THE BORDER REPORT

If I didn’t know better, I would have to say that some right-wing talk radio host managed to sneak a Letter to the Editor in at the Chronicle of Higher Education; one designed to make liberals sound even more stupid than the cons think they are.

Sadly, it’s not the case; the following letter was written by some nauseating (Free the Weed!) academic twerp who lives as far from the realities of the border as I do from Mars. He’s not worth much attention, mainly his way of elite thinking just pissed me off. But it does goes to show how elitists think of the rest of the world; in many ways, they’re the new restrictionists. Instead of arguing about job out-sourcing though, his type likes to pretend the problems of the outside world have nothing to do with him.

THE BORDER REPORT

This just came in off the tipline, it seems the husband of a U.S. citizen has gone missing somewhere on that magical highway between Naco and Cananea, Sonora. Lots and lots of things happen on that 35 mile stretch of road, many of them terrible, none of them clear.

If it bears out, and so far it seems to, this isn’t good. Last week, the Mexican Army uncovered a grave with what they said were four bodies inside. Others, including a Cananea law enforcement source, tell me it was actually 11 bodies in that grave.

THE BORDER REPORT

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Relations released its tally of illegal migrant deaths this year, saying 117 of its citizens have died trying to cross into the United States.

My, have times changed.

As little as two years ago, the Mexican consulates in the U.S. were absolutely clamped shut when it came to trying to discern how many people had died. I can recall spending hours at the Mexican consul’s office in Tucson, arguing for the data; and occasionally, they would relent, giving me partial numbers to get me the hell out of there.

THE BORDER REPORT

Here’s a story I wrote for The News over the weekend.

AGUA PRIETA, SONORA – Elena Matuz wasn’t worried when she talked to her husband José Luis for the last time.

The 37-year-old cop was set to resign from the Agua Prieta police force on July 20 and he promised her he’d be extra careful in the coming days. After all, two local officers had been shot at a taqueria downtown a couple weeks before, and a little over a year before that, Police Chief Ramón Tacho Verdugo was taken out in front of the police station.

THE BORDER REPORT

Whoever did the hit cut the legs of their victims off at the knees, then decapitated the three men, leaving the bodies in a car at a busy Culiacán, Sinaloa, intersection.

The salacious murders of the cartels have all the plot line of a snuff film these days; one atrocity after another, war without end.

But what grabbed my interest was a note attached to one of the bodies, scrawled with a pen on crumpled piece of paper. “Here you go, Arturo Beltrán Leyva … Quit putting up those banners and leaving messages lying around; why don’t you meet me pecho a pecho.”