Word: mexicans
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...Colombians also grouse about the cartel's recent inability to make payments, according to Mexican informants, a sign of weakening revenues. Another indication: new competition from "grasshoppers," who are circumventing Tijuana and going right to Los Angeles without paying the Arellanos' fee--as proved by last month's record U.S. seizure of 13 tons of cocaine being ferried overseas by Ukrainians. No one is suggesting that the era of the Tijuana cartel is over, but as DEA agent Chavez says, "We're definitely pushing back...
...First come the schoolkids--dozens of them, over the old concrete bridge, some in the plaid-skirt, white-blouse uniforms of Roman Catholic schools, others dressed public school casual. Some were born in the U.S.; some have permanent residency status there, but their parents prefer to live on the Mexican side, where it's cheaper. So they use a relative's U.S. address to register for school and commute. The two local school districts (one larger than the state of Delaware) don't know how many students are from the other side; they are forbidden...
...before breakfast? It's the surest sign of a boom. Laredo banks are open 7 to 7 daily, including Sundays. Walk into the main office of the IBC and listen: English rarely spoken here. Upstairs in the executive offices, executive vice president Gerald Schwebel explains that his mother is Mexican, his father Austrian; he went to school in Nuevo Laredo. Bilingual, binational, he is the whole global economy in a suit. Schwebel's bank, the biggest in town with assets of more than $6 billion, has a small fleet of jets at the airport standing by to fly bankers...
...talking on their CB radios. Eleazar Camancho Luna, 21, listens instead to Latin disco music. He makes five crossings a day--$20 for full loads, $15 for empty trailers that need to be returned--and works six days a week. Not bad for a single guy, he says. The Mexican trucks are serviceable but spare: Luna's lacks the global-positioning systems found in some U.S. rigs, or even air conditioning. For years Mexican truckers were permitted to drive only 20 miles into the U.S. before transferring their loads to American haulers. But a NAFTA panel ruled last February that...
...LAREDO WAL-MART Most of the 500 cars in the Wal-Mart parking lot have Mexican plates--about normal for a Friday night. Laredo boasts the highest-grossing Wal-Mart per square foot in the U.S., because this town of 200,000 is really a market for more than 1 million people. Right up the highway from the big downtown bridge, the store is often a first stop for visiting Mexicans. Inside, you can find Fabuloso detergent, table runners decorated with images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and CDs featuring popular Norteno and Tejano stars. The biggest selling items...