Mexico to increase walk in inspections at selected ports

Mexican immigration officials are preparing to ramp up inspections of U.S. citizens and other foreigners entering the country on foot, requiring those crossing from San Ysidro to show travel documents such as a U.S. passport or passport card.
The head of Mexico’s National Migration Institute in Baja California, Rodulfo Figueroa, said that the new push will begin by September with the expected opening of a new building housing Mexican immigration and customs inspections stations at the Tijuana pedestrian entry.
Figueroa said that the measures will be enforced gradually, and inspectors will be sensitive to the flow of people entering the country.
“We will do everything we can to make the transition as seamless as possible,” Figueroa said. “People should not be panicking about this. We’re not going to create a four-hour southbound wait.”
The measures should not be that much of a burden on most U.S. citizens, as they are already expected to show passports or other valid travel documents when re-entering the United States.
Previous efforts by Mexico’s federal government to enforce immigration inspections in Baja California have met with stiff resistance from business leaders and tourism authorities fearful that the passport requirement would discourage visitors to the state. Particularly touchy was a requirement that those visitors planning to remain in Mexico for more than seven days pay a 330-peso fee, about $21.
Last November, a pilot inspection program aimed at pedestrians crossing into Mexico at Otay Mesa was canceled after Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid took up the issue with Mexico’s immigration commissioner.
Figueroa said the new plan has the full support of his higher-ups. Immigration inspectors currently inspect documents of all southbound bus riders entering Tijuana from San Ysidro through the El Chaparral port of entry, and have been conducting some inspections on pedestrian crossers at the discretion of immigration inspectors, he said.
With the opening of new building, authorities plan to create two lanes for pedestrians entering Mexico, one for Mexican citizens and the other for foreigners. “If we don’t have enough agents to review everyone, we’ll review everyone we can,” Figueroa said. “Our intention is not to create congestion at the border. Our intention is to try different strategies to process as many people as we can within a reasonable time frame.”
Similar inspections for those driving across into Mexico are also contemplated, but these “are way, way into the future,” Figueroa said.

Red-D-Arc Welderentals Acquires Mexican Welding and Generator Rental Firm eKipro

May 15, 2015

Red-D-Arc Welderentals has acquired the assets and operations of eKipro Rentals and Grupo Industrial Daymaga, a Mexican specialty equipment rental and services company that generated U.S. $16 million (about 212 million Mexican pesos) in sales in 2014. The companies, known collectively as eKipro, are based in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, and have five locations: Poza Rica, Veracruz; Tampico, Tamaulipas; Salamanca, Guanajuato; Hermosillo, Sonora; and Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche.
The company has more than 100 employees who will join Red-D-Arc’s Mexican subsidiary.
“The acquisition of eKipro will increase Red-D-Arc’s presence in Mexico and strengthen our position in this important area, particularly within Mexico’s energy sector,” said Mitch Imielinski, president of Red-D-Arc Welderentals.
eKipro was founded in 1008 by Mauricio Gracia Peña. “I believe the quality of service and breadth of product offering available to current and future customers in Mexico of both companies will be stronger with this combination,” Gracia Peña said. “It is an honor for the eKipro team and me to join Airgas through Red-D-Arc.”
Red-D-Arc Welderentals, owned by Airgas, is the largest provider of welding and welding-related rental products and services in North America, with more than 60,000 welders, 3,700 weld positioning and weld automation products, and more than 1,600 electric power generators in its fleet. The company, No. 24 on the new RER 100, includes service centers in Canada, Mexico, Europe and the Middle East, and dealers in the Caribbean, Middle East, Kazakhstan and Australia

Mexico First Cruise Ship Home Port at Rocky Point aka Puerto Penasco

ROCKY POINT, Sonora – The sound of heavy machinery scraping against rocks and an overwhelming smell of diesel fuel invade an otherwise serene desert beach where Mexico will spend roughly $100 million building its first cruise-ship home port.
The Mexican government chose to build the port in the sleepy beach town of Puerto Peñasco, better known as Rocky Point, because of its proximity to the United States and potential as a future international tourism destination.
"It is the most important project the city has ever had," said Miguel Guevara, director of promotion and international affairs for the city.
Construction workers spend their days dumping rocks, making concrete blocks and placing them along the breakwater to prepare the port for a January 2017 opening.
Officials said they hope the roughly mile-long port will tap into the growing cruise-ship industry by offering passengers an opportunity to explore the Sea of Cortez.
Proponents said the port could attract 3,000 new weekly visitors and transform the city's economy.
However, critics said the port could negatively impact local residents, wildlife and biodiversity.
Rocky Point is about 200 miles southwest of Phoenix and Tucson in Sonora, Mexico, along the Gulf of California. Some have nicknamed the town "Arizona's beach" because it's a three and half hour drive from both cities.
Tourism in the town, historically driven by fishing, is increasing with a majority of the town's visitors coming from Arizona.
Rosie Glover, a co-founder of the Rocky Point Tourism and Visitor Assistance Office, said the increase in tourism has been "surprisingly dramatic and not gradual at all."
Guevara said tourism dropped after the 2009 recession and though the city has not fully recovered, some have seen impressive gains.
"For the last six months or more, we've been busy every single week," Glover said.
Residents said there's been talk around the town about the home port for decades, but many people didn't take the project seriously until recently, when construction began in December 2013.
The government has already spent roughly $40 million on the port, which is about 50 percent completed, Guevara said.
Mexican authorities support the project because it will benefit the entire country's economy, said Jose Luís Castro, director of port operations for the Sonora government's tourism department.
Castro said money would flow into cities situated on the cruise ships' routes, like San Felipe, Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan.
Joe Houchin, who has followed the cruise industry for decades, said the cities have opportunities for repeat visitors because 80 percent of cruise goers choose land vacations based on the destinations they visit on a cruise.
Castro said millions of the country's residents want to take a cruise, but don't have visas — leaving that market largely untapped.
In addition, officials hope to attract millions of international visitors annually.
"Our main market is and will always be Arizona, but the home port will bring people from other states to come and start their trip on the Sea of Cortez," Guevara said.
The proximity to the U.S. made the town an ideal location, said Gustavo Brown, owner of Sandy Beach Resorts.
"With half a tank full of gas, you've got a whole family at the destination," Brown said of Arizonans.
Brown donated 12 acres of land for the construction of the home port and terminal on Sandy Beach, just west of the tourist strip.
"Our dream is to create a mega tourist resort in which we could have people from all around the world to come see us," Brown said.

Rancherito Dental Office in the Plaza area of the Rancherito Restaurant

 Maricela Mendivil invites you to come in for Service, an Estimate or just a visit.
You know Maricela and her Family from the Rancherito Restaurant

Toyota investing One Billion More in Mexico

Toyota investing $1B in new TNGA plant in Mexico, realigning North American manufacturing; expansion in Guangzhou

15 April 2015

Toyota is embarking on a multi-year plan to realign its manufacturing operations in North America in support of the Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) (earlier post), a comprehensive approach to achieving sustainable growth by making ever-better vehicles more efficiently. Toyota also announced an expansion of its joint venture plant, Guangzhou Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. (GTMC), in China (one of Toyota’s three assembly plants in China).
As part of this strategy, Toyota will invest approximately US$1 billion to construct its newest North American manufacturing facility in the state of Guanajuato in Central Mexico to produce the Corolla. The plant is the first designed from the ground up with TNGA production engineering technologies and will leverage the existing supply base and transportation infrastructure in the region. Toyota will also establish a plant preparation office in the state of Queretaro.
The new Guanajuato plant will begin producing the Corolla with Model Year 2020. The plant will be Toyota’s 15^th in North America, its first new plant since 2011 and its largest investment in Mexico to date. It will have the capacity to produce 200,000 units annually. (Toyota’s other manufacturing plant in Mexico is Toyota Motor Manufacturing de Baja California (TMMBC), which builds Tacoma pickup trucks and Tacoma truck beds. The truck beds are used in production at TMMBC and at TMMTX in Texas.)
Once Corolla production begins in Mexico in 2019, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. (TMMC) will transform its Cambridge, Ontario North Plant to switch from producing Corollas to mid-sized, higher-value vehicles, marking Toyota’s first major reinvestment in the plant since it opened in 1997. Toyota will also make significant new investments over several years in TMMC’s assembly plants in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario to implement TNGA modifications, maintaining the facilities’ importance as a strategic manufacturing hub.
The Woodstock plant will continue to manufacture the RAV4, a vehicle competing in a rapidly growing segment. The Cambridge South Plant will continue to build the Lexus RX 350 and 450h, the newest models of which were recently unveiled.
By 2019, the Cambridge, Ontario plants will all be producing higher-value mid-sized vehicles, along with Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. (TMMK) and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana, Inc. (TMMI). The new facility in Mexico and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi, Inc. (TMMMS) will build the Corolla, consolidating compact vehicle production to the southern US and Mexico. These groupings by common vehicle platform follow Toyota’s consolidated truck production at its San Antonio, Texas and Baja California, Mexico plants, which has helped streamline Tacoma and Tundra assembly while better leveraging the supply chain.
These moves advance Toyota’s efforts under TNGA to group production by common vehicle platforms in each North American plant to improve efficiency and enhance flexibility.
Toyota intends for TNGA to boost vehicle quality and appeal while achieving cost savings through production engineering innovations, building more models on common platforms, the intelligent use of common parts and more fully leveraging Toyota’s supply chain.
Other recent manufacturing expansions by Toyota in North America include:

• $360-million investment in Georgetown, Kentucky plant
• $150-million investment in Huntsville, Alabama plant
• CA$100-million investment in Toyota’s Cambridge, Ontario plant to introduce hybrid production and increase capacity
• $100-million investment in Princeton, Indiana plant
• $90-million investment at Buffalo, West Virginia plant
• Substantial year-over-year increases in production volume at Toyota’s plants in Indiana, Mississippi, Texas, Canada, and Baja California, Mexico

Over the past 50 years, Toyota has built more than 25 million cars and trucks in North America, where its operates 14 manufacturing plants (10 in the US) and directly employ more than 42,000 people (more than 33,000 in the US). 1,800 North American dealerships (1,500 in the US) sold more than 2.67 million cars and trucks (more than 2.35 million in the US) in 2014; about 80% of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 20 years are still on the road today.
Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Inc. (TEMA), headquartered in Erlanger, KY., is responsible for Toyota’s engineering design, development, R&D and manufacturing activities in North America. TEMA’s Toyota Technical Center (TTC) operates engineering, research and development facilities in Ann Arbor, MI, including Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC).
Guangzhou Toyota. By restructuring its existing lines at GTMC and building an additional facility by the end of 2017, Toyota is preparing for future TNGA innovations and capacity increase. Toyota views it as vital to further improve the competitiveness of the existing lines and respond to future demand for stable growth in the Chinese market. At the same time, GTMC will collaborate with engineering, production and procurement on effective use of the existing supplier network and cost reduction activities at its R&D center.
GTMC will consolidate its vehicle production by vehicle size and pursue improvements based on the Toyota Production System (TPS) and increased automation, to realize higher quality and productivity.
Following the restructuring and resulting higher efficiencies of the existing lines, GTMC will operate all three lines with the current number of employees. A competitive new facility will be created by implementing productivity improvement activities conducted on the existing lines and new innovative production engineering technologies. At the same time, it will work on smart plant-building, effectively utilizing existing equipment that is adjacent to the current facilities.

Federal appeals court rules for Mexican on torture claim

 A federal appeals court on Friday overturned decisions that put the burden of proof on foreigners who claim they were tortured in their home countries to show they cannot safely return to another part of the country they fled.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it is neither the responsibility of the petitioner nor the government to determine if it is safe for the person to return to another part of the country than where the torture occurred.
An expanded panel of judges in San Francisco ruled for Roberto Curinsita Maldonado, who appealed a finding by the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals that he didn't qualify for a reprieve from deportation under the U.N. Convention Against Torture because he failed to prove he would be unsafe in any part of Mexico. A U.S. asylum officer had found that Maldonado's allegations of being tortured by police in the central Mexican state of Michoacan were credible.
The judges returned Maldonado's case to the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative panel in the U.S. Justice Department,
It was not immediately clear how much impact the ruling would have on others seeking to remain under the U.N. convention. Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, said the agency had no comment on the decision.
Bill Hing, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, said the decision is potentially significant for Mexicans escaping drug-fueled violence and police corruption and Central Americans who flee strife in their countries. Expecting them to show they would be unsafe in any part of their home countries is too high a bar, he said.

Advertisement

"How can someone do that because they haven't lived in every part of the country often?" he said.
Dan Kowalski, an Austin, Texas, attorney and editor of Bender's Immigration Bulletin, a newsletter of immigration-law analysis, said the decision "represents a small, technical, but important step forward in the protection of (Convention Against Torture) applicants from any country, but especially from Mexico."

Oaxaca, Mexico, Man Dead Needs Identified

Police release sculpture of man killed in Santa Cruz County, asks public for help identification

More than four years since a man was found dead near Casserly Road in 2010, Santa Cruz County sheriff's detectives said Tuesday they are still trying to identify him.

Authorities said that recently discovered disabilities in the man's arms could lead to more clues in the cold homicide case.
"We're hoping that will jar someone's memory," said Santa Cruz County sheriff's Sgt. Kelly Kent.
"It appears that it was something that he was born with."
The man was found dead Sept. 9, 2010 on a dirt road between a plant nursery and an agricultural field near the 300 block of Casserly Road, said sheriff's Sgt. Roy Morales. The man was buried under brush and had been (Died about August 8 and 22, 2010) dead for two to four weeks before he was discovered by field workers.

He was in his mid to late 20s, wore tailored jeans and was 4-feet-11 to 5-feet-4, authorities said.
In a test recently conducted by the Sheriff's Office forensic anthropologist, it was determined that the man had limited motion in his arms that prevented him from extending them straight. He also would have had trouble rotating his forearms, authorities said.
"It was considered a handicap," Morales said.
Authorities said it remains unclear if the man's disability played a role in his death; authorities also don't know what the man was doing in the field prior to his death.
Morales said the man died from blunt force trauma to his head. Sheriff's Sgt. Kelly Kent said he died "violently."
The man is Latino and may have been born in Oaxaca, Mexico, authorities said. Morales said that was determined in part from the man's compact features and because there has been a large migration of Oaxacan farmworkers to the Central Coast.
Morales said it was not clear if the man was a field worker in Santa Cruz County.
The Sheriff's Office earlier commissioned an artist to make a model of the man's head and torso to try to generate leads in the case. A photo of the model again was released Tuesday.
Morales said he hoped the new information about the man's disability is "specific enough that someone will remember a person with the described condition." He said he was reaching out to Mexican police and Mexican diplomatic leaders to drum up leads.
"Hopefully this will bring closure for the family and bring in a suspect," Kent said.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office asks anyone with information to call 831-471-1121 or 831-454-7630.