Mexicans

Re "Is the border secure?," March 10 Supporters of building a nearly impenetrable fence along the U.S.-Mexico border say such a barrier would go a long way toward stopping illegal immigration. However, an estimated 40% of the illegal immigrants already in the United States (more than 4 million of the total) are visa abusers. These are people who came to the United States with a valid visa (tourist, student or others) and stayed past the expiration. Many of them don't look like Mexicans, and they blend into our society.

MEXICO CITY -- Just days into his job, the top tourism official in the western state of Jalisco was chased and gunned down in a weekend attack that police promptly blamed on the official's previous business-related activities and not on his government post. Jose de Jesus Gallegos was shot to death in his vehicle on Saturday afternoon after a short car chase near a major intersection in Zapopan, a suburb of the state capital of Guadalajara. According to  early reports , Gallegos' driver attempted to outrun the gunmen shooting from a luxury vehicle before another car cut off the official's path, causing a collision.

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican navy announced that it had freed 104 Central American migrants who appear to have been kidnapped by an organized crime group in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. The navy announced Friday's rescue of the hostages in a news release to Mexican news media Sunday.  According to reports [link in Spanish], the navy was acting on a tip from residents near a home where the migrants were being held. In all, 91 men and 13 women were freed. Two of them were from El Salvador, and the rest were from Honduras, the reports stated.

In "Cada Quien Su Mexicano" (To Each Their Own Mexican), a one-act comedy with dark satirical edges, male actors attired as clowns take turns listing the things that make them Mexican. "I'm Mexican because I drink Mexican Coca-Cola!" one offers in Spanish. "I'm Mexican because I eat beans and rice!" says another. Then a third clown abruptly shifts the play's tone from farcical to unsettling. "I'm Mexican," he declares, "because I eat ... well, I don't eat. " PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The Times It's the kind of theatrical effect that the Arizona performance troupe Teatro Mitote y Cine likes to conjure, designed to make their largely Spanish-speaking audiences laugh, contemplate fundamental questions of identity, and perhaps shift a little uncomfortably in their seats.

After taking on campaign finance with his super PAC last year, Stephen Colbert appears to have moved on to a new favorite cause: voting rights. As the host explained Wednesday night  on “The Colbert Report,” he's “personally invested in the issue because he attended the 1963 March on Washington while in his mother's womb (he even had a muffled recording of Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech to prove it). The issue is in the news at the moment, thanks to a case before the Supreme Court challenging the 1965 Voting Rights Act . “That's right, the law that banned silencing African Americans is now coming before our nation's foremost silent African American,” Colbert joked, a dig at the famously taciturn Justice Clarence Thomas.

MEXICO CITY - At least 35 alleged members of a “self-defense” vigilante group in southern Mexico were reportedly arrested by the military Thursday, underscoring the tension between government authorities and such groups, which have sprouted up in numerous states in recent months. The members were arrested in the town of Buenavista Tomatlan, in the state of Michoacan, roughly between Mexico City and the Pacific port of Manzanillo, according to reports in the newspapers El Universal and Reforma . [links in Spanish.]

Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman has fallen off Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's billionaires. Guzman, who has been in hiding since escaping from a maximum-security prison in 2001, is chieftain of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's biggest and oldest drug-trafficking network. He first made the billionaire list in 2009 and remained on it until this year. Luisa Kroll, an editor at Forbes, said that Guzman's "whereabouts are unknown" and therefore it's difficult to verify his assets.

Three Philippine men have been convicted of importing military weapons through a shipment to Long Beach in a plot to arm Mexican drug cartels and gang members, federal authorities said. Evidence presented during the four-week trial in federal court in Los Angeles showed that the men conspired to sell weapons that included machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, as well as explosives including mortars and grenades, according to the FBI. The men, identified as Sergio Syjuco, 26; Cesar Ubaldo, 27; and Arjyl Revereza, 26, met with an undercover FBI agent who posed as a prospective buyer, federal authorities said.

The Mexico-based NASCAR Toyota Series will make its U.S. debut Friday night at Phoenix International Raceway. This will be the season opener for the stock-car racing series, which has been sanctioned by NASCAR since 2007 and holds 14 to 15 races a year, mostly on eight different oval tracks in Mexico. The 75-lap race is scheduled after drivers in NASCAR's premier Sprint Cup Series hold qualifying for their race Sunday on the one-mile Phoenix International track. Mexican drivers expected to compete Friday night include defending series champion Jorge Goeters, Daniel Suarez, Antonio Perez and Ruben Garcia Jr., last season's rookie of the year.

MEXICO CITY -- Elba Esther Gordillo, Mexico's powerful teachers union leader, appeared behind bars Wednesday in an unusual public display as authorities read the charges against her. Gordillo, 68, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of using more than $200 million in union funds for personal gain. Gordillo stood in a plain white turtleneck with her hair pulled back, behind a grid of black metal bars, a standard court setup in Mexico. But its live airing on cable TV was unusual because such proceedings in Mexico are rarely accessible to the public.