Business leaders and many residents there think that’s not the whole story, though. And they hope to “take back” their city by organizing a big arts and culture festival.

The guest list includes a couple of seasoned crisis managers: former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev and former New York mayor Rudy Guliani.

So, name this Chihuahuan city trying to overcome its past.

The answer is Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Monica Ortiz Uribe reports on the huge business, cultural and arts festival called Juárez Competitiva.

Hope is hard to come by in a city where the murder rate averages around seven people a day. This is the reality faced by residents of Ciudad Juárez, where three and a half years of unrelenting drug related violence has drastically transformed the lives of many.

Now the city has a new police chief who promises to restore order in the city and win the trust of its citizens.
Julian Leyzaola, a 51-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, graduated from Mexico’s equivalent of West Point. He was sworn in as the municipal secretary of public safety on March 10. His arrival was much anticipated and many have high expectations of him. But most know him as Tijuana’s controversial former police chief, where he earned the reputation as a tough crime fighter.

He is credited with dealing a sizable blow against organized crime during one of Tijuana’s most violent periods. At the same time, he is accused of human rights violations in his effort to rid the police department of corrupt officers.

In Juarez, the two most immediate challenges Leyzaola faces are taking control of the police force and gaining the public’s trust. One of the first actions Leyzaola took after his arrival was to hand deliver more than 2,000 paychecks to his officers and staff as a way to buy some face time with each of them.

He didn’t like what he found.

“I found a police force with a very low morale, infiltrated by criminals,” Leyzaola said in Spanish.

As a result, about 170 officers are now out of the force. The chief fired those he suspected of corruption. Others resigned.
Another 200 may go before the end of the year. Leyzaola says he won’t hire a single officer until he feels he has significantly weeded out corruption in the current force. In total, the Juarez municipal police force has 2,300 officers. That number will drop as Leyzaola continues his cleansing of the department.

The chief works out of a second floor office in Juarez’s main police station in the southeastern part of the city. He has little more than a bowl of peppermints and a laptop on his broad wooden desk. There are no picture frames with smiling photos of his wife and three kids. His family lives in the United States for their own safety. Behind his desk, Leyzaola keeps a loaded rifle.

His plan to recover Juarez is very militaristic. Leyzaola approaches the city like a battlefield.

“I’m going to focus on small spaces where I can concentrate my forces and take control,” he said. “Once I have control in one section of the city, I will move on to another and then another until I’ve recovered the entire city.”

Gaining control of Juarez is a serious challenge. Thousands of federal police and military have failed to accomplish this in the course of three years. Leyzaola said he doesn’t expect people will start to see results until about a year from now.
With the increased presence of military and law enforcement in Juarez has come an increase in reported human rights violations. Leyzaola himself is accused of torturing at least 25 Tijuana police officers he fired under suspicion of corruption.

Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, the state human rights ombudsman in Juarez, maintains a close relationship with the controversial chief in an effort to monitor his actions.

“Leyzaola comes to Juarez with a history of accusations of torture,” De la Rosa said. “It seems as if he conducted a cleansing of the police department in Tijuana but wasn’t very careful about how he did it.”

Leyzaola said he is against the use of torture. Nevertheless, he is currently under investigation by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Since his arrival in Juarez, three municipal police officers have been charged with the forced disappearance of four young men in March. Those young men later turned up dead. De la Rosa says Leyzaola has cooperated with the investigation.
Gaining the public’s trust may prove just as challenging as gaining control over the police department.

On a street corner in the eastern edge of Juarez, Leticia Salias sells fruit from an outdoor stand. She’s in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city.

Last month, a police commander from a nearby station was shot dead in front of his house. A block away, an entire shopping center is boarded up and deserted. A few weeks ago, ten people were massacred at a bar just down the street.
She said she trusts God to keep her safe, not the police.

“Every day things are worse,” Salias said in Spanish. “Everyday people are leaving the city, they’ve had enough.”
Salias is an example of how difficult it will be to convince ordinary citizens to turn to police to report crime. But without their cooperation, Leyzaola cannot succeed in one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.

Neighborhood kids of Villas de Salvarcar (Photo: Monica Ortiz Uribe)

Monica Ortiz Uribe on The World:
• Disappearances in Juárez
• Juan Gabriel’s music school
• More of Moncia Oritiz Uribe’s stories

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. A Mexican newspaper is attracting a lot of attention today from around the globe. Its editors have just published an open letter appealing directly to various drug cartels in the city of Juarez. The paper had one of its own killed last week. Gunmen ambushed the journalist in a mall parking lot. They shot him inside his car. A fellow reporter who was with him was injured but managed to escape. It’s the second time in two years that a reporter for this Juarez newspaper has been murdered. In both cases, authorities suspect that drug cartel gunmen committed the crimes. And the paper wants to know why. The World’s William Troop has more.

WILLIAM TROOP:  The newspaper is called El Diario de Juarez. And its editorial is addressed to, quote, the gentlemen from the different organizations fighting for control of Juarez, i.e. the drug cartels. And it asks them some very direct questions. Gerardo Rodriguez is one of the editors at el Diario.

GERARDO RODRIGUEZ:  We’re asking the drug dealers, what do you want? We’re recognizing you as the authority in this town of Juarez because the authorities have not been able to do anything to stop the violence. We didn’t ask for this war. Tell us what you want. Why are you killing our reporters?

TROOP: On the face of it, the editorial is a naked plea for a truce with the drug cartels. A recent report says 22 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2006. At least 8 of them in direct reprisal for reporting on crime and corruption. Rodriguez says El Diaro’s editorial was meant to protect the lives of its reporters.

RODRIGUEZ: So, we’re looking for a peace agreement. No story is worth a life of anyone anymore. We don’t want our reporters to die anymore?

TROOP: The editorial’s implication, of course, is self censorship. Something that’s increasingly common in Mexico.

CARLOS LAURIA: The media and reporters in vast sectors, vast regions of the country, is terrified.

TROOP: That Carlos Lauria, with the US based Committee to Protect Journalists. He co-authored the report on violence against the press in Mexico. In addition to the 22 killings, the report mentions numerous kidnappings and countless acts of intimidation. Lauria says the cartels are fighting for control of information and undermining Mexican democracy in the process.

LAURIA: This is a national crisis which is not only affecting the press, but it’s depriving Mexicans from the right to freedom of expression and access to information.

TROOP: And as such, Lauria says, the crisis demands an urgent response from Mexico’s federal government. Lauria plans to deliver that message to President Calderon, in person, on Wednesday. But many Mexican journalists have given up hope on the government’s ability to protect its citizens, let alone journalists covering the rising violence. That’s why editor Gerardo Rodriguez says El Diario de Juarez decided to appeal directly to the criminals. But Rodriguez says that’s not to say the paper is giving up on reporting. At least not yet.

RODRIGUEZ:  We may consider stopping and censor our newspapers in exchange for the life of our reporters, yes. But we’re considering it, we’re not saying we’re going to go do it.

TROOP: For The World, this is William Troop.

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• The Disappeared Girls of Ciudad Juarez
• Borders are Meant to be Crossed
• US guest worker rights
• Mónica Ortiz Uribe’s audio slideshow featured on the BBC

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MARCO WERMAN: Drug-related violence has overwhelmed the Mexican border city of Juarez in recent years. The annual death toll there is in the thousands. A statistic that has earned the city the title of “world’s murder capital.” But it wasn’t that long ago when Juarez was primarily known for the brutal murder and disappearance of hundreds of women. The disappearances haven’t stopped as Monica Ortiz Uribe reports from Juarez.

MONICA ORTIZ URIBE:  I’m standing in the center of downtown Juarez. In front of me is the central cathedral. Just below is the plaza where unemployed men slouch under trees. There are plenty of street vendors and people out shopping. On the main avenue beside the plaza is a busy transit spot where people catch the bus to poor neighborhoods in the west side of town. This whole area is considered a danger zone by police because in the last three years at least 15 young women have disappeared here. Perla Ivonne Aguirre Gonzalez is one of those girls. Her school photo sits on a nightstand in her empty bedroom at home. Nearby Perla’s younger siblings watch cartoons. Her mother and aunt sit on an old blue couch in the modest four-room home not far from the American border.

SPEAKING SPANISH

URIBE: Perla’s mother, Elvira Gonzalez, explains that her daughter had just gotten a job at a hamburger stand in downtown Juarez. She’s only been working there a week when she disappeared.

SPEAKING SPANISH

URIBE: Perla’s mother said her daughter had mentioned an older man who would come to visit her. Witnesses at Perla’s work confirm this and say the last time they saw her was with that same man. Police later detained the man, but Gonzalez said he was let go for lack of evidence. Perla disappeared July 21, 2009. More than a year later her mother says police have made no progress. We know nothing, she says. Back in downtown Juarez a shoe shiner polishes a pair of orange crocodile boots. Beside him on a splintered lamp post is a black and white poster with the photo of one of the missing girls. She has big brown eyes. Her chin is tucked into her hands and she smiles softly. This, and other similar posters, are all over downtown. The missing girls all share similar physical characteristics. They are slim and pretty with dark shoulder length hair. Their ages range from 13 to 19. Most were downtown while looking for work, catching the bus, or shopping. Two are university students. One had become a mother just a month before her disappearance.

[PH] JULIA MORALES STRAGOSSO: Since the 1990s, girls were disappearing from this border and the corpses of these girls were [INDISCERNIBLE] found mutilated, raped and in the compost.

URIBE: Julia Morales Stragosso is a local professor who is also a longtime activist and researcher of the Juarez women’s murders. She was the first to refer to them as [SOUNDS LIKE] feministcides. That term is now widely associated with the more than 400 brutal murders of women roughly over the course of a decade. The majority of those crimes remain unsolved. The feministcide victims shared the same physical characteristics as the girls who are currently missing. Only now no bodies are turning up.

SPEAKING SPANISH

URIBE:  These girls aren’t just swallowed up by the earth, says activist and mother Norma Ledesma. Her daughter, Paloma, was murdered in 2002, four hours south of Juarez in the city of Chihuahua. Ledesma has since dedicated her life to seeking justice for murdered and disappeared girls as a founding member of the organization, Justicia para Nuestras Hijas, or Justice for our Daughters. Her theory about the missing Juarez girls is shared by other activists and academics.

SPEAKING SPANISH

NORMA LEDESMA: Someone here in Juarez is taking these girls. To what end, we’re not sure. But we suspect it’s for prostitution, pornography, or to serve a certain people with political or financial power who take joy in possessing these girls.

URIBE: Juarez police don’t share their theories about what is happening to these girls. [PH] Adit Acevedo heads the missing persons unit at the Juarez state police. She won’t discuss the possibility of human trafficking or offer any other theory about the girls.

SPEAKING SPANISH

URIBE: Acevedo says her unit has made advances, but she can’t disclose the details about the investigation. Most of the cases the unit solves have to do with girls who’ve run off with their friends or boyfriends. The remaining go unsolved. Meanwhile, the families are desperate. Some have gone more than two years without news of their daughters. The latest girl went missing a month ago.

SPEAKING SPANISH

URIBE: Perla’s aunt, Olga, doesn’t hold back tears when talking about her missing niece. She’s always on our mind, Olga says. Perla often appears in her dreams. She asks her niece to tell her where she is so she can go get here. But before Perla is able to respond, Olga wakes up. For The World, I’m Monica Ortiz Uribe in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

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.

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  President Obama is hosting his Mexican counterpart at the White House today.  Mr. Obama is treating President Felipe Calderon to a State Dinner tonight.  In welcoming Calderon, President Obama said Mexico and the U.S. have work to do.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  Together we can help create jobs and prosperity for our people.  We can ensure that our common border is secure, modern and efficient, including immigration that is orderly and safe.  We can stand firm and deep in our cooperation against the drug cartels that threaten our people.

WERMAN:  The fight against drug traffickers is the number one issue facing President Calderon and the Mexican government.  Some 23,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, the year Calderon took office.  One of his first acts then was the deploy army troops against the cartels. That has failed to stop the violence.  In Mexico’s murder capital, the border city of Juarez, things have only gotten worse since the troops arrived.  Steven Dudley sent us this updated from Juarez.

STEVEN DUDLEY:  At this check point in the center of Juarez, a young soldier performs a routine search of a reporter’s car.  The army sent 2,000 troops to Juarez in March 2008, just as the murder rate in the city was spiraling out of control.  The number of troops climbed over 4,000 last year.  They set up random check points like this one and helped the municipal police while the government attempted to purge that force of corrupt officers and replace them with new recruits.  Initially, the homicide rate dropped, but then organized criminal gangs adjusted their tactics using smaller, easier to conceal weapons and operating in smaller groups.  Murders returned to their previous levels.  Earlier this year the government removed most of the troops from the city and sent in 5,000 federal police instead.  They’ve also increased the number of municipal and state police patrolling the streets.  The numerous pick up truck with police in flack jackets carrying high caliber weapons give Juarez the feel of a post-coup military state.  Inside police headquarters, about two dozen federal police sit in front of computers, telephones and microphones at small desks communicating with their counterparts on the street.  On the walls are large video screens that switch between the 500 cameras the police have installed around key intersections in the city.  Coordination is key but not always easy.  In addition to the army, Mexico has federal, state and municipal police forces operating in Juarez.  Within them, they have investigative teams, traffic police and special operations units.  There are also rivalries among the various agencies, and some observers say these multiple police and military forces sometimes obey different masters in the underworld.  This month, intelligence documents leaked to the Mexican press showed that the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful, and one that is disputing for control of Juarez, had several high-ranking police on their payroll. Within Juarez, numerous local police and investigators have been linked to Sinaloa’s rival, the Juarez Cartel.  Facundo Rosas Rosas is the federal police’s chief of operations.  He arrived in Juarez just last month to try and stem the violence and cut off the rumor mill, which he says is undermining the government’s efforts.  There are a lot of whispers about who is with whom, he says. We’re going to eliminate these whispers by being more transparent with the people and the media.  But the people of Juarez are skeptical of any government force.  This sunny, downtown market is as good a place as any to ask Juarenses what they think.  While most of the violence is between criminals, on the streets of Juarez, public anger is more often directed at law enforcement than at the drug cartels and other gangs.  Aracelia Vasquez works in a pharmacy near the market.  She says she doesn’t trust either the police or the military. She even blames them for the violence.  She says, they never catch anybody.  And when something happens, she adds, they are never anywhere to be found.  This distrust of law enforcement is not limited to the streets.  Juarez’s top business leaders are also worried.  Soledad Minas is the head of Juarez’s powerful textile industry association.

SOLEDAD MINA:  I’m not confident.  They have to earn the confidence.  And I’m sure that they’re going to have a good result, but it’ snot going to be in a short time.

DUDLEY:  For the moment, the people of this city have little option but to hope that law enforcement keeps them safe.  For The World, I’m Steven Dudley in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

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• Monica Ortiz Uribe’s coverage on Mexico
• Lorne Matalon’s “Mexico Stories”

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  Mexico’s most violent city is just on the other side of the U.S. -Mexico border.  It is Ciudad Juarez, and it is in the middle of the crosshairs of Mexico’s effort to crush the country’s drug gangs.  Some 5,200 people have been killed in Juarez in just the past two and a half years.  Now, residents are forming neighborhood associations to try to shield themselves from the violence.  The strategy doesn’t always work and it can create problems for emergency responders.  But reporter Monica Ortiz Uribe discovered that the trend is uniting neighborhoods.

MONICA ORTIZ URIBE:  Gabriela Guererro was doing housework one day when she heard a neighbor frantically calling her name.  She was calling for help.  Guererro’s neighbor and children had just been robbed in their own home.  The family had been forcibly locked in a room for three hours by gunmen.  In that time, the thieves causally took their most valuable belongings including their car, all this in broad daylight at three in the afternoon.  What’s most incredible, Guererro says, is that as neighbors we don’t look after each other.  We’re not there to help each other out.  Most of the time we don’t even know each other, she says.  Police never caught the robbers ad Guererro’s neighbor moved away to a gated community.  Guererro lives in a middle class neighborhood in south east Juarez.  She is a 38-year-old housewife.  She and her husband have two teenage girls, a golden lab and a poodle puppy.  Guererro is also the Treasurer of her four month old neighborhood association, launched shortly after her neighbor was robbed.  We had a meeting in the neighborhood park, Guererro says.  We knocked on people’s doors and invited them to come.  She says 80 or 90 percent of the neighbors in a two block radius showed up.  The first action taken by Guererro’s neighborhood association was to block the streets.  They piled up old tires, strung barbed wire between light posts and rolled knee high boulders onto the pavement.  The city of Juarez prohibits the blocking the streets in this way, but officials are allowing neighborhood associations to apply for what they call controlled access to their streets.  Karla Garcia is a Juarez city spokeswoman.  She says the city approves this, but only because of the current situation in Juarez.  The city allows residents to put up retractable traffic gates.  A guard must be on 24 hour duty to open the gates for emergency vehicles and it’s up to the neighborhood association to front the costs, which can be as much as $10,000.00.  It gives neighbors control over who comes into their streets, says Garcia.  So they feel a little more protected from becoming crime victims.  But, blocking the streets doesn’t guarantee a crime free neighborhood.  Despite the improvised road blocks in Gabriela Guererro’s neighborhood, there was a car chase a month ago that ended in a double homicide on her street.  The neighborhood association is still in the process of getting the city’s formal approval to block their streets.  They are also struggling to come up with the money for iron gates and a security guard.  Ana Maria Flores is also a member of the association.  She describes it as a work in progress.  We face challenges, she admits, but we’re also making some progress.  Although the arrangement isn’t perfect, a bit of barbed wire and a pile of used tires have given the neighborhood some peace of mind and a greater sense of community.  On a recent afternoon, a group of boys was playing soccer on the street.  Girls were giggling in the nearby park.  Gabriela Guererro says neighbors know each other by name now.  Your neighbor is an important person, she said, because you never know when you’re going to need each other.  For The World, I’m Monica Ortiz Uribe in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

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.

Juan Gabriel is a musical icon in Mexico. In his 30-year career, he’s written more than a thousand songs and sold some 100 million records– about as many as Cher. But what most endears this singer-songwriter to so many Mexicans are his humble roots. He grew up poor, right here in dusty desert city of Juarez.

As a boy, Juan Gabriel would hop on city buses to sing and strum his guitar to an audience of mostly factory workers. Years later, he moved to Mexico City where he earned his fame.

But Juan Gabriel never forgot his hometown or it’s troubles. So, 22 years ago, he founded a music school for boys. The school continues today in the heart of downtown Juarez, just a few blocks from the American border.

Luz Alicia Gallegos is the proud director the school. She strides down the halls in a black and white checkered jacket her chin up and shoulders back. The school is elegantly built in a hacienda-style with coral-colored pillars and Mexican tile.

Gallegos says the school was created by Juan Gabriel to educate boys from low income families who have a desire to learn music. She adds that most of the boys are the children of single mothers.

Boys ages 6-13 live and study at the school Monday through Friday. Older boys, up to age 18, also attend the school, but only in the afternoons when there’s music instruction.

Raquel Cadena de la Cerra says she’s very proud of her son, a baby-faced 13-year-old named Joel who plays the saxophone. Cadena is a single mother of three who works in a furniture store. Joel is the only one of her children who attends the music school.

“At home my other kids say, Mom can you see the difference? He uses words that we don’t use. He can carry on a conversation like an adult, even though he’s only 13.”

Outside the school, in the rough barrios where some of the students live an ill-fated future is easy to come by. Some 600 gangs exist in Juarez. Drug cartels regularly recruit gang members to do their dirty work, from taking drugs across the border to commiting murder. About 80 % of the nearly 5,000 people killed in Juarez over the past two years were under the age of 25.

21 year old Marcel Acosta Ramirez is a graduate of Juan Gabriel’s music school. Now he’s the school’s mariachi teacher and a music major in a local university. Acosta says could have easily ended up as a henchman for the cartels. A year ago, one of his best friends was killed because of his invovlement in drug trafficking.

“He was on the wrong path. He suspected he was on the hit list and told me how proud he was of me and what I was doing. He told me, ‘It’s a shame the path I took is not like yours.’… That was the last time I saw him.”

Director Luz Alicia Gallegos

For The World I’m Monica Oritz Uribe in Ciudad Juarez Mexico.>

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… and the Mexican city, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas is Juarez. It’s one of the world’s most violent cities. And yet, 18 high school seniors from Europe, Asia, and South America are studying there this year. They’re part of the Rotary International Exchange program. Juarez isn’t exactly New York, or Paris, or London. But the students whom reporter Monica Ortiz Uribe met couldn’t be happier.

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MARCO WERMAN: The Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez has been in shock all week.  The city just across the border from El Paso is used to rampant drug related violence, but a mass killing last Sunday was out of the ordinary, even for Juarez.  That’s because most of the victims were teenagers who were attending a birthday party in their own neighborhood.  In the midst of funerals and wakes, residents and officials are struggling to make sense of what happened.  Monica Ortiz Uribe has more from Juarez?

MONICA ORTIZ URIBE: Seconds before his 15-year-old nephew was carried out of a funeral wake, Raul Segovia’s eyes were filled with rage.  We are sick and tired of so much violence, he said.  We leave our homes with fear.  We go out and don’t know if we’re coming back.  As family members carried out his nephew’s gray casket, Segovia’s rage succumbed to sorrow.  Segovia called out to his nephew as the boy’s mother sobbed uncontrollably.  Don’t take him, she said, please don’t take him, he’s mine, he’s my son.  It has been a week of heavy mourning for this south Juarez neighborhood.  Sunday some 15 gunmen blocked off a street here with four SUV’s.  They entered three side-by-side homes where a birthday party was under way and opened fire; 16 people died, 12 seriously injured.  Funeral vigils were held during the week in private homes on the same street where the killings occurred.  Jose Luis Aguilar Rangel is the father of another slain teenager.  I think 90% of Juarezans would flee this city if we had the opportunity he said.  The Mexican government has made a grand effort to respond to the murders.  President Felipe Calderon condemned the attack in a press conference from Japan.  Less than 48 hours after the crime, police arrested an alleged member of the deadly Azteca gang, saying he had confessed to being one of the gunmen.  Some authorities have said the killings have links to drug trafficking and gang activity, while others says most of the dead were innocent victims.  David Shirk studies Mexico as a fellow for the Woodrow Wilson Center.  He was visiting Juarez when the massacre occurred and met with both victims’ families and authorities.

DAVID SHIRK:  When you see the violence playing out on the streets of places like Ciudad Juarez, we’re talking about ordinary people who are getting caught up in the crossfire.

URIBE: In the past two years, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Juarez, the result of warring drug cartels and the government’s attempt to eliminate them.  The presence of thousands of federal police and military has failed to remedy the situation.  Howard Campbell, and Anthropology Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, thinks the Mexican government still has a long way to go.

HOWARD CAMPBELL:  The situation in Juarez is completely out of control and chaotic.  The government does not control the situation, neither do the drug traffickers.  Anything goes at this point.

URIBE: As the last of the caskets were loaded onto the hearses, rain poured over weeping relatives, some with red carnations in their trembling fingers.  Raul Segovia said a bitter goodbye to his nephew.  We scream for help, he said, but no one will answer.  For The World, I’m Monica Ortiz Uribe in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

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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.

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