Mexico

A number of passengers needed medical treatment after the accident near the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas, south-eastern Mexico

A group of backpackers including several Brits cheated death when their Mexican tour bus was stopped by a single bollard – as it rolled towards a terrifying 1,000m drop. They paid for a tour of the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas, south-eastern Mexico, in July and, after walking around to take in the view, boarded their tour bus at the top of a steep drop – when it started rolling backwards.

The group say they feared they were headed for the canyon and many of them started diving off the bus headfirst to save themselves. Luckily, the bus hit a bollard and came to a stop before going over the edge.

But many of the passengers have been left traumatised by the near-death ordeal, with some suffering physical injuries and needing hospital treatment. James Gamble, 30, from Portsmouth, said: “I honestly thought I was going to die. It was hands-down the most terrifying experience of my life.

“Everyone was diving off the bus headfirst, thinking we were headed for the canyon. I just imagined the bus tilting backwards with nothing I could do.

“It was horrific. I didn’t stop shaking for an hour afterwards; people who weren’t even on the bus were crying and having panic attacks.”

James says that one passenger, Madeleine Glen, had tried to grab the handbrake as the bus was rolling, but it was already up. Several passengers were hospitalised following the terrifying incident after injuring themselves fleeing the bus.

Sophie Badelt, 22, from Switzerland, hit her head on a parked car as she dove from the moving bus and was bleeding profusely. A British nurse from another tour of the canyon helped to bandage her head while they waited for an ambulance.

Brit Hugo Evans, 20, was also injured in the ordeal and bandaged at the scene by paramedics. He said: “I dove out of the van, headfirst – that was the only option. I was in a blind panic. I thought we were going to die for sure.

“I hit my head on the floor and there was a lot of blood. I thought we were headed for the cliff. Everyone was freaking out when Sophie was screaming… She was drenched in blood. It was terrifying.”

The tour left on July 9 and cost 600 Mexican Pesos (£25.66) per person. All the passengers have since been refunded, and Sophie says that she has been compensated for her medical bills after weeks of back-and-forth.

There were three Dutch passengers – Britt van Engelen, 28, Yesol Sihn 29, and Floris van Neer, 30. Also onboard was Belgian tourist Hanne, 23, and Australian pair Garrison Hamlin, 28, and Brodie Hampson, 28.

James, a former journalist, says he stayed on the bus until it came to a halt and that he has been left shaken by the ordeal. He added: “We took some photos of the canyon at the viewpoint and were told to get back on the bus. The van was parked on a hill and I was sat near the back.

“We all piled back on the bus and, as the last people were getting on, we started rolling backwards. Maddy tried the handbrake, but it was already up and panic set in within seconds.

“Then there was an almighty crash as we hit the bollard and the five of us still on darted off the bus. The first thing we saw was Sophie lying on the floor, crying desperately for help and with blood seeping out of her head.”

The tour operator was approached for comment.

US judges affirm migrants must have opportunities to voice safety concerns before deportation to unfamiliar nations.

A US federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s policy of rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own – a ruling that could next go before the Supreme Court.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston largely upheld a February decision that found the Department of Homeland Security’s so-called third-country removal policy unlawful.

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The case stems from a class-action lawsuit testing what due process migrants are owed before being sent to nations with which they have no ties.

Writing for the panel, US Circuit Judge Seth Aframe said migrants must be given a “meaningful” chance to raise safety concerns before removal, rejecting the Trump administration’s narrower reading of the law.

The court did overturn part of the ruling on procedural grounds, concerning whether officials must first try deporting migrants to countries they have ties to.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the decision confirmed that “due process and the protections Congress enacted against persecution and torture cannot be circumvented by putting someone on a plane to a country that was never part of their removal proceedings”.

The DHS did not immediately comment. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.

Under Trump, the US has struck agreements allowing it to send more than 25,000 migrants to at least 29 third countries, most often Mexico, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a tracker run by the rights groups Refugees International and Human Rights First.

The policy, adopted in March 2025, allowed removals with only minimal notice if officials had diplomatic assurances against persecution.

The controversial programme has reached the Supreme Court twice.

In 2025, the justices cleared the way for eight men, including nationals of Cuba, Myanmar and Vietnam, to be deported to South Sudan, a country the US State Department advises against visiting because of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.

The DHS called the removals “a win”, while rights groups said they flouted basic protections.

The Trump administration’s immigration agenda has faced a string of setbacks this month.

A federal judge blocked planned caps on student and journalist visas, calling the government’s justification “exceptionally weak”, while a coalition of 22 states and Washington, DC, sued to stop a separate rule that would let officials deny green cards to immigrants who lawfully use public benefits.

US President Donald Trump had tried to pressure the Fed to lower rates, but it voted unanimously to raise them instead. In response, Trump is now threatening to end trade with countries the US has a trade deficit with – namely Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

Published On 17 Sep 202617 Sep 2026

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Native authorities issue condolences after two adults and a child swept away by floodwaters in southwestern US state.

Indigenous authorities in the United States have said that three people have been killed in flooding in the southwestern state of New Mexico, where heavy rains left roadways blocked by water.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said on Wednesday that police had responded to reports of people being swept away by floodwater at 12:30am (06:30 GMT) near the community of Newcomb in northwestern New Mexico.

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Nygren said that two adults and a child were killed in the incident and offered condolences to the community, while advising residents to exercise caution in areas impacted by rainfall.

“There are no words that can ease the pain of losing a loved one so suddenly, and our hearts are especially heavy knowing that three lives were lost,” Nygren said. “To the family, relatives, and loved ones who are grieving today, we offer our deepest condolences. We pray that you are surrounded by strength, comfort, and the love of your family and community in the difficult days ahead.”

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, issued a special briefing on Tuesday warning of the possibility of widespread thunderstorms in the coming days. The service repeated those warnings on Wednesday, noting that moisture levels are expected to be at record levels for mid-September.

“A Flash Flood Watch is in effect for the western third of New Mexico and the South Central Mountains today,” NWS Albuquerque said in a social media post on Wednesday. “However, flash flooding could occur anywhere in central and northern New Mexico today.”

Heavy rainfall is predicted across parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah through Thursday. Flash flood warnings were issued for parts of northwestern New Mexico, along with flash flood watches for large areas of central and northern Arizona.

The deaths on Wednesday come several weeks after three hikers were swept away and dozens were rescued after heavy rainfall caused flooding at the Grand Canyon, a popular destination for tourists and outdoor recreation in Arizona.

The line at Holbox during the midweek lunch hour has become a cultural sensation, a queue of locals and visitors trailing past the automatic doors and around the parking lot like devotees angling for the latest iPhone series or limited-release sneakers. Believe the lauds, including ours when we named Holbox as The Times’ 2023 Restaurant of the Year. Gilberto Cetina’s command of mariscos is unmatched in Southern California — his ceviches, aguachiles and tostadas revolutionary in their freshness and jigsaw-intricate flavors. The smoked kanpachi taco alone — clinched with queso Chihuahua and finished with salsa cruda, avocado and drizzles of peanut salsa macha — is one of the most sophisticated things to eat in Los Angeles.

Holbox could be considered for the top ranking on its own strength. But in a year when disasters tore at our city, honoring the power of community feels more urgent than ever. Cetina’s seafood counter doesn’t thrive in a vacuum. Holbox resides inside the Mercado La Paloma in South L.A. The mercado is the economic-development arm of the Esperanza Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 that counts affordable housing and equitable healthcare among its core missions. When the mercado was in the incubation stage, Esperanza’s executive director Nancy Ibrahim interviewed would-be restaurateurs about their challenges and hopes in starting a business. Among the candidates was Cetina’s father, Gilberto Sr., who proposed a stall serving his family’s regionally specific dishes from the Yucatán. Their venture, Chichén Itzá, was among the eight startups when the mercado opened in a former garment factory nearly 25 years ago, in February 2001.

Step into the 35,000-square-foot market today, and the smell of corn warms the senses. Fátima Juárez chose masa as her medium when she began working with Cetina at Holbox in 2017. Komal, the venue she opened last year with her husband, Conrado Rivera, is the only molino in L.A. grinding and nixtamalizing heirloom corn varieties daily. Among her deceptively spare menu of mostly quesadillas and tacos, start with the extraordinary quesadilla de flor de calabaza, a creased blue corn tortilla, bound by melted quesillo, arrayed with squash blossoms radiating like sunbeams.

Wander farther, past the communal sea of tiled tables between Holbox and Komal, to find jewels that first-timers or even regular visitors might overlook.

Taqueria Vista Hermosa, run by Raul Morales and his family, is the other remaining original tenant. Order an al pastor taco, or Morales’ specialty of Michoacan-style fish empapelado smothered in vegetables and wrapped in banana leaf. The lush, orange-scented cochinita pibil is the obvious choice next door at still-flourishing Chichén Itzá, but don’t overlook crackling kibi and the brunchy huevos motuleños over ham and black bean puree. The weekends-only tacos de barbacoa de chivo are our favorites at the stand called Oaxacalifornia, though we swing through any time for the piloncillo-sweetened café de olla and a scoop of smoked milk ice cream from its sibling juice and snack bar in the market’s center. Looking for the comfort of noodles? Try the pad see ew at Thai Corner Food Express in the far back.

The everyday and the exquisite; the fast and the formal (just try to score a reservation for Holbox’s twice-a-week tasting menu); a food hall and sanctuary for us all. Mercado La Paloma embodies the Los Angeles we love.

MARFA, Texas — Landowners, ranchers and business owners in the Big Bend region of Texas along with a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the region’s landscape and heritage are suing to stop the Trump administration’s plans to build a wall and other border infrastructure through the remote section of the state.

The lawsuit, filed by Conserve Big Bend and with the support of dozens of landowners, comes as the administration is ramping up a $46-billion effort to line the roughly 2,000-mile southern border with a collection of 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and technology intended to keep out smugglers and migrants.

In Texas, the effort has run up against numerous lawsuits and bipartisan opposition from sheriffs, elected officials, tour guides, environmental groups and landowners.

Officials backing the wall “were woefully unprepared for the hornet’s nest they stirred up because they had no idea how much we love this place,” said David Keller, an archaeologist and historian who specializes in the Big Bend and lives in the region.

“For us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on the map,” he said. “It is our home.”

As part of its wall-building efforts, the administration has waived numerous regulations and statutes designed to protect the environment, archaeology or wildlife, on the basis that there’s an urgent need to protect the border in what Homeland Security has called areas of “high illegal entry.”

But in the lawsuit announced Monday, the plaintiffs argue that when it comes to the Big Bend region, that’s not an accurate description. They’ve cited historical statistics issued by Customs and Border Protection showing how few people cross the border in Big Bend compared with other areas along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Big Bend has about 500 miles of border with Mexico — roughly one quarter of the length of the border from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. But the region only accounted for about 1% of arrests, according to the lawsuit’s stats.

The plaintiffs are arguing that the Department of Homeland Security is misusing powers from Congress that allow the secretary broad authority to waive regulations in order to build border walls or other infrastructure in areas where there are large numbers of people trying to cross into the country illegally.

“That determination is legally and factually unsound and unsupported,” the plaintiffs wrote.

The lawsuit filed Monday is the latest in efforts to slow or stop the administration’s plans in Texas and elsewhere.

The biggest outcry has come over Customs and Border Protection’s plans for the Big Bend National Park, which sits in a far southwestern corner of Texas where the Rio Grande separates the U.S. from Mexico.

The park’s remote and rugged location, its steep limestone canyon walls and crystal clear starry night views attract visitors from around the world. The government has said in court hearings that no final plans have been decided for what will be built in the park but plans made public so far have included building a new road, installing detection technology and barriers to stop vehicles from crossing the border.

When bulldozers were spotted clearing land in the park in August, people across the state were outraged. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott temporarily paused construction-related activity in the park but many activists and residents would like to see even more changes to the administration’s plans in the broader Big Bend region.

Native American groups have argued that the construction could inhibit their ability to practice their faith and is damaging important religious sites while environmentalists worry the wall will cause flooding or keep animals from migrating.

Landowners who’ve lived and worked along the Rio Grande for years have questioned how they’ll feed livestock or water their crops if they can’t access the river.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

The reporter may have misheard the comment, or maybe the person being quoted actually said it, or something odd happened in the editing process.

Whatever: This is what appeared in the Feb. 20, 1985 edition of the Oakland Tribune, quoting a UC Berkeley professor about a protest against immigration sweeps in the Bay Area.

“This probably won’t stop the Iron Ass [federal government] from making raids in the Eastbay.”

“Iron Ass” is how someone might hear the acronym INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the forerunner to ICE.

And now, 40 years on, it fits right into the kind of angry, derisory language many Americans use for the present-day hammer-handed operations of federal immigration officers, around the country, especially here in California.

California has always been — and that’s a couple of centuries of “always” — at the fulcrum of the immigration-deportation seesaw in the U.S., with national policies yo-yoing between kicking workers out and inviting them in. Consider the foreign-born who joined the Gold Rush, the Chinese railroad workers, and still and always the Latino population along the long, wide international border.

That underlies the name of a new exhibition at the California Museum in Sacramento, “Help Wanted/Leave Now!” about the “revolving door” of programs and practices that have alternately enticed and expelled workers, legal and undocumented.

The U.S. border with Mexico represents a political borderline but it cannot sever many decades of complicated history and culture. And it’s left us with endless paradoxes and contradictions of who belongs where, with the U.S. government shifting to and fro on deciding and enforcing that, depending on the American economy, and American politics.

Sean Manwaring is curator of the exhibit. “We have historically recruited foreign workers who set down roots, become members of the community, and then, when there’s an economic downturn or it becomes politically expedient, it’s kind of a revolving door.”

The endless argument is that undocumented immigrants, who work for less because of their needs and their vulnerability, take jobs that Americans will, or that Americans won’t do. Something else Americans won’t do: pay higher prices for food, 90 years ago or now.

Last year, the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank, one of 12 regional Feds, noted on its website, “Historically, the supply of U.S.-born farm workers has not been sufficient to meet demand for farm jobs at the going wage rate, contributing to a largely foreign-born workforce.” Even the H-2A legal process for hiring seasonal foreign workers “would likely be more expensive than employing undocumented workers.”

A 1924 immigration law that created the Border Patrol also revealingly put it under the control of the federal labor department. Cheaper Mexican workers had been welcomed during World War I, and were still coming north more casually back then, even as a U.S. labor group was beginning to agitate for organizing American migrant farmworkers.

But when the 1929 market crash and the Depression knifed the American economy, the blame for unemployment in the southwest and California in particular fell on these Mexicans, and the government’s “Mexican Repatriation” program sent hundreds of thousands back to Mexico, some voluntarily, some not, and some numbers of them American citizens.

Once, border migration patterns resembled a loop: thousands of laborers, mostly men, commuted here once or twice a year from Mexico to jobs in the fields, then on to other jobs once harvests were over. Then they’d take their earnings home to Mexico as breadwinners and comparatively rich men, and stay until the next year’s season.

But as U.S. policies over decades squeezed the border shut on this back-and-forth commuting, some workers chose to stay on the side of the border where they could find work, and a number brought their families north to settle, legally or otherwise.

And then that pendulum swung again. In 1942, Americans by the millions left their peacetime jobs for the war and wartime industries, and the “Bracero” program — from “brazo,” the Spanish word for “arm” — filled in the gaps in the domestic workforce with contracts for employers of Mexican workers, usually in agriculture or on railroads.

Under the program, the U.S. screened Mexicans for aptitude for the work, and for attitude. Manwaring shared with me the notes of Henry P. Anderson, a historian and farm labor organizer, who took a guided tour of a Calexico bracero processing center in 1958:

“Those deemed expendable were described one at a time: this one is too tall, he is too ‘cocky,’ that one a ‘loafer,’ another ‘lazy and irresponsible,’ he’s a ‘smart aleck,’ this one a ‘ladykiller’ and not ‘peon’ enough. On the other hand the ‘right man,’ according to the guide, was ‘built right. He’s a farm worker, you can tell that … he hasn’t got any big ideas. He’s got the right attitude. He’s humble, not fresh and cocky. He’s an Indian type, probably from Jalisco or Guanajuato.’”

Through the bracero program’s 22-year span, as many as 4 million workers came in and presumably went home — though not always; a generation of families came here, or were born here, and stayed. About 15 years after it ended, a former Texas labor commissioner and ranking Labor Department official overseeing the program went public. He characterized wages for braceros as unconscionably low, the food substandard and the housing prison-like. “It was not altruistic at all. The bracero program was definitely created by the farmer who needed to make a dollar.”

And then America’s policy yo-yoed again: in 1953, even as the bracero program was still operating, the federal government launched “Operation Wetback,” to rid the country of undocumented immigrants.

With its heavy-handed “sweeps” of labor camps and factories, American citizens were indiscriminately caught up in the operations, just as ICE is doing now.

Consider the breezy tone of a 1931 story in the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, reporting on 1,200 Mexicans deported from L.A. County in a day, with the casual note that “virtually none of them” was “an undesirable alien — many are American citizens.”

“L.A. was really ground zero for these raids during Operation Wetback and the Mexican deportation,” said Manwaring. Those 1,200 deportees were among at least 50,000 deported from LA County in five months of 1931 — as much as a third of the county’s Mexican and Mexican American population.

Emilia Castaneda was no more than 10 years old when her Boyle Heights family was deported in the 1930s. In an archival videotaped interview made when she was in her late 70s or 80s, and now part of the exhibition, she remembered being teased by the girls in the parochial school she ended up attending in Mexico. “You’re not one of us,” they mocked her. “Go home.”

Just like today, as agriculture and other food chain businesses were hard-hit by Trump’s aggressive deportations, some industries and regions in earlier “sweeps” also asked for carve-outs and exemptions.

“I wouldn’t say there was a backlash but it really impacted agricultural networks across California and Arizona,” said Manwaring. “We came across specific requests from county officials like in Yuma, Arizona, asking for exceptions because they needed these workers, they didn’t have enough help.”

What’s called the Texas Proviso was a wink-and-nudge agribusiness-friendly federal loophole crafted in the early 1950s that for more than 30 years made it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants — but not a crime to hire them. (Federal law criminalized that in 1986.)

The 1950s enforcement drive also put the word “wetback” into casual use. Official statements and news stories used it to mean anyone here without documentation. It was derived from the people who waded across Texas’ Rio Grande into the U.S., but it was sometimes used interchangeably with any Latino workers. Sometimes it just got clipped to “wets.”

In 1961, as astronaut Alan Shepard sat aboard his Redstone rocket waiting to become the first American launched in space, hours of delays forced him to urinate in his space suit. “Well,” he remarked nonchalantly, “I’m a wetback now.”

Not much has changed. Court records released this July confirmed that ICE agents had been referring to immigrants during raids with such slurs as “wet” and “tonk,” the last term reportedly derived from the sound an agent’s utility flashlight makes when hitting a migrant’s head.

A 1956 crime drama called “Wetbacks” was a B picture about a human smuggling ring victimizing the undocumented. The Los Angeles Examiner’s movie reviewer called it a “tedious, amateurishly made picture [that] supposedly deals with how illegal Mexican immigrants are smuggled into this country.”

One of the paradoxes of these periodic anti-undocumented worker campaigns is how they divided Latino communities: the “I did it the right way” people who managed to get visas, the people whose forebears may have come illegally but are now themselves established, and the paperless people who have just arrived, or who have lived here for years under the radar.

César Chávez lived that paradox. The co-founder of the United Farm Workers — along with Dolores Huerta, an advisor on this exhibition — was a U.S. citizen. In the 1960s and into the 1970s, he wanted immigration officials to keep out undocumented workers, believing they’d be exploited as strikebreakers for growers and erode his union’s bargaining power. By the 1980s, though, he was endorsing immigration reform and protections, especially in the face of President Reagan’s recession-era 1982 “Operation Jobs” sweeps.

A Los Angeles Times survey that same year found that within three months of those raids, 80% of the booted-out workers were back on the job. Many of the Americans hired to replace them soon quit. They didn’t like the wages or the working conditions.

The employment manager of B.P. John furniture maker, in Santa Ana, told The Times, 75 of the American-born workers soon quit on him. “They told me they found another job, that the work was too hard, that there wasn’t enough pay.”

In June 1954, The Times covered the Border Patrol’s plans for L.A. Herman Landon, the local immigration chief, described a “stockade” being built in Elysian Park to “imprison illegal Mexicans flushed out” of factories, hotels, and “skid row saloons” at the rate of a thousand or two per day.

Farmers had once requested immigrant workers from smugglers by the truckload, and counted by “the head,” like livestock. When the feds moved in, workers were deported south of the border, sometimes far south, by bus, by ship, by plane. The feds briefly charged each worker $10 each for the cost of being deported.

The caption of a June 1952 photo in the McAllen, Texas, Evening Monitor that showed men boarding a deportation plane read, “It’s a quick bite to eat then off into the wild blue yonder for these wetbacks.” The newspaper offered a $5 prize in a contest to name the airborne deportations. Not all readers were cheering. One acidly suggested calling it “Truman’s Gestapo Airlift.”

The human numbers for any of these programs, coming in or kicking out, are hardly ever confirmed, but over all this time we are talking about the movement of millions — and the deaths, still uncounted.

Trump said he always planned to model his deportations on the Eisenhower-era operation.

“We’re rounding them up in a very humane way, a very nice way,” Trump told “60 Minutes.”

In July 1954, under Eisenhower, 88 workers died of sunstroke in the desert below Calexico, where they’d been deported.

In the first 17 months of the second Trump administration, at least 52 people died in ICE custody. ICE agents have shot and killed at least six more people, some in their cars, and some right out in public, like Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and Keith Porter Jr., shot last New Year’s Eve in front of his L.A. apartment building by an off-duty ICE agent.

The deaths recall a deportation sweep in 1948, when a plane carrying 28 workers back to Mexico, with a crew of four, caught fire and crashed near Coalinga. The press coverage then identified the crew but not the dead Mexican workers, whose individual stories were finally told 70 years later in Tim Z. Hernandez’s book “All They Will Call You.”

The title is a line from Woody Guthrie’s celebrated song “Deportees,” about the crash, and what it signified in a nation that used and used up its foreign workers, and it ends like this:

“Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?/Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?/To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil/And be called by no name except ‘deportees’?”

MEXICO CITY — When the Trump administration announced this summer that illegal crossings into the U.S. from Mexico had reached historical lows, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared, “Our border is CLOSED to lawbreakers.”

Even so, the administration continues to pressure both Mexico and U.S. officials serving there — publicly and behind the scenes — to curb illegal immigration further. The crackdown has prompted smugglers to become more creative, turning more often to tunnels once reserved for transporting drugs.

Stephen Miller, the main architect of President Trump’s immigration policies, has been in near-daily communication with senior U.S. law enforcement officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, looking for new ways to stop migrants from entering the United States, according to people familiar with the conversations.

An average of 400 migrants were apprehended while crossing into the U.S. every day in July, according to data by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. It’s a precipitous drop from the thousands who crossed daily at the peak of a migrant surge in 2022.

Sometimes the number of crossings has dropped to 200 a day. But for Miller, that reduction is still not enough, said sources not authorized to speak publicly about internal matters. Miller’s goal, they said, is to have zero migrants entering the U.S.

Miller has directed officials to increase investigations into migrant smuggling networks, people familiar with his directives said.

Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has often asked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to crack down on immigration. On Aug. 26, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Mexico’s foreign minister, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, and urged him to take “decisive action on illegal immigration,” according to a statement from the State Department.

The Trump administration’s border crackdown has been so effective it’s forced some smugglers literally underground.

Mexican drug cartels are increasingly turning to tunnels built for drug smuggling to ferry migrants into the United States. They are linking into sewer drains, according to people familiar with the trend.

Though the number of migrants apprehended while using tunnels appears to be relatively small — there are no hard statistics — authorities believe it is increasing, given the crackdown on the border and financial incentive for the cartels to smuggle people and not just drugs.

“Enforcement along the border has become more robust and that has increased the demand for alternative methods of passage,” said David Shirk, director of the Justice in Mexico program at the University of San Diego.

The Trump administration has added extra miles of razor wire to border fences, has increased surveillance technology and uses autonomous Predator drones with surveillance and infrared technology to monitor swaths of the border for migrants crossing into the U.S.

And, picking up on Trump’s “build the wall” pledge from his initial run for president, more border barriers are being built.

Trafficking through cross-border tunnels is not new. In 2023, Ken Salazar, then the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said there were at least 200 tunnels that spanned the border. Many of them were found linking Tijuana and San Diego.

But in a twist, some tunnels now connect to drainage and sewer systems. This May, authorities captured 19 migrants, including three unaccompanied minors, in the San Diego storm water drainage system. A remote surveillance camera spotted the migrants emerging from the system.

The smugglers were two brothers who had previously been charged with methamphetamine trafficking in the Northern California town of Yreka in 2017.

Smugglers employ tunneling specialists whose work is getting more sophisticated, outfitting the tunnels with lights, ventilation systems and sometimes mini rail lines. Many tunnels are faster, safer and much more expensive for migrants who would otherwise face increasingly dangerous mountain and desert routes, experts said.

Last year, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations agents also found a tunnel that ran under the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico into El Paso.

The passage tapped into the El Paso sewer system, where, according to U.S. authorities, migrants surfaced from a manhole. They climbed into a box truck outfitted with a trap door that was parked over the manhole.

Cartels charge migrants from Latin America up to $15,000 dollars each to use tunnels to El Paso, an official familiar with the dynamics said. For people from the Middle East or Southeast Asia, the price can be as high as $25,000.

The tunnel traffic continues to vex U.S. officials.

In Tijuana, one tunnel discovered last year stretched from Tijuana to what appeared to be a Buy 4 Less store near the Otay Mesa port of entry. The store never had customer traffic, so U.S. law enforcement suspected it hid a tunnel and began monitoring the business.

Authorities raided the building and found the entrance to a tunnel controlled by the ruthless Jalisco New Generation Cartel. It was 55 feet deep and nearly half a mile long. It featured a hydraulic lift, ventilation and a rail and cart system. Authorities stopped a freezer truck after it left the location and seized more than a ton of cocaine, worth roughly $45 million.

In 2024, U.S. law enforcement found a tunnel in the border town of San Luis, Ariz. Authorities said it was used to smuggle migrants and drugs. Its exit was hidden in an abandoned KFC restaurant.

This article was co-published with Puente News Collaborative. Fisher is a special correspondent.

At least 10 people were killed and around 60 wounded in central Mexico when fireworks detonated during a religious festival. Residents had been honouring the patron saint of Temascalcingo, a municipality in central Mexico, when tragedy struck.

Published On 7 Sep 20267 Sep 2026

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THE best hotels in the world have been revealed from luxury resorts to former celebrity escapes in LA.

Two that are in the UK have also made the cut – one in London and the other in Scotland.

The list has been drafted by The World’s 50 Best who have released the best hotels from 51-100.

If you want to know The World’s 50 Best Hotels from 1-50, these will be revealed on September 15.

Landing at number 56 is the Rosewood London which is a luxury hotel in Covent Garden.

In the rooms, guests can enjoy fluffy bathrobes, even choose their own pillows and take advantage of 24-hour-in-room dining.

Inside the Junior Suite is a marble bathroom with a tub and walk-in shower and a personal bar.

The hotel currently offers an immersive afternoon tea inspired by the works of Claude Monet.

It has its own Pie Room as well which as it suggests in the name is dedicated to pie making – guests can book private dining or even give it a go themselves in a pie masterclass.

The Scarfes Bar has a Heroes and Villains-style cocktail menu with specially curated drinks with names like Diva and Foul Play.

When the sun shines, spritzes and Italian pizzas can be enjoyed on the Mediterranean terrace.

The other UK entry comes in 100th position and it’s Gleneagles in Auchterarder, Scotland.

The 232-room hotel boasts 10 restaurants and bars ranging from fine dining to casual spots like The Chicken Coop and organised picnics.

It has luxurious bedrooms and suites with a “mix of homeliness and glamour.”

Outdoorsy guests can make the most of the activities, with everything from falconry and archery to horse riding and off-road driving available.

It’s known as one of the best places to golf too with three of the top courses in Scotland.

Plenty of other impressive hotels made the list too – some of the most beautiful include Il San Pietro di Positano.

The beautiful five-star hotel in Italy is literally carved into the cliffside.

It even has its own lift which guests can take down to the private beach, there’s also a tennis court by the water.

For swimming, there’s a beautiful pool with a sun terrace looking over the sea.

The Beverly Hills Hotel is a Hollywood classic that featured on the cover of the Eagles album, Hotel California.

Found on Sunset Boulevard, the famous hotel is as LA as it gets – surrounded by palm trees with Barbie pink accents and even its own red carpet.

Rooms range from Hollywood glamour-style Superior Rooms to restored bungalows – one of which was a favourite of frequent guest, Marilyn Monroe.

There are over 100 Four Seasons hotels across the world and two have made the list.

The one in Hong Kong boasts views across the skyline and Victoria Harbour from a rooftop infinity pool.

It has three fine-dining restaurants and plenty of luxury touches.

The second Four Seasons on the list is in La Manzanilla and it’s super luxurious reachable only by private plane or boat.

It has beachfront casitas and hillside villas with regular sightings of humpback whales, dolphins and sea turtles from private plunge pools.

Another private resort to make it onto the list is Soneva Fushi in the Maldives.

It’s found on an island called Kunfunadhoo in the Baa Atoll with huge villas, open-air bathrooms with plenty of experiences all arranged by a barefoot butler – shoes aren’t a thing here.

Hotel das Cataratas is the only luxury resort situated inside Brazil’s Iguazu National Park right next to Iguassu Falls.

Guests even get special entry to the waterfalls before the park opens and after it closes to visitors.

It also has a huge outdoor swimming pool, tennis court and spa.

GrafTech International (EAF) up 5.3% post-market Monday after saying it plans to permanently close its graphite electrode manufacturing facility in Monterrey, Mexico, winding down operations in phases before expecting to end production in Q2 2027.

The company said the planned closure is intended

Long gone are the days of Mexican Americans’ alienation from Mexico — at least, if the Mexican government can help it.

On Sunday, hundreds of spectators gathered inside the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles to watch the United States semifinals for “México Canta,” a binational music competition for rising artists from the U.S. and Mexico, organized by the latter’s Ministry of Culture.

Seven participants of Mexican descent from across the U.S. braved the stage with original songs, in what can only be described as a heartfelt singing contest, without the scorn of nitpicky judges or behind-the-scenes melodrama, but rather a zealous crowd made up of all age groups.

Voting was handed over to the public, as the segment broadcast live on public television across the United States and Mexico. Over 300,000 individuals tuned in to cast a vote to advance the top three contestants: Tiffany Galaviz, Joshua Soto and Rosalba Valdez. They will go on to compete in the grand finale of México Canta on Sept. 13 at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City for a chance at a record deal.

“There’s always that saying that if you’re Mexican American, you’re not Mexican enough, but I think that’s wrong,” said 18-year-old Soto, a Bronx native whose musical theater background and deep R&B groove gave depth to the bilingual country-corrido “Terco Callejero.”

“Ever since I was little, my parents always showed me my culture, my roots. It’s in my blood. It’s in the traditions that I follow and the music that I listen to every day,” added Soto, who is enrolled in New York University’s vocal performance program in music theater.

For 27-year-old semifinalist Valdez — a Chicagoan whose signature red hair and bedazzled fringe fit distinguished her onstage, as she sang her merengue-infused tune “Por Bonita” — being Mexican American is both a huge privilege and responsibility.

“When I was younger, I used to think the opposite, because of what our community went through,” said Valdez. “Now I see it as a superpower. [Being Mexican American is] something that I want more people to understand has power. We can create a lot of change when we realize the power that we have.”

Speaking to The Times, Mexico Secretary of Culture Claudia Curiel de Icaza, stressed the importance of binational programming — adding that she believed that the singing contest can unite young people across the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We cannot think that we are merely divided by territory. Culture transcends borders, music transcends borders,” she said. “We are separated, but ultimately there is an extremely intimate and rich cultural development because culture has been the space of resistance, of resilience.”

As host and singer, Majo Aguilar — granddaughter of Mexican film and music legends Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre — ushered vocalists on and off the stage. Large screens lit up with educational stories of the legacy of Mexican nationals, such as Pedro J. González, one of the first Spanish radio broadcasters in the U.S.

The show also paid homage to American-born individuals who have elevated Mexican music: including Texas-born Gloria Ríos, who helped pioneer rock ’n’ roll in Mexico in 1956 and Arizona-born Linda Ronstadt, whose 1987 album “Canciones de Mi Padre” became the bestselling non-English language record in U.S. history.

This year, the contest placed an emphasis on música mexicana. According to Spotify, global streams of the genre have grown by 295% since 2021; in the U.S. alone, its popularity has grown by 162% since 2021.

In large part, its popularity has been driven by corrido tumbados, or songs which blend traditional Mexican folk with trap, often underscoring street life, “the hustle” and the riches that can follow.

Its most prominent acts include Junior H, Fuerza Regida and Peso Pluma. These were the biggest streaming Latin musicians in the U.S. in 2024, just below reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny — yet none of these popular música mexicana artists were recognized during the competition.

“Mexican music is among the most consumed worldwide and it’s a matter of choosing a genre where young people feel identified and music that transcends borders,” said Curiel de Icaza. “And no, we are not censoring it.”

México Canta began in 2025 as state-sponsored programming to promote musical narratives beyond themes of violence and drug-trafficking.

Besides banning the use of artificial intelligence and other audio alterations, the contest did not permit “songs that glorify violence or drug use.” Failure to comply with the rules would result in disqualification for contestants.

“More than banning, it’s about educating, guiding, and getting young people to stop listening to that music,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a news conference last year when the program was first introduced.

The singing competition comes at a time when 10 out of 32 Mexican states have implemented bans or limitations on corridos in public spaces; namely narcocorridos, or ballads that recount or glamorize elements of drug culture or organized crime.

Some lawmakers assert that the lyrics in these songs promote violence, including Mexico City lawmakers who, in May, passed a law barring the songs from being played at public events.

“The bans, which come amid President Trump’s hyper-focus on drug trafficking in Mexico, have sparked debates here about freedom of expression and state censorship and have raised provocative questions: Do narcocorridos merely reflect reality in a nation gripped by powerful drug gangs? Or do they somehow shape it?” wrote Times correspondent Kate Linthicum in a May 2025 article.

In May, the second edition of México Canta was announced during Sheinbaum’s daily news conference, generating online buzz when famed corrido tumbado singer Junior H vocalized support for the contest — while also lamenting his past musical choices.

“In my initial [career], some of the stories that I shared in my music didn’t add to the positive message that reflect my current compositions,” said Junior H, whose real name is Antonio Herrera Pérez, in the news conference. “I kept growing and I learned that music, besides being a form of expression, also implies a responsibility when millions of people hear you worldwide.”

The 25-year-old rose to fame through popular narcocorridos such as 2023’s “El Azul,” which is believed to be about Sinaloan drug lord Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno; as well as his 2022 banda-fused track, “El Hijo Mayor,” which some speculate to be about the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

“When you grow up, you have a career path and you see that you have an impact on young people, you start to mature and evolve your career,” Curiel de Icaza said of Junior H. “And you realize you want to go in a different direction, that’s when he understood and decided that it was better to focus on something else.”

During the news conference, Sheinbaum denounced the idea that the music contest was a form of censorship. Curiel de Icaza also refuted those claims: “We’re not prohibiting anything. Music will continue to exist, different voices exist and we’re not prohibiting or censoring songs.”

To help amplify the values of México Canta, organizers enlisted the help of Los Tigres del Norte, one of the most successful regional Mexican acts in the U.S. The night before the semifinals in L.A., Los Tigres performed with Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl.

The band closed Sunday’s competition with a performance of “México Sigue De Pie,” a new song that underscores the grit of the Mexican community. “They’re legendary,” Curiel de Icaza said of the band.

Coincidentally, the esteemed guests were early pioneers of narcocorridos: including their 1974 song “Contrabando y Traición,” which details a fictional drug trade tale of Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana, as well as their 1978 track “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” which describes cocaine trafficking across the state lines.

But over the last decade, the band, too, has been advised by concert organizers in Mexico to avoid playing these types of songs when performing in certain venues, leading them to voice concern over the criticism of corridos — which they argue provide listeners with details over real-life truths, in the same way journalists engage in storytelling.

“We’re narrators of people’s lives,” bandleader Jorge Hernández told El País last year.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis was released from a Texas jail Thursday, after a judge refused to order his return to Minnesota.

Christian Castro was released at the break of dawn from a detention center in Brownsville. He motioned his hand toward a few camera operators and a reporter crowding around him and quickly got into an SUV that drove off.

A day earlier, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. wrote in an order that said he couldn’t prevent a county sheriff from releasing Castro or order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant.

Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.

Castro is accused of firing gun through door of home

Castro is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro also falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

After a Minnesota judge issued a nationwide warrant for Castro’s arrest in May, authorities, including Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, arrested Castro in Cameron County on May 29. Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since his arrest, but he remained in custody in Brownsville, a city bordering Mexico.

Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro had to be released after 90 days of detention, which was Thursday.

Minnesota officials believe Castro could flee to Mexico.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week seeking to block Castro’s release or to order his return to Minnesota.

Abbott waiting for internal state investigation about Castro

Texas attorneys on Tuesday argued the judge could not rule on a decision that’s still pending. Abbott has not denied the extradition. Instead he is waiting for the outcome of an internal state investigation considering whether Castro was legally a “fugitive” under the Extradition Clause, the lawyers said.

The judge wrote in Wednesday’s order that the court couldn’t yet step in.

“The Court concludes that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction because the case is not ripe for adjudication,” the order read. “Minnesota cannot premise its causes of action on the allegation that Governor Abbott may violate those authorities in the future; it must prove that a violation has already occurred.”

The judge said in his order that the extradition laws do not outline how long the Texas governor can take to make that decision.

Ellison said in a statement that his office would keep litigating the case but didn’t specify what it would do next.

Abbott’s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, welcomed the ruling and said it was the governor’s duty to carefully consider the merits of extradition requests.

Abbott said last week he would not respond to the extradition request, citing the ongoing investigation into fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which President Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

Minnesota officials say Castro could flee the country, citing calls he made from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released,” according to the lawsuit.

The judge conceded that Castro could flee the country but added that “the threat of injury by itself does not create an issue ripe for adjudication.”

Michael Gonzalez and Valerie Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. Valerie Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. AP writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A federal judge on Wednesday refused to order Texas to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Christian Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since his arrest, but he remains in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico.

Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro must be released after 90 days of detention, which is Thursday.

Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week, asking a federal judge to prevent the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant.

Minnesota officials believe Castro could flee the country, citing calls he made from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released,” according to the lawsuit.

Castro is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro also falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

At a federal hearing in Brownsville on Tuesday, attorneys with the Minnesota attorney general’s office argued it would be hard to compel Castro to face charges in their state if he was released, and they fear Castro may flee the country, citing his phone conversations.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said last week he would not respond to the extradition request, citing the ongoing investigation into fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which President Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

Two explosions have hit a fireworks facility in Tultepec, Mexico, sending a spectacular mix of flames and explosions into the air. The building was flattened but no injuries were reported.

Published On 26 Aug 202626 Aug 2026

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US Southern Command says that Sunday’s strike targeted a vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.

The United States military said it struck a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Pacific Ocean, killing two people.

In a Monday post on X, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said Sunday’s strike targeted a vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.

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“Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking,” SOUTHCOM added.

“This operation is a clear and decisive reminder that SOUTHCOM is taking the fight directly to the cartels.”

Grainy, black-and-white video accompanying the post appeared to show a boat moving through the water immediately before a large explosion.

The post stated that under the direction of SOUTHCOM Commander General Francis L. Donovan, the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on the low-profile vessel.

“We are committed to imposing total systemic friction on narco-terrorists — disrupting their operations, dismantling their leadership and eliminating cartel terror across the region,” Donovan was quoted as saying.

“Let me be clear, we will not permit narco-terrorists to operate with impunity in the Western Hemisphere, nor will we allow their deadly poison to reach American communities. This operation is a powerful demonstration of our lethal precision, overwhelming capability, and absolute resolve to protect the U.S. homeland.”

The US military launched Operation Southern Spear in early September, with President Donald Trump arguing that Washington is effectively at war with Latin American drug cartels.

Since then, more than 200 people have been killed in strikes across the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, according to a tally by the AFP news agency.

However, the Trump administration has not provided definitive evidence that the targeted vessels were involved in drug trafficking.

Legal experts and rights groups warn that the attacks could amount to extrajudicial killings.

The Pentagon’s inspector general said in May that it would review whether the military followed standard targeting procedures, though the evaluation will not examine the legal authority behind the strikes.

Diego Maradona’s 1986 World Cup ball has sold for $3.35m. Maradona scored against England with his hand, later calling it the ‘Hand of God’. Four minutes later, he beat five players to score the ‘Goal of the Century’. Argentina won 2-1 and went on to lift the World Cup.

Published On 24 Aug 202624 Aug 2026

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