| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2009 
Mexico Frets About California Plan to Free Inmates
 Associated Press
go to original
August 22, 2009
 |  | The repatriation of ex-convicts should be orderly and in full agreement with the Mexican government, in order to avoid a rise in crime, mainly in the border states.
-Rommel Moreno |  | | |
Mexicali, Mexico — Mexican authorities have been sending more alleged criminals north to the U.S. for trial since President Felipe Calderon took office. Now a Mexican official is worried about a flow in the other direction.
Rommel Moreno, attorney general of Baja California state, expressed concern Friday about a plan in California to release thousands of inmates from that U.S. state's overcrowded prisons as a way to help relieve a budget crunch.
Although details of the proposal are still being debated in the California legislature, Moreno noted many inmates in the California prison system are undocumented migrants, and some could be deported once released.
"We have to take care of this issue. We know that there are plans to carry out these procedures in the United States, and one of the most affected states would be Baja California," he said.
A statement issued by his office said that "the repatriation of ex-convicts should be orderly and in full agreement with the Mexican government, in order to avoid a rise in crime, mainly in the border states."
"Border cities like Tijuana and Mexicali have enough problems as it with migration, so they can't suffer unilateral repatriations of people who have served a sentence in the United States," the statement said.
Guillermo Diaz Orozco, the leader of the business association of downtown Tijuana, voiced similar worries.
"The three levels of government have to plan what we are going to do with all these criminals they are going to 'export,'" Diaz Orozco said. "Many of them are going to be deported to Mexico, just because they declare themselves to be Mexicans."
Tijuana has suffered a wave of violent crime, and state prosecutors reported Friday that two men were shot to death at a pool hall late Thursday.
Elsewhere in Mexico, police arrested a man wanted in the United States for methamphetamine dealing, the federal attorney general's office said. It said Luis Carlos Sanchez Luna was grabbed as he left his home in a suburb of the northern city of Monterrey.
Sanchez Luna is on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's wanted list for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Houston. Authorities said Sanchez will face extradition, and noted he is the last of a band of three fugitives caught in Mexico. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us