Recent Arrest for Mexico Murders

A recent arrest was made for one of the men supposedly involved in the dumping of 49 bodies in Nuevo Laredo. The Mexican army has arrested Elizondo Ramirez for his involvement and they are still searching for another man who was with Ramirez and  filmed the dumping of the bodies on the side of the highway. Ramirez was working for the Zeta drug cartel, however despite the messages left at the site claiming the mass murder to be the work of the Zetas, there have been signs found throughout Mexico denying their involvement. (Fox) The mutilated bodies of the 49 victims were found in an area that is part of "The Triangle of Death"

     This area is know to be particularly dangerous due to the routes used for trafficking drugs and other items. This areas has been fought over between drug cartels, where each cartel attempts to outdo the other, resulting in these mass murders. It is still uncertain who the victims are, they could be kidnapped immigrants, or they could be members of a rival cartel. There are reports that "mass body dumpings have increased around Mexico in the last six months" (Fox). It is evident that this violence is not going to end anytime soon, especially without the work of both the Mexican government working with the U.S. government.
    I decided it would be relevant to follow-up on this story simply because it is such a strong representation of the situation in Mexico. I do not wish to depict the entire country of Mexico as being full of poverty and violence at every corner, however it is relevant to point out the extreme violence that does occur. This violence is not something that every citizen of Mexico will deal with, however, it is violence that can be found in every state there.

     We know small amounts of violence compared to the violence experienced in other countries on a regular basis. We have school shootings and it quickly turns into National or even international news. That kind of violence is something that shocks and astounds the average American citizen. But that kind of violence of mass mindless murder is something that immigrants from other countries fled from, that is why they came here.
     We are relatively sheltered from violence, we are not told details of murders, nor are we shown images of dead bodies on our news channels. We cannot relate to this kind of violence, and perhaps this is why we do not understand the illegal immigrants coming from Mexico. We cannot understand their purpose for running across the border illegally, unless they were criminals trying to hide something from border patrol or the police.
    We cannot understand desperation because we have not experienced it. We cannot understand the man who is willing to risk his life crossing the desert to work picking fruit or doing day labor jobs. We assume that they are fleeing their country because they are criminals, bringing their crime here, stealing our jobs, and taking our opportunities.
    I was recently viewing an episode of Border Wars on National Geographic channel and was concerned by the way the in which the border patrol agents referred to or treated the illegal immigrants as if they were animals. Some agents commented on a raid and claimed that they "herded them up" before they began arresting people. It was dehumanizing in a way, they "hunted" them down, one officer even jumped on a man from behind, a man who was already under spotlight with other officers on their way. The one agent crept up from behind and leaped on top of the man as he was sitting on a hill, the man was banged up and hurt, the agent was young and aggressive and acted as if he was just as hurt as the man they arrested. The actions were inappropriate and unnecessary, and it was a clear demonstration of the attitude many agents and civilians hold toward these immigrants that they cannot relate to.
     On the same episode there was a "suspicious" man in a van trying to drive across the border, a female officer stopped him and had him removed from the vehicle so it could be searched. The man was detained while the search went on, the officers could find nothing wrong with the van, or with the man and their final comment about their mistake was "well we will catch him next time". This was making a bold statement that although they could come up with nothing wrong, no criminal activity, that he was still a criminal and they would figure him out on the next trip through.
    I would like to say that this shocked me, but honestly it didn't. This attitude is one that many American hold toward even those who cross the Mexican border legally, they are all considered illegals, and thus all considered criminals. It is sad really that we make these assumptions and associations that even if we didn't see them committing a crime at the moment, we "know" they are committing them when we are not looking.
     We need to rid ourselves of the image of all Hispanics being Mexican and all Mexicans being illegals and all illegals being outright criminals, it just shows our lack of intelligence and understanding toward other human beings. This image is what many think of when they think of Mexicans, and it is sad that this is all we can associate an entire country of people with.
    We are willing to relate and help and understand the struggles of other people across the globe and yet we cannot do the same for our neighbors. When mass brutal murders are occurring so close to U.S. borders we need to take a deeper look at what is happening and how we can be more productive ourselves in minimizing the problems that lead up to such brutality, instead of just building a bigger fence so we cannot see the bodies on the other side, or how we contributed to the death of those bodies, and the deaths of hundreds of bodies trying to escape a world that we helped create.