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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
New Mexico Governor Wants Mexican Village Razed
 Reuters
| | New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson |
Santa Fe, New Mexico - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will seek the bulldozing of a Mexican village to improve border security at a meeting with the governor of the Mexican state of Chihuahua this week, a Richardson spokesman said on Tuesday.
Las Chepas is said to be a staging area for immigrants to enter the United States illegally and for other criminal activities, spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.
An agreement by Mexican officials to raze the hamlet would be "an important step forward for the Mexican government, showing their commitment to work with us," Richardson said in an interview published on Tuesday in the Las Cruces Sun-News in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Las Chepas, the nickname for the town more officially known as Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, is in a remote desert area along the border. It is said to have 60 to 100 residents who make a living largely by selling supplies to U.S.-bound immigrants.
Richardson toured the area recently and was told by the U.S. Border Patrol that "it was obviously being used as a staging area, not just for immigration, but for the illegal smuggling of human beings and drugs," Gallegos said.
Richardson, a Hispanic who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential or vice presidential candidate in 2008, and Chihuahua Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza will meet on Friday in Las Cruces, which is in southern New Mexico, Gallegos said.
Richardson declared a "state of emergency" for his state's border area on August 12 because of what he described as an increase in crime and illegal immigration and a lack of federal action.
Shortly afterwards, Gov. Janet Napolitano in neighboring Arizona declared a state of emergency for her border with Mexico, where a few months ago a vigilante group patrolled for illegal immigrants.
Both states have seen an increase in illegal immigration because routes in and near border cities traditionally used by immigrants coming from Mexico have been cut off by stepped-up U.S. Border Patrol efforts. |
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