What we know about the migrant caravan waiting at the Texas-Mexico border

(Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Mexico – The Texas Tribune) «The roughly 1,600 migrants, who are mostly Honduran, are being housed in a former warehouse in Piedras Negras — and being guarded by Mexican law enforcement — while they wait to be let into the U.S. But processing is going slow.

For the sixth-straight day since arriving at the Texas-Mexico border, roughly 1,600 Central American migrants intent on seeking asylum in the U.S. are playing a frustrating waiting game in Mexico.

The migrants, who are mostly Honduran, are being housed in a former warehouse in Piedras Negras — and being guarded by Mexican law enforcement — while they wait to be let into the U.S.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are only able to process about 20 of the migrants a day, CNN reported, meaning progress is exceedingly slow, and tensions are high. Only a limited number of the migrants who have been given humanitarian visas by the Mexican government can leave the make-shift shelter; some others have asked to be returned to their home countries, the AP reported…

Moises Santos Canales, 17, of La Ceiba Antlantida, Honduras, has been detained at the migrant shelter in Piedras Negras for a week. “We are not delinquents,» he said. «When we go out to buy food, they escort us with police. We don’t have anything. I just want to work in the U.S. and send money to my grandmother in Honduras.”

The latest caravan has caught the attention of President Donald Trump. He referenced the group during Tuesday’s State of the Union address as he explained why he continues to push Congress to fund his long-promised border barrier.

His administration has deployed 250 active-duty military personnel to Eagle Pass to assist in border-security operations.»

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Photographs by Miguel Gutierrez/The Texas Tribune

Keeping Aztec farming traditions alive in Mexico

(Xochimilco, Mexico City – Al Jazeera) «Following in his family’s footsteps, Capultitla has taken on the tradition of farming atop the last remaining portion of what was once the enormous Lake of Texcoco, where the Aztecs built their capital city.

Butterfly eggs on a kale leaf [Paul Biasco/Al Jazeera]

Like a time capsule from the Aztec period, the gardens rest in the district of Xochimilco. But the tradition is gradually eroding under the weight of the market, tourism and climate change.

The introduction of new agricultural technology, excessive groundwater extraction and abandonment of lands threaten the chinampa system, according to UNESCO.»

Astronomers unlikely victims of Mexico’s violence, crime

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(PUEBLA – PHYS.ORG) «Astronomers have become the latest victims of Mexico’s violence with activities at two observatories being reduced because their staff suffered crimes while traveling to the remote mountain sites, researchers said Thursday.

The problems occurred near the Alfonso Serrano Large Millimeter Telescope, or LMT, in the central Mexico state of Puebla. It is the world’s largest single-dish steerable millimeter-wavelength telescope and is jointly run by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Mexico’s national institute of astrophysics.

LMT «has reduced its scientific activities to a minimum level due to the security problems in the region surrounding the telescope,» said university spokesman Ed Blaguszewski.»

la-1543717601-7btdqur0ep-snap-image — (Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)

(MEXICO CITY, The Washington Post) — «A leftist leader vowing to launch a “profound and radical” transformation of Mexico and improve the lives of the poor was sworn in as president on Saturday, opening an uncertain era in a country with deep economic and security ties with the United States.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 65, known by his initials AMLO, took office as potentially the most powerful Mexican president in decades. Not only did he win 53 percent of the vote in a three-way race, but his party cinched a majority in both houses of Congress and gained control of numerous state legislatures.

“Today, we begin a change of our political regime,” López Obrador said in an address to the nation, after donning the green, white and red presidential sash in Congress. “Starting from now, we will carry out a peaceful, steady political transformation. But it will also be profound and radical, because it will end the corruption and impunity that impede Mexico’s rebirth.”

The election of a leftist “is a historic, very important change for Mexico, and it’s very healthy in a country with the grotesque inequalities that we have,” said Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, a prominent political scientist who teaches at the Tecnologico de Monterrey University.

Yet, he and other Mexicans are unsure whether López Obrador will govern as a practical-minded centrist — as he did as mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005 — or an autocratic populist.»