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MEXICO
IMMIGRATION
22 people killed in gun battle
Lending a hand BP agents to be sent to Valley to provide assistance By JASON BUCH
Shootout between armed group, Mexican soldiers By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICES
MEXICO CITY — A gun battle between Mexican soldiers and an armed group that attacked a convoy left at least 22 people dead on Monday in one of the bloodiest confrontations the military has had in the drug war. The military said the shootout occurred around 5:30 a.m. in Tlatlaya, about 150 miles southwest of here in Mexico state. The town is near the border with the states of Michoacán and Guerrero, two of the country’s most violent areas and a region largely in the grip of organized crime groups. The patrol was attacked as it came upon a warehouse with armed guards. In the firefight, 21 men and one woman were killed — all of them assailants, the military said — and one soldier was injured. Three women who had been kidnapped were freed, and a large cache of assault rifles, ammunition and a fragmentation grenade were seized. The military did not say what gang the group belonged to, but the area is a known stronghold of the Guerreros Unidos, or United Warriors, apparently an offshoot of the Beltran Leyva gang, which the authorities have said largely crumbled after its leader was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in 2009. Much of the increase in violence in the region has been attributed to the Guerreros Unidos. Two weeks ago, two soldiers were killed by members of the gang in Mexico state near the scene of Monday’s firefight. Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and a former Mexican intelligence official, said such confrontations may increase as President Enrique Peña Nieto turns to the military to put down violence, much as his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, did. Both presidents were forced to use federal forces because local and state police departments were too corrupt and largely paid off by the gangs, Hope said. Peña Nieto, he said, is under additional pressure because he won the 2012 election on promises to tamp down the kind of violence that left tens of thousands dead during Calderón’s term. Recently, Peña Nieto sent troops to Tamaulipas state, along the border with Texas, to take over much of the work from state institutions. The military and federal police officers also were sent in large numbers to Michoacán to disarm, and to some extent patrol with, heavily armed members of vigilante groups who had emerged to drive out the gangs. “The policy of sending in troops will probably lead to more armed confrontations,” Hope said. “This administration has mostly used the same logic as Calderón.”
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Speaking to reporters Monday in McAllen, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said President Barack Obama is redeploying Homeland Security and Department of Justice resources to the border from the interior of the country. He said another 150 Border Patrol agents will be sent to the Rio Grande Valley and said FEMA and Coast Guard personnel have already been moved there,
but he didn’t elaborate. Johnson toured the McAllen Border Patrol station with Health and Human Resources JOHNSON Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland. Johnson said it’s his third visit to McAllen since becoming DHS secretary six months ago. When asked what additional re-
sources Border Patrol needs, he responded: “I need to know, are we diverting Border Patrol resources off their core mission on the border? That’s the first question I want to ask. That’s the first answer I want to know. I’m pleased that the assessment is we’re generally keeping our eyes on that ball because of the additional resources we’ve added to the sector.” That explanation is at odds with state leaders, who say the Border Patrol isn’t able to protect the border. They’ve ear-
marked $30 million for additional state troopers in the region. Johnson said he’ll be traveling to Guatemala next week, one of the countries along with Honduras and El Salvador that has been sending the vast majority of the tens of thousands of children and families who are crossing the Rio Grande and turning themselves in to Border Patrol. He warned people in those countries about sending chil-
See ASSISTANCE PAGE 10A
IMMIGRATION OVERLOAD
HEALTH CONCERNS
Courtesy photo
Immigrants sit on the floor inside the Laredo Transit Center terminal with their family and belongings, in mid-June.
Overcrowding, lack of resources pose health risk By GABRIELA A. TREVIÑO THE ZAPATA TIMES
Photos of the interior of the facilities where immigrants are being held have been circulating the Internet and reveal why government officials have deemed the situation a “humanitarian crisis.” In the photos, facilities are overcrowded with individuals who have been traveling
for days and weeks at a time. The facilities have been set up by agencies trying to accommodate the sudden amount of mass immigrant arrivals. The overcrowding and a lack of resources poses the potential risk for a public health issue, and the U.S. government has responded to address the issue. Craig Fugate, administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was
appointed by the Obama administration to organize the efforts to care for the 60,000 unaccompanied minors that have arrived. Fugate has enlisted the assistance of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, State, Defense and the General Services Administration to help service the minors in finding housing, medical treat-
See HEALTH PAGE 10A
WASHINGTON
US: Highway crisis looms as soon as August By JOAN LOWY ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Gridlock in Washington will lead to gridlock across the country if lawmakers can’t quickly agree on how to pay for highway and transit programs, President Barack Obama and his top officials warned Tuesday. States will begin to feel the pain of cutbacks in federal aid as soon as the first week in August — peak summer driving time — if Congress doesn’t act, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a letter to states. That’s because the balance in the federal Highway
…The balance in the federal Highway Trust Fund is dropping and will soon go below $4 billion …The cuts will vary from state to state, but will average about 28 percent … Trust Fund is dropping and will soon go below $4 billion, the cushion federal officials say is needed for incoming fuel tax revenue to cover outgoing payments to states. The cuts will vary from state to state, but will average about 28 percent, Foxx said at a breakfast with reporters. By the end of August, the trust fund’s balance is forecast to fall to zero
and the cuts could deepen. A second deadline is coming on Sept. 30 when the government’s authority to spend money on transportation programs expires. As many as 700,000 jobs could be at risk, Obama told a crowd of about 500 gathered on a sweltering day beneath the Key Bridge that spans the Potomac River and joins the District of
Columbia with Virginia. “That would be like Congress threatening to lay off the entire population of Denver, Seattle or Boston,” he said. Revenue from federal gas and diesel taxes continues to flow into the trust fund, but the total is expected to be about $8 billion short of the transportation aid the government has allocated to states this year. Over the next
six years, a gap of about $100 billion is forecast if transportation spending is maintained at current levels. At the same time, transportation experts and industries that depend on the nation’s highways to get their products to market are calling for greater spending on transportation to shore up aging roads, bridges and tunnels and to accommodate population growth. “Right now there more than a hundred thousand active projects across the country where workers are paving roads and rebuilding bridges and modern-
See CRISIS PAGE 10A