Us Mexico Border

This," breathed the man in the sweater standing next to me, "may be the most beautiful place on Earth." From anyone else, it would have been a stock, cliched response to the splendor before us: a mountain range bursting from a vast golden meadow, its rhyolite faces soaked crimson in brilliant afternoon sunlight. But this was John C. Sawhill speaking, the president of the Nature Conservancy, proprietor of the largest private system of nature reserves in the world. And this was the biggest, most costly of the 1,300 choice pieces of the planet owned by his organization, the wealthiest environmental group of all. Three years earlier, Nature Conservancy had invested $18 million, more than a tenth of its entire operating capital, right here: the mammoth Gray Ranch in southwestern New Mexico, on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mexican authorities said Friday they have arrested the leader of a Ciudad Juarez street gang who they say ordered the killing of a U.S. consular worker in the border town in March. Federal police said Jesus Ernesto Chavez told them that consular employee Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, was targeted because she was providing visas to rivals. Police said Chavez, 41, also confessed to having taken part in a January shooting attack on a party that killed 15 people, mostly teenagers, and raised an outcry in Mexico over the runaway violence that has made Ciudad Juarez the deadliest city in the nation.

That the government wanted to put Melvin Kay behind a prison fence is an irony, though one that neither he nor his accusers would find amusing. Mel Kay builds fences. His was the largest fence-building company in Southern California; he rode the nation's housing boom to $150 million in annual sales. His fences are just about everywhere -- gated subdivisions, military bases, prisons. He even built fences at two immigration jails, a Border Patrol station and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Carlos Reygadas admits that when he first heard the concept behind the new movie "Revolución" — a compilation of 10 short films by 10 different Mexican directors — he felt "a little reluctant" to join in. Omnibus movies, he knew, often add up to less than the sum of their parts. And the theme of this particular film came spring-loaded with significance: the legacy of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Furthermore, the movie's release would be timed to coincide with this year's heavily hyped centennial celebrations taking place on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The border barrier dips and curves, zigs and zags, hugging the mountain's contours like a slimmed-down version of the Great Wall of China. Among the costliest stretch of fencing ever built on the U.S.-Mexico border, the 3.6-mile wall of steel completed last fall is meant to block trafficking routes over Otay Mountain, just east of San Diego. People seeking to enter the country illegally have hiked the scrub-covered, tarantula-infested peak for years, trying to get to roads leading to San Diego.

Carlos Reygadas admits that when he first heard the concept behind the new movie "Revolución" — a compilation of 10 short films by 10 different Mexican directors — he felt "a little reluctant" to join in. Omnibus movies, he knew, often add up to less than the sum of their parts. And the theme of this particular film came spring-loaded with significance: the legacy of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Furthermore, the movie's release would be timed to coincide with this year's heavily hyped centennial celebrations taking place on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Re "Border Plan Seen as U.S. Conceit," Feb. 26 Granted, the goal of the proposed 700-mile barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border is not exactly the same as was the purpose of the former Berlin Wall. This wall is meant to keep people out; that wall was meant to keep people in. However, that differentiation does not make it an acceptable plan. If Americans are serious about keeping illegal undocumented workers from crossing the border, we need to pass fair legislation that would allow for importing the labor our economy requires and then seriously prosecute all Americans who hire illegal workers.

Re Vicente Fox's open border proposal: If I were the newly elected president of Mexico, I too would want an open border with the U.S. Mexico has been so mismanaged, misgoverned and corrupted over the years that it is a sinkhole of poverty, illiteracy, crime and disease. The obvious solution for Mexico is to dump all of that on the U.S. But can the U.S. actually absorb all of that even if it wanted to? The public school system in Southern California has already been destroyed by the massive influx of immigrants from Mexico, both legal and illegal.

As someone who advocates using bicycles instead of cars wherever possible, I am dumbfounded by the ruling no longer allowing cyclists to use a special lane at the U.S.-Mexico border ("Border Bike Lane's Days Are Numbered," April 4). We should be creating more incentives for cyclists, not taking them away. John Glass Studio City

San Diego police say they plan to redeploy a controversial anti-crime squad along the U.S.-Mexico border more than four months after the unit was taken out of action after a shooting that left two Mexican men dead and sparked protests. However, police said they will institute several major changes in the unit, and will begin operations without members of the U.S. Border Patrol, whose officers had participated in the unique squad for five years until it was put on hold for "evaluation" after the shootings.

President Obama will send up to 1,200 additional National Guard troops — and request $500 million in additional funds — to support law enforcement efforts along the Southwest border, the White House said Tuesday. The move was widely seen as offering the president political cover for his pursuit of immigration reform. The National Guard will target the trafficking of people, money, drugs and weapons, national security advisor James L. Jones and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said in a letter to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.

The U.S.-Mexico border reopened Tuesday to northbound vehicle traffic, but Calexico's historic downtown district remained closed as inspectors checked for structural damage to buildings in the wake of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake just south of here Easter Sunday. The border crossing had been closed to northbound traffic as officials checked for damage to the federal building, but pedestrians continued to cross through the checkpoint from Mexicali as they fled the aftershocks rocking northern Baja California.

Reporting from Mexico City, Mexicali, Mexico, and Pasadena -- Life began returning to a jittery sort of normal Monday on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, one day after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake rumbled through the area around Mexicali, Mexico. Assessment teams inspected buildings and cleanup crews swept up broken glass in Mexicali and its smaller California neighbor, Calexico, both of which sustained modest damage. The death toll rose to two, and more than 230 people were injured.

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake rocked Mexico's Baja California peninsula Sunday, jolting millions of people from Los Angeles and San Diego to Phoenix and scattering destruction along the U.S.-Mexico border. Emergency services in both the U.S. and Mexico scrambled to assess the extent of casualties and damage, including fallen buildings, buckled roads, cracked water canals, fires and telephone and electrical outages. It appeared that most of the damage was in the twin border cities of Calexico, Calif.

John Carlos Frey wants you to be angry about the U.S.-Mexico border. He wants you to feel such a deep sense of moral outrage that you'll get out of your chair and write a letter to your congressman. That's why he invited me to the border town of El Centro, to stand in Imperial County's pauper's cemetery, a dusty field dotted with about 900 concrete markers the size of bread loaves. Each was stamped with numbers or the name "John Doe." Several hundred marked the final resting place of Mexican and other Latin American migrants who've died walking across the desert or drowned trying to cross the nearby All-American Canal.

The border barrier dips and curves, zigs and zags, hugging the mountain's contours like a slimmed-down version of the Great Wall of China. Among the costliest stretch of fencing ever built on the U.S.-Mexico border, the 3.6-mile wall of steel completed last fall is meant to block trafficking routes over Otay Mountain, just east of San Diego. People seeking to enter the country illegally have hiked the scrub-covered, tarantula-infested peak for years, trying to get to roads leading to San Diego.

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Alan C. Nelson, attempting to counter widespread criticism that the landmark 1986 immigration law is failing, declared Thursday that the far-reaching legislation has succeeded in deterring illegal entry into the United States. "The law is working well," Nelson said before a group of journalists and academicians gathered for a conference organized by the UC San Diego Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, a leading research body on issues involving the two nations.

To eliminate violent confrontations, the border must be seen as a place of encounter and dialogue. One of our missions is to promote a better understanding between the two countries and to avoid actions that produce tension, irritation and friction amongst border region cummunities. The consulate would like to call on the San Diego community to reject the demonstrations that have been taking place at the U.S.-Mexico border, named "Light Up the Border." Our common sense and experience of living in a border area shows us that this kind of demonstration will not help stop the migration phenomenon but rather may provide the fuel for more serious problems.

Nallely and Heriberto Salgado boarded the Mexican fishing skiff bobbing off the Baja California coast last week and watched warily in the moonlight as 19 other people squeezed onto the vessel designed to carry no more than a dozen. A smuggler piloting the 25-foot boat promised a short ride before landing on a beach in San Diego. But 12 hours later, the Salgados were still being lashed with sea spray. The thick fog had burned off, leaving a panorama of brilliant blue, with no land in sight.