Pubdate: Sun, 5 Dec 2010
Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX)
Copyright: 2010 Austin American-Statesman
Contact: http://www.statesman.com/default/content/feedback/lettersubmit.html
Website: http://www.statesman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/32
Author: Scott Burns
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/topic/El+Paso
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/topic/Juarez
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

MEXICAN VIOLENCE SENDS HOMEBUYERS TO EL PASO

When John Dahill put his El Paso house on the market two years ago, 
an eager young couple from Juarez looked at it the first day it was listed.

They liked the house for the same reasons the Dahill family did: It 
had a large, grassy lot with river irrigation and mature trees; a 
church was at the end of the street, and the nearby school had a 
sterling reputation. It was a great place to raise two young boys.

But the Juarez couple had another reason to be looking.

They were worried about the safety of their family in Juarez, just 
across the border in Mexico. Murder, kidnappings and extortion were 
becoming daily events as the battle between two warring drug cartels 
escalated. The couple was hoping to sell their house so they could 
move to safer El Paso. As it turned out, the Dahill house sold 
quickly -- but to another couple. They were moving from Mexico City.

I followed this story closely because John Dahill, a former Dallas 
assistant district attorney, is my son-in-law. Those two young boys 
are grandsons. Today, they live north of Dallas in Celina, where the 
boys are learning to speak football.

The quick home sale stands as odd proof that "it's an ill wind that 
blows no good."

While millions of Americans from Boston to Seattle were having 
trouble selling their homes and home prices were plummeting, the 
proximity of gunshots across the border has proved an unusual boon to El Paso.

The most recent National Association of Realtors home price data show 
the median U.S. home price has fallen 18.4 percent since 2007. During 
the same period, home prices in El Paso have risen 5.5 percent.

But it is a sad gain. Once a matter of hearsay, an increasing number 
of news stories cite moves by Mexican wives and children -- and often 
business-owning husbands as well -- from cities in Mexico to cities 
in the Southwest. Moving to the U.S. appears to be the only way to 
avoid kidnappings, extortion and murder.

The days of easy border crossings are over. When visiting El Paso, 
I'm not likely to make a run to a Juarez pharmacia for my drug of 
choice: Lipitor. I could still go to Rosa's Cantina in El Paso and 
hum the old Marty Robbins song, but the level of violence across the 
border makes the song seem pretty silly.

Things change.

Nearly 11 years ago, I reported on a motorcycle trip when I rode the 
U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville to San Diego on a fast BMW. I 
called the trip "reader-directed reporting" because most of the 
columns came from reader suggestions.

Even then there was concern about the border. While I was in San 
Diego, Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez was shot to 
death. He was ambushed by assassins with automatic weapons -- 53 
bullets were found in his body.

At the beginning of the trip, one reader wrote to ask whether I was 
"packing." (Answer: No, but I did have pepper spray for dogs.)

I walked across the border into Nuevo Laredo late one night. I also 
crossed the border in Brownsville, El Paso, Presidio and Algodones. 
No concern. No worries. Few were crossing at Presidio, but if you've 
been there, you know why.

There isn't much to cross to, in either direction. Mostly Mexicans 
were crossing in El Paso, doing their daily commute from Juarez. Lots 
of Americans were crossing in Algodones, in search of dental work and 
margaritas (not necessarily in that order).

Not today. According to recent reporting from Stratfor, an 
Austin-based global intelligence firm, the violence along the border 
continues to escalate. Entire towns are becoming no man's lands. 
Recent Wall Street Journal photos from Mier, a town on the border 
between Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo, could be from Afghanistan. And 
the known body count continues to rise.

Perhaps the body count is evidence that the Mexican government is 
starting to win the war against the cartels. Or not. It could also be 
a sign that chaos may soon be part of daily life in America. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake