Mexican Border

This city in the foothills of the Rockies has scenery more diverse than most Hollywood back lots: A 19th century castle, a Spanish colonial plaza and miles of prairie and mountains. That landscape -- along with New Mexico's generous film incentives -- has lured more than a dozen movie productions here in the last decade. The filming has brought in a surge of money, but it has also brought tension.

Dusk can be one of the most beautiful times in the desert, as shown by Times reader "Alan66. " In this picture, the photographer captures two types of cactus silhouetted against the sunset in Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument . Can you guess what types they are? Time's up. On the left is the iconic saguaro cactus. That should have been easy. On the right is the organ pipe cactus, the namesake of the national monument. That should have been easy too. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, in southern Arizona near the Mexican border, was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937.

The Department of Homeland Security, positioning itself to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar project involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors. The result, after an investment of more than $1 billion, may be a system with only 53 miles of unreliable coverage along the nearly 2,000-mile border. The virtual fence was intended to link advanced monitoring technologies to command centers for Border Patrol to identify and thwart human trafficking and drug smuggling.

U.S. border authorities have arrested a controversial Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago and was caught earlier this month trying to sneak into California in the trunk of a BMW, according to court documents. Said Jaziri, the former imam of a Muslim congregation in Montreal, was hidden in a car driven by a San Diego-area man who was pulled over by U.S. Border Patrol agents near an Indian casino east of San Diego on Jan. 11. Jaziri had allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling group $5,000 to get him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a "safe place anywhere in the U.S. " The arrest marks the unexpected resurfacing of the 43-year-old cleric, whose protracted legal battle to avoid deportation drew headlines in Canada.

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, faced with a barrage of protests, Friday suspended a new series of fees and regulations aimed at motorists driving from the U.S.-Mexico border into the interior of Mexico. The move came just four days after the controversial guidelines--including a $100 charge for each car--were imposed. And, it underlined how sensitive the Mexican president is to anything that could disrupt a free-trade agreement with the United States.

Federal immigration authorities, seeking expanded jail space for foreign nationals convicted of committing crimes in the United States, are planning to build a 1,000-bed detention facility in the U.S.-Mexico border region of Southern California or Arizona. The lockup, which is expected to be in operation by October, 1992, would be jointly operated by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the federal Bureau of Prisons, said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington.

Pollution is so severe and infectious disease so rampant along the U.S.-Mexico border that a binational commission must be created to solve the problems, an American Medical Assn. report said Tuesday. "Current solutions are inadequate, fragmentary and not coordinated by the two nations," said the report, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

U.S. border authorities have arrested a controversial Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago and was caught earlier this month trying to sneak into California in the trunk of a BMW, according to court documents. Said Jaziri, the former imam of a Muslim congregation in Montreal, was hidden in a car driven by a San Diego-area man who was pulled over by U.S. Border Patrol agents near an Indian casino east of San Diego on Jan. 11. Jaziri had allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling group $5,000 to get him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a "safe place anywhere in the U.S. " The arrest marks the unexpected resurfacing of the 43-year-old cleric, whose protracted legal battle to avoid deportation drew headlines in Canada.

For the first time in more than a decade, employment and output at the foreign-owned factories along the U.S.-Mexico border are in decline. This has prompted concerns that investment in Mexico's manufacturing sector could slow, rippling across the broader economy. After 12 years of steady growth, the output at these factories, known as maquiladoras, could slide by 3% for all of 2001, said Rolando Gonzalez Barron, president of Mexico's maquiladora trade association.

Near the line where cultures collide, furtive men hang out at phone booths along San Ysidro Boulevard, a teeming strip of brightly colored Mexican restaurants, shops and currency exchanges that seems a northern mirror of Tijuana. The men are daredevil drivers-for-hire who take illegal immigrants on the fateful trek to Los Angeles: a raite , it is called--a ride. And the drivers are known as raiteros.

As her mother tells it, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores had begged the border vigilantes who had just broken into her house, "Please don't shoot me. " But they did ? in the face at point-blank range, prosecutors allege, as Brisenia's father sat dead on the couch and her mother lay on the floor, pretending that she too had been killed in the gunfire. Even as this city continues to mourn the victims in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, another tragedy took center stage Tuesday, as opening arguments began in the trial of a member of a Minutemen group accused of killing Brisenia and her father, Raul Flores Jr. Prosecutors allege that in May 2009, Shawna Forde decided to strike an odd alliance with drug dealers in southern Arizona: Forde would help the traffickers ransack their rivals' houses for stashes of drugs and cash, which could then fund her fledgling group, Minutemen American Defense.

It was shortly after 11 p.m. one night in December when an elite unit of the U.S. Border Patrol, making its way through the inky darkness of Peck Canyon, ran into a pack of heavily armed men. A gunfight broke out, and when it was over, Agent Brian Terry, a three-year veteran of the force, was dead. Four Mexicans were taken into custody, one of them shot in the abdomen and back. By daybreak, a massive sweep was underway in search of a fifth suspect who had disappeared into the night.

When it comes to the crime-based fiction that long has played such an important role in the literary life of Los Angeles, we're living through what amounts to a golden age. The dark ecstasies of James Ellroy, Michael Connelly's artful probing of the inner monologue, Joe Wambaugh's explorations of black comedy as morality play, Walter Mosley's blend of empathy and formal ambition and T. Jefferson Parker's propulsive but pitch-perfect works of...

The Department of Homeland Security, positioning itself to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar project involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors. The result, after an investment of more than $1 billion, may be a system with only 53 miles of unreliable coverage along the nearly 2,000-mile border. The virtual fence was intended to link advanced monitoring technologies to command centers for Border Patrol to identify and thwart human trafficking and drug smuggling.

Immigration officials now have access to the fingerprints of every inmate booked into jail in all 25 U.S. counties along the Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday, touting the program as a way of identifying and deporting "criminal aliens. " Napolitano's announcement came as immigrant rights activists criticized the fingerprinting program, known as Secure Communities, after obtaining documents showing that more than a quarter of those deported under its auspices had no criminal records.

The Arizona Legislature has narrowed a controversial immigration law in response to allegations that the measure legalized racial profiling and forced police to determine the immigration status of everyone they encountered on the streets. The initial law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer last week, required police to determine a person's immigration status if officers formed a reasonable suspicion about their legality during any "lawful contact." That led to suggestions by some legal experts that police would be obligated to scrutinize even people who asked for directions.

The new chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has proposed sweeping changes to the agency that could result in more enforcement agents along the U.S.-Mexican border, more consistent sanctions against violators of immigration laws and better services for immigrants and their families.

Cameron Akbari and his girlfriend sat in the cab of his truck in Castaic on Monday as heavy rain and sleet poured from the heavens. Akbari, 47, was trying to get to Bakersfield to deliver ice cream cones. But his journey was barred by slushy snow. The largest storm of the season stretched from Oregon to the Mexican border, closing Interstate 5 and shutting Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass.

A Pinal County sheriff's deputy was shot by an apparent drug smuggler and suffered a superficial wound Friday night in an encounter sure to inflame passions in the state that recently passed the toughest law against illegal immigration in the country. Arizona has been fiercely criticized for the new law, which makes it a state crime to lack immigration paperwork and requires police to determine whether people they stop are in the country legally. Opponents have contended that the law will force police to racially profile people.

The smuggler threatened to kill 4-year-old Nayli if he didn't receive $11,500 from her parents -- immediately. He had sneaked the girl across the Mexican border nearly a month earlier and now was holding her for ransom somewhere near Los Angeles. "Mommy, I don't want to be here anymore," Nayli said through tears when the smuggler put her on the phone. Her mother, Yaneth, could hear terror in her daughter's voice. "OK, mija , I am coming," she answered in Spanish before the smuggler hung up. Yaneth was desperate.