Tag Archives: Mexico & Central America

Ideology + Affiliation

Mexico News | Journalists

Sharp uptick in attacks on journalists in Mexico in 2015
  • There were 397 attacks against journalists reported in Mexico in 2015, a 22% increase over 2014 and the most violent year on record, according to a report by an international media advocacy group.
  • Most prevalent in Mexico city and the southern state of Veracruz, the attacks, which included seven murders, involved public officials 41.5% of the time.
  • The year was also a record for attacks on women journailsts, with 84 incidents having been reported.

Read more:
“A Mexican Journalist Is Attacked Every 22 Hours: Report” (teleSUR English)
“Mexico’s Media Faced a Record Number of Violent Attacks in 2015” (VICE News)
“Media group: Attacks on Mexico journalists up 22 pct in 2015” (AP via Yahoo! News)

(Image Credit: Reuters, via teleSUR English)

Nationality + Migration

Central America News | Cuban Migrants

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Cuban asylum-seekers bound for U.S. stranded in Costa Rica and Panama as Nicaragua refuses entry
  • As the influx of Cuban asylum-seekers increases to levels not seen since 1994’s “raft exodus,” more than 6,000 have found themselves stranded in Costa Rica and Panama for the last six weeks after having been refused entry to Nicaragua, whose government is allied with Raúl Castro’s.
  • As Costa Rica has reversed its open transit policy for Cuban migrants, the Central American Integration System has arranged a massive airlift to El Salvador, allowing refugees to bypass Nicaragua, although thousands who began their journey in Ecuador are unaccounted for.
  • Emigrant Cubans, fearing a revision of the U.S.’s “wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy allowing Cubans who land in the U.S. a path to permanent residency, have taken to Central American land routes in addition to well-known routes by sea.

Read more:
“Central American countries agree airlift of Cuban migrants seeking to enter US” (The Guardian)
“Central American nations announce deal on Cuban migrants” (Miami Herald)
“Costa Rica deports Cubans amid ‘transit crisis’” (Deutsche Welle)

(Image Credit: Marcelino Rosario/EPA, via the Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation

Mexico News | Journalists

1 Comment
Protests follow murder of 7th journalist in Mexico this year
  • Several thousand gathered in Mexico City to protest the epidemic of journalist murders in the country, where photographer Ruben Espinosa was the latest victim.
  • Espinosa covered politics in Veracruz and spoke out against the harassment of journalists, but was found dead in a Mexico City apartment.
  • According to one media rights group, 41 journalists have been killed since 2010, with 13 having been killed in the state of Veracruz alone.

“I can’t put responsibility for his death on the government directly, but we can hold this government responsible for the climate of harassment and impunity that prevails in Veracruz.”

Read the full story at the New York Times.

(Image Credit: Alex Cruz/European Pressphoto Agency, via The New York Times)

Age, Nationality + Migration
Mexico drops burdensome requirements for children coming from abroad attempting to enroll in schools
  • The Education Department announced that migrant students will no longer have to provide government-certified, translated transcripts from their original schools in order to enroll officially.
  • Previously, families faced costs that climbed into the hundreds of dollars in order to obtain apostilles and government-approved translations.
  • According to one NGO, there are an estimated 307,000 foreign-born students studying in Mexican schools, with the population of Mexico-born returning migrant children potentially as large or larger.

“Our task is to guarantee equal access to educational services … for migrants, who are an extremely vulnerable sector of the population. … Our goal is to make sure that access, retention and promotion in the educational system is based only on children’s academic performance.”

Read the full story at Fox News Latino.

(Image Credit: Getty Images, via Fox News)

Nationality + Migration
Mexico surpasses U.S. in number of Central Americans deported
  • Mexico detained 92,889 Central Americans versus the U.S.’s 70,226 “other than Mexican” migrants between October 2014 and April 2015, a dramatic change from the previous year.
  • Mexico’s new Southern Border Program has boosted federal police presence at its southern border and expedited the deportation process, leaving migrants in detention only long enough to have their nationality verified.
  • Human rights monitors are concerned by detention and processing methods, effect on smuggling, and lack of transparency about the U.S.’s involvement.

“What we have heard continuously in the past year is that migrants are being so rapidly deported that even some that might have wanted to request some type of protection, or who would have been eligible for some type of humanitarian visa because they had been victims of crime in Mexico, haven’t had that opportunity.”

Read the full Associated Press story at U.S. News & World Report.

(Image Credit: via U.S. News & World Report)

Sexual + Gender Minorities
Mexico’s Supreme Court paves way for nationwide marriage equality, though battles remain
  • Being the fifth of its kind from the Court, the ruling last Wednesday on a case from the state of Colima has crossed the threshold necessary for it to be considered “generic jurisprudence,” or binding on all national judges.
  • While most of Mexico’s 31 states have seen rulings in favor of same-sex marriage, they have typically been applied only to the plaintiff couples.
  • However, the ruling only applies to judges, so were registrars to refuse to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples, the couples would have to sue in order to gain the license and federal judges would have to rule five times in order to nullify local marriage code fully.

“The law of whatever federal entity that, on the one hand, considers the goal of marriage is procreation and/or defines marriage as celebrating the union of a man and a woman is unconstitutional.”

More on this story at BuzzFeed.

(Image Credit: Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed News with research assistance from Rex Wockner)