On April 14 Mexico's Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA) declared illegal a strike that the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) has led since July 30, 2007 over safety issues at Grupo México's giant copper mine at Cananea, in the northwestern state of Sonora. The JFCA ruling cleared the way for the company, owned by billionaire Germán Larrea, to proceed with plans to close the mine and fire all 1,200 workers; it announced the firings the next day.

The local Good Government Junta (JBG) of the Zapatista rebels at Morelia, in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, issued a statement April 23 charging that Gov. Juan Sabines Guerrero "is determined to be a humiliating repressor who does not respect human rights, following in the footsteps and example of past governors." The statement came in response to the arrest of six members of the Zapatista base community of San José en Rebeldía, Autonomous Municipality Comandanta Ramona, near the Cascadas de Agua Azul ecological reserve, where they ran an auto transport service for tourists and local residents. One, Miguel Vázquez Moreno, was held incommunicado for 80 hours before state police announced he had been arrested as a narco-trafficker. The JBG said two members of the community remain "disappeared."

Two new reports charge Mexican and other Latino migrants continue facing a host of human rights violations and labor abuses in Canada and the United States. In Mexico, an assessment prepared by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) group in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies reconfirmed previous reports of bad conditions experienced by thousands of Mexican agricultural workers enrolled in a temporary labor program in Canada.

Disaffected members of the Piedras Negras police force in the Mexican border state of Coahuila returned to work April 22, after staging an overnight work stoppage. Some 50 officers assigned to the graveyard shift conducted the protest to express opposition to the new policies of a retired colonel, Arturo Navarro López, who assumed command of the police department two weeks ago.

Isaac Manuel Godoy Castro, a mid-level operative of the Tijuana Cartel wanted in the US, was arrested by Mexican army troops in Tijuana April 24. His face appeared on a wanted poster released Jan. 11 by the DEA that showed the Tijuana Cartel's leaders. Six other suspected members of the cell led by Godoy were also arrested. (EFE, April 24)

Eight Mexican federal officers—including two from the elite Federal Investigation Agency (AFI)—were killed April 18 in an attack on a police convoy transporting Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Jerónimo Gámez AKA "El Primo" (The Cousin) to a prison in western Nayarit state. The shoot-out occurred on the Tepic-Guadalajara highway, as Gámez was being transfered from Mexico City to the top-security Federal Center of Social Readaptation (CEFERESO), known as El Rincón. The ambush by a team armed with AK-47s was evidently an attempt to free Gámez, who was arrested Jan. 29 in Naucalpan, Mexico state.

On the eve of his Mexico trip, President Barack Obama moved to impose financial penalties on members of three Mexican drug cartels, officially designating the organizations as "kingpins." The president has the power to identify drug traffickers and their businesses for penalties under the 1999 Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The White House identified three more Mexican drug operations that will carry the kingpin designation: the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas and La Familia Michoacana. The move allows for US assets of the organizations to be frozen. (NYT, April 16)

Protesters gathered outside the Hotel Presidente Intercontinental in the swank Mexico City district of Polanco as US President Barack Obama arrived April 14 to deliver a letter demanding rights for immigrants in the United States. The letter calls for far-reaching immigration reform, an end to raids and deportation of undocumented migrants, and a halt to the border wall. It rejects a "bracero" or guest worker program, and also calls for a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.