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Voices
Jan-Albert Hootsen is America’s Mexico City correspondent.
Clouds of smoke from burning cars mar the skyline of Culiacan, Mexico. The Mexican city lived under drug cartel terror for 12 hours as gang members forced the government to free a drug lord. (AP Photo/Hector Parra)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
Mexico is on edge after a wave of violence hit the country last week, culminating in heavy fighting between the army and alleged members of organized crime in Culiacán, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa, that lasted for hours on Oct. 17.
Migrants eat at a Catholic-run shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, May 10, 2019. (CNS photo/Jose Luis Gonzalez, Reuters) 
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
The increased attention by Mexican police and armed forces is encouraging undocumented migrants to avoid shelters, many of which are run by the Catholic Church here, and to follow more dangerous routes through Mexico, aid workers warn.
Armed members of the Mexican Army and state police arrive in Chilapa in 2016 to participate in an operation against organized crime. (CNS photo/Francisca Meza, EPA)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
According to the federal government, at least 8,493 people were killed during the first three months of this year. If this trend continues, the year will end with approximately 35,000 murders in Mexico—more than the already record-breaking 34,202 homicide victims of last year.
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
Bringing their product from field to coffee bar through these fair trade networks means coffee growers in one of the poorest areas in Mexico are less vulnerable to volatile commodity market price shifts.
“No more dictatorship” is the message of this walkout against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on Jan. 30. Doctors in scrubs, businessmen in suits and construction workers in jeans gathered to demand that Maduro step down in a demonstration organized by the nation's reinvigorated opposition. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
Mexico's call for a summit is the latest twist in a crisis that continues to divide the world after Venezuela’s embattled socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, was sworn in for a second term.
A migrant rests inside a blanket tied to keep him from rolling off the spectator stands at the Benito Juárez Sports Complex in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
Thousands of caravan migrants now wait in tents at the Benito Juárez Sports Complex in Tijuana, unsure if they will ever be allowed to enter the United States.
Refuge in Matías Romero, Veracruz. Photo by Jan-Albert Hootsen.
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
Many members of the caravan say that the generosity of Mexican citizens helps them keep moving to their destination, the U.S. border still some 1,500 miles to the north.
Father John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, comforts a woman while distributing Communion during Mass on Oct. 15 with the Colectivo Solecito near Veracruz, Mexico. (CNS photo/Matt Cashore, University of Notre Dame)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
The women seeking justice for vanished loved ones in Veracruz, Mexico, won the Notre Dame award for human rights. University President John I. Jenkins co-celebrated a Mass near the unmarked graves of drug war victims.
Rev. Edwin Román Calderón (photo by Jan-Albert Hootsen)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
The 58-year-old priest and his small parish were caught in the middle of the fighting, ultimately becoming another target of government forces.
Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador acknowledges his supporters as he arrives to Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo on July 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Anthony Vazquez)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Jan-Albert Hootsen
Mr. López Obrador’s political platform is decidedly secular and nationalistic. As president he intends to place a heavy emphasis on combating corruption, which he and his political allies believe to be the root cause of the criminal violence, poverty and inequality that plague the country.