Ottawa
Where is everybody? American tourism to Canada has dropped precipitously, new government figures show. “We’re at the lowest level since 1972,” said Randy Williams, head of the Tourism Industry Association. “We peaked in 2002, at around 40 million visitors a year, and now we’re down to less than 20 million.” The group blames the drop in traffic on the global recession as well as a new U.S. requirement, which took effect June 1, that citizens must carry a passport to cross the border. Only about 30 percent of Americans have passports.
Tecate, Mexico
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Arrest in agent’s murder: Mexican authorities have arrested the man they believe killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent last week. Agent Robert Rosas, 30, was tracking suspected people smugglers in Southern California, just inside the steel border fence, when he was shot to death from the Mexican side. Mexican authorities quickly found the suspected smugglers, and one of them identified the killer as Ernesto “El Neto” Parra Valenzuela. Police said Parra Valenzuela had a gun on him that matched the caliber of that used to kill the agent. Rosas was the first border agent to be killed in the line of duty in nearly a decade. “It was a cowardly act against an agent trying to protect this country,” said U.S. Border Patrol official Rick Barlow.
Turks and Caicos
Boat people disaster: Dozens were feared dead this week when a boat packed with Haitian refugees hit a reef and capsized near the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British territory. The U.S. Coast Guard helped local officials rescue 120 people, but many remained unaccounted for. “We’re getting reports of 20-knot winds and 6-foot seas out there,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson. “If you put 200 people on a vessel that’s 30 or 40 feet, it’s bound for disaster.” Hundreds of Haitians board overcrowded, flimsy boats each year, hoping to escape extreme poverty and find work in the Bahamas or the U.S. The number of migrants intercepted so far this year is up 20 percent over 2008.
Dajabón, Dominican Republic
Trouble at the border: Haiti and the Dominican Republic sent troops to their mutual border this week after an outbreak of violence that was spurred by a dispute over an alleged murderer. Protesters on the Dominican side are demanding the extradition of a Haitian man accused of murder in both countries. Wilson Destine, whom Haitian authorities describe as a “notorious bandit,” allegedly killed a young woman in Haiti and fled to the Dominican Republic. Authorities say he then gunned down a Dominican man and fled back across the border to Haiti, where he was arrested last week. At a marketplace in the border town of Dajabón, where vendors from both nations have stalls, Dominican protesters chanting for Destine’s immediate extradition attacked the Haitian vendors with machetes and rocks.
