By MARK LORENZANA The deployment of federal forces in Mexico to contain the passage of migrants to the United States has increased by 294 percent in the 19 months since U.S. President Joe Biden began his term. As of May of this year, a total number of 28,971 Mexican soldiers, sailors and elements of the National Guard (GN) were deployed
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By MARK LORENZANA Let’s all give Mexican Formula 1 (F1) driver Sergio “Checo” Pérez a break. And by “break,” I don’t just mean the current F1 summer break that’s driving (pun definitely intended) all those die-hard motorsports fans crazy right now. A short digression, for those who are not F1 die-hards: What exactly is the F1 summer break? It’s the
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By MARK LORENZANA The violence that erupted in the western Mexican states of Guanajuato and Jalisco on the night of Tuesday, Aug. 9, was reportedly the result of retaliatory actions by members of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), in response to the alleged arrest of Ricardo Ruiz, alias “Double R,” and Gerardo González, alias “El Apá,” leaders of the
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By MARK LORENZANA Mexico will allocate 503 billion pesos this year in subsidies to gasoline and domestic electricity — produced with gas and coal — as a key element to combat inflation, Secretary of the Treasury Rogelio Ramírez de la O reported on Monday, Aug. 1. In contrast, the United States is about to embark on an ambitious anti-inflation plan
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By MARK LORENZANA Even as 10 miners remain trapped in a collapsed mine in the Mexican state of Coahuila, the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has been reportedly paying 500,000 pesos a day for the aid — in the form of a firefighting ship — that it has provided Cuba to help the island nation extinguish a
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By MARK LORENZANA The Mexican government has just created three new trust funds, or “fideicomisos,” despite a decree by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in March of 2020 ordering the “extinction” of 109 trust funds to combat corruption. The beneficiaries of the three new discretionary trust funds created by the executive branch — without going through Congress — are the
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By MARK LORENZANA José Ramón López Beltrán, eldest son of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), warned Senator Xóchitl Gálvez of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) that he would take legal action against the legislator for “invading the property of others” and “not respecting” his “right to privacy.” “I reserve the right to take any legal action against
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By MARK LORENZANA Senator Beatriz Paredes of the centralist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) expressed her interest in seeking the presidency of Mexico in 2024 with the Va por México coalition — an electoral alliance composed of the PRI, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) — to challenge the ruling party of
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OPINION By MARK LORENZANA The word democracy is a combination of two Greek words: demos, which means “people” and kratos, which means “rule.” The ancient Greeks, after all, are credited with inventing democracy as a form of government. In Mexico, though, “the rule of the people” has been steadily replaced by the rule of one man — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
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OPINION By MARK LORENZANA Veteran Mexican-American journalist Jorge Ramos, in an article for the now-defunct U.S. political and opinion website Splinter, wrote about the curious Mexican political custom of “el dedazo,” which, when translated roughly, means “to point a finger.” “As a young man, I was obsessed with the political phenomenon of ‘el dedazo’ in Mexico. It didn’t make sense
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