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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: Ciudad Juarez in Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Nobody’s safe there. And that includes reporters. Last week, a 21-year-old photographer became the second journalist with the newspaper El Diario to be killed in the past two years. At least 22 Mexican journalists have been murdered since 2006. Others have crossed the border to seek political asylum here in the US. Attorney Carlos Spector represents four of them. He and his clients pled their case at a news conference this afternoon in El Paso, Texas. Earlier, Mister Spector told us that Mexican authorities are sometimes unwilling and always unable to protect his clients from the drug cartels.

CARLOS SPECTOR:  I can get into the boxing ring with Mike Tyson and I am willing to fight him, but I am unable to sustain it. And so at this point, their good intentions have not gone rewarded. The fact that they’re willing to send the military to the north, that they’re willing to engage the cartels, does not mean that they’re being effective or that they can protect members of the Mexican press.

MULLINS:  Why are these members of the Mexican press under threat from the cartels, or as you say, even from the government at all?

SPECTOR: Most of the journalists who have been threatened by the cartels or the government have been covering the police or crime beats and they have had the misfortune of learning rather quickly the relationship between crime and policemen. And it’s one in the same in many instances. Corruption in Mexico is not a problem, it is an institution. When the cartels come after you, it’s generally in conjunction with the state, either explicitly or implicitly.

MULLINS: Give us an example of one of your clients’ stories, of one experience they’ve had where you believe that what’s happened to them implicates both the cartels and members of the Mexican government.

SPECTOR: Well, I have a police officer I represent, of which that case is a closed proceeding, and for security reasons won’t reveal, but he was a rather high-ranking individual in the Juarez state police. He had been promoted around a year and a half ago and as soon as he got promoted, two individuals with a bag of money came in and said El Commandante sends us, here’s a bag of money, give me your cell number because you now work for us. As soon as he said, well I can’t do that, he went and talked to his captain and says, I can’t do that, I got to go back to my prior position, and he did. And the threats at that point began. Moreover, let’s assume his name is Juan Cortez. Within a week, another police officer with the name of Juan Cortez had been killed. They had killed the wrong guy. And so they’re not playing around. And there’s much more than just anecdotal information about this. And as time goes on people are becoming more and more open to that type of testimony.

MULLINS: Well, there’s one particular client of yours who has indeed received political asylum here in the United States. Tell us about this client and why was he looking to leave Mexico at all?

SPECTOR: Jorge Luis Aguirre, who we helped initially, has been granted asylum. I didn’t officially represent him, but the organization that we’ve developed had sent him to the US Senate to testify. Now he had been threatened by a representative of the governor of Chihuahua with death as a result of him writing in his daily blog that he has which has become somewhat well-read in the border areas. And as a result of his opinions, he was threatened by the cartels and then when he started speaking out against the Mexican government, that increased his possibilities of winning because he now had political opinion as [INDISCERNIBLE] well-founded fear of persecution.

MULLINS: Alright. Attorney Carlos Spector represents several Mexican journalists who are seeking political asylum here in the United States. He spoke to us from El Paso, Texas. Thank you very much.

SPECTOR: Thank you very much.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

caught at the official US ports of entry. Roger Maier is a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection.

ROGER MAIER: Our officers in El Paso encounter, any week, probably 125 to 150 immigration-related violations.

URIBE: Maier says visa violators have always existed even before the violence erupted in Mexico. Many use their tourist visa to work in the United States.

MAIER: During the course of our interview and inspection you know in some cases we’re able to determine that that person is either residing in the United States or working in the United States which is not allowed under that visa class.

URIBE: Those who are caught can lose their visa and be prohibited from returning to the United States. For Ortensia and her parents it’s a risk they’re willing to take right now.

ORTENSIA: I try not to think about it very hard. I just let God do his work. I already did mine.

URIBE: It’s much more difficult to track visa violators once they’re already in the country. Ortensia has submitted paperwork to secure her parent’s residency, a process she expects will only take a couple of years. In the meantime she and her parents miss their lives in Mexico every day. But going back is just not realistic.

ORTENSIA: I’m very proud to be a Mexican. And if I had a chance to survive with my family, to have the chances for them to study, yeah I’ll be happy to live there. But there’s no chances. Not for us.

URIBE: For The World I’m Monica Ortiz Uribe in El Paso, Texas.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.