent months. Most trucks enrolled in the program pause at the border for only 20 seconds before entering the United States. And nine out of ten of them do so without anyone looking at their cargo. But among the small fraction of trucks that are inspected, authorities have found multiple loads of contraband, including nearly 13 tons of marijuana seized in a three-week period last spring. Some experts now question whether the program makes sense in an environment where drug traffickers are willing to do almost anything to smuggle their shipments into the U.S. The trusted-shipper system "just tells the bad guys who to target," said Dave McIntyre, former director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University. The government keeps the list of participants hidden, citing national security and trade secrets. But some of the 9,500 companies who are part of the system advertise their membership to drum up business, making them targets for smugglers who can then threaten drivers or offer them bribes. More than half of all U.S. imports now come from companies in the program, called the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT. Mexican trucking companies make up only 6 percent of global membership in the system but they account for half of its 71 security violations during the past two years. Stephen Flynn, senior fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said truckers do not feel safe rejecting bribes, no matter what agreements their companies have made with the U.S. government. "The basic vulnerability for a truck driver remains the 'plata-or-plomo' dilemma," Flynn said, using Spanish shorthand for taking a bribe or a bullet. Source: An article by Christopher Sherman for the Associated Press

united states c-tpat customs-trade partnership against terrorism trusted-shipper dave mcintyre trucking contraband us-mexico border smuggling drug trafficking mexico stephen flynn
U.S.-Mexican border rocked by shooting

13 Jun 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

A person is not justified by works of the law, the reading from the Letter to the Galatians tells us this Sunday. Outraged Mexican authorities say there is no justification for the killing of a 15-year-old Mexican boy shot to death by a U.S. border patrol agent for throwing rocks at him from the Mexican side of the border. The shooting of Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca of Juarez happened Monday when a group of individuals threw rocks at U.S. border agents taking two men into custody for illegally crossing the border at El Paso, U.S. authorities said. Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the shooting and called for the incident “to be thoroughly investigated and those responsible punished,” his office said. “Using firearms to respond to an attack with rocks is a disproportionate use of force, particularly coming from officials that are specially trained,” the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement. The U.S. State Department acknowledged in a statement that an agent had fired his weapon, killing “one of the suspects” allegedly hurling rocks. “We regret the loss of life,” the statement said, but claimed that the agent, whose name wasn’t released, was defending himself. The Border Patrol says it is subjected to hundreds of rock attacks during its patrols. In the past year there were 604 reported rock-throwing incidents involving agents, officials said. The government of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where the teen died, condemned the killing, calling it a blow to all Mexicans and an example of the xenophobia that the anti-immigration law in Arizona has fomented in the United States. Last week Mexico made similar protests over the death of a Mexican migrant after he was given electric shocks by U.S. agents trying to deport him. Mexico’s foreign ministry says its records so far this year show 17 Mexican nationals have been killed or injured by U.S. immigration authorities, up from 12 last year and five in 2008. Source: Articles by Marc Lacey for the New York Times, the Associated Press, United Press International, and BBC News

mexico us-mexico border border patrol sergio adrian hernandez guereca migrants
Disheartening news from the heart of Texas

13 Feb 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s first reading the prophet reminds the people that they can choose between “life and death, good and evil,” but that God does not command anyone to act unjustly nor gives anyone “license to sin.” The recent fatal shooting of a Texas missionary on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border has reinforced the impression that the region is falling into the hands of drug runners, thieves, and others those who feel they have license to kill. Evangelical missionary Nancy Davis, who had worked in Mexico for decades, was shot in the back of the head by gunmen in a pickup truck who had pursued her and her husband for miles near the border. For decades the Davis' have run a charity--the nondenominational Gospel Proclaimers Missionary Association in Weslaco, Texas--that raised money to build churches, hold revivals, and distribute Bibles in poor Mexican villages, mostly in the states bordering Texas. The couple generally drove an older model car while in Mexico to avoid attracting carjackers, but that vehicle had been in the shop so they took their 2008 Chevrolet pickup truck. The police in Pharr say they think that choice made them a target, but police chief Ruben Villescos said the motive for the attack remained a mystery. The number of U.S. citizens killed in the border region has increased in recent years. The heaviest toll is in the El Paso area, where many U.S. residents cross the border regularly to conduct business or visit family in Mexico. Officials with both governments are quick to point out that the great majority of Mexico remains safe for foreign travelers and tourists. Source: An article by James C. McKinley, Jr. for the New York Times

mexico missionaries us-mexico border shootings nancy davis
Border crime against women prompts priest’s crusade

03 Jun 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s PrepareTheWord.com’s “Community at prayer” feature offers this general intercession: “God our Lord, all power in heaven and on earth is yours. May the authorities of this world seek your justice.” A short newspaper account 20 years ago turned Father Rafael Luévano into a crusader for justice for women murdered near the U.S.-Mexico border. "At the breakfast table one morning back in 1993, I read the briefest of newspaper accounts reporting on the discovery of what would be merely the first of the hundreds of women's bodies that would be found in the desert on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez in northern Mexico. In that instant my life changed," said Luévano, a diocesan priest of Orange County, California and associate professor in the department of religious studies at Chapman University in Orange. Luévano’s book Woman-Killing in Juarez: Theodicy at the Border, published by Orbis Books, uses the murders of over 500 women since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez as a lens to examine and attempt to understand the role that suffering plays in God’s love and relationship with humanity. The book is no true-crime thriller, noted the priest, who is in residence at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange. “It's about the problem of suffering, and God's relationship to that suffering—and, particularly, innocent suffering,” he said. “The problem of innocent suffering in Mexico remains a pressing problem—as it does for all of us.” Sources: An editorial review on Amazon.com and a news brief from Catholic News Service

Suffering women murder us-mexico border violence against women ciudad juarez woman-killing in juarez rafael luévano