THE BORDER REPORT

Just got off the phone with a criminal defense attorney familiar with Edgar La Barbie Valdez Villareal’s cases in both countries, including this one in Atlanta. Turns out La Barbie gave himself up, surrendering to Mexican officials and cutting a deal for deportation to face charges in the U.S.

“He’s got the Zetas after his ass. He’s got the Beltrans after his ass. He’s got the Sinaloans after his ass. He had no place to go to so he turned to the enemy of everybody. How’s that saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the attorney says.

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THE BORDER REPORT

About two weeks ago, a blog that professed to illuminate the drug wars in Mexico, but did little more than cut and paste news stories from Mexican news websites, made the big time with a write-up by The Associated Press.

Today, it’s under a new visage; BlogDelNarco was a blogspot account started in March of this year, a clearinghouse of Mexico drug cartel combat stories. Now it’s mundonarco.com. The site was initially hosted by Google as a blogspot account, so it’s possible that Google removed the site because of it’s graphic content. You’ll recall that a few months ago, they tried that nonsense with me, threatening to remove advertising if I didn’t remove graphic photos.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Take a look at this story in El Imparcial about a lawsuit filed against the German gun manufacturer, Heckler and Koch. The company was prohibited from selling weapons in specific Mexican states, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, and Chiapas – all states with relatively recent conflicts between indigenous populations, like the EZLN, and the Mexican government.

The weapons, mind you, are being sold to law enforcement in the rest of Mexico. In fact, H&K carried the sole contract up until 2007 I believe to arm the Mexican military with G36s. They’re being phased out in favor of the Mexican industried FX-05 Xiuhcoatl. But from my conversation with a source in the U.S. State Department this morning, it is the Mexican government who decides which states it is prohibited for companies to sell to.

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THE BORDER REPORT

I was hoping this week would be a good opportunity to take a closer look at the Obama Administration’s movement of 1,200 National Guard units to the Mexico border. According to this Arizona Republic article, it’s gonna be a few weeks.* The first question I have is, why.

While I continue to believe that the National Guard movement is for Americans’ peace of mind (those not living in border states, anyway) and not to stop illegal immigration or drug trafficking, I’d like to point out the astuteness of the story; the administration said Aug. 1. Apparently they meant they were going to start addressing the movement of troops on that day.

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THE BORDER REPORT

I honestly thought she would go the other way, but U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton struck down four of the key provisions of Senate Bill 1070 this morning, marginalizing what’s been construed as the toughest state enforcement of federal immigration law in the country. The four key elements she blocked are:

1. Arizona will not be able to require cops to check the immigration status of someone they stop or arrest.

2. The segment of the law making it a crime to fail to carry immigration papers.

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