Mexico

The recently approved new "drug" law in Mexico is in fact not a step toward decriminalization, but rather toward mandatory sentencing. Until last month, possession of small (unspecified) amounts of drugs was not a criminal offense in Mexico; only the sale or purchase was. The new law establishes a minuscule limit on legal possession, meaning that today, almost anyone caught carrying any drug is subject to arrest, prosecution and jail.

If anything, the new law criminalizes drug use much more… more

Your neighbor needs your help. Do you have it within you to lend a hand? Will you book yourself a week on the beach in Cabo or Puerto Vallarta, or explore Mexico City or one of the colonial cities in the heart of Mexico? You know, for the common good.

This has been a banner decade for empathy tourism -- many Americans flocking to New York after 9/11 and to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did so with a sense… more

Poor Mexico can’t catch a break. “So far from God, so close to the United States,” as the old saying goes down there. Indeed. Our southern neighbor’s lethal drug war has been driven off the front pages by a deadly strain of swine flu that threatens to become a pandemic. And as if that weren’t enough, for a few scary moments on Monday, an already jittery Mexico City was hit by an earthquake that registered 5.6 on the Richter scale.… more

Washington, DC -- How can two countries that share a 2,000-mile border and centuries of history know so little about each other? As President Barack Obama prepares for his April 16 visit to Mexico, Slate and the New America Foundation teamed up to produce a series of articles that explores the strained relations between the United States and Mexico.

Declaring Mexico a "failed state" has become the new mantra in Washington and among the media. Over the last two years, the country's drug wars have claimed 10,000 lives, many in grisly beheadings reminiscent of Iraq or the Afghan-Pakistan border regions. But we have been bad neighbors, too: American narco-dollars have made Mexico the main conduit for Colombian cocaine, and an estimated 90 percent of the weapons used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States.

The other day, my 4-year-old son asked me what a border is. It was a simple question, and yet I found myself stammering until his eyes narrowed intently. He does that, as if to say, "Aha, it seems I have stumbled upon something juicy here." He might as well have been asking where babies come from. In fact, I was merely struggling to figure out whether to emphasize that borders are shared, thus bonding either side, or whether to emphasize… more

Mexico's drug war is bound to have a profound effect on the lives of Mexican immigrants in the United States. On the one hand, the image of Mexico's chaos as a spreading contagion most likely will strengthen the hand of anti-immigrant forces. On the other, as Mexican newcomers look back at their increasingly dangerous homeland, they will -- consciously or unconsciously -- set down deeper roots in the United States.

Tomás Jiménez on Mexico-US relations: "Obviously, it is a big deal to particularly countries like Mexico whose citizens live in the United States in large numbers. Any country is going to want to be sure that its citizens are protected from human rights abuses, from labor abuses.