Mexican Prison Warden Nabbed for Alleged Drug Ties

MEXICO CITY -- The director of a maximum-security federal prison notorious for the escape of Mexico's top kingpin was arrested for alleged ties to drug gangs, authorities said Friday.

Francisco Javier Gomez Meza was arrested Thursday on suspicion of links to organized crime while he was a top official at the federal Attorney General's Office, according to a statement from the Public Safety Department. It did not elaborate on the allegations or give any indication that Gomez engaged in corruption as director of the Puente Grande prison in the western city of Guadalajara.

Between 2001 and 2008, Gomez was in charge of police deployments at the Federal Investigative Agency, a now-defunct police force tied to the Attorney General's Office. Before that, he was in charge of arrests and federal prison transfers.

An official at the Attorney General's Office said Gomez left the agency in 2008 because he was under investigation as part of "Operation Clean House," a sweeping corruption probe that led to the arrest of several top security officials for allegedly protecting the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. It was not clear if Gomez, who had not been charged at the time, resigned or was fired.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Gomez was appointed director of the Puente Grande prison in early 2010.
Officials at the Public Safety Department -- which oversees the federal prisons -- declined to comment on how Gomez was named to such a high-profile post.

Puente Grande has in the past been notorious for scandals including the 2001 escape of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. Guzman, one of the world's most powerful drug traffickers, broke out of the prison by hiding a laundry truck. Several guards have been convicted of helping him.

The prison holds several infamous inmates including Rafael Caro Quintero, a drug cartel leader who is serving a 40-year sentence for the torture-murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Corruption at all levels has been a relentless obstacle in Mexico's drug war, despite continuous attempts to purge municipal, state and federal police forces.

President Felipe Calderon replaced the Federal Investigative Agency with the 30,000-member Federal Police in an attempt to create a new, better-trained force.

Some 3,200 federal police have been dismissed this year for failing routine background checks and other tests designed to detect corruption, and the government touts the firings as evidence that it is rigorously trying to keep the new force clean.

Gomez's arrest came at the end of a particularly violent week in Mexico's drug war. More than 50 people were killed in five apparently unrelated massacres, including the shooting of six young men in a gritty Mexico City neighborhood -- an attack that fueled fears of the capital falling prey to the cartel-style violence has terrorized other parts of the country.

The bloodshed continued Friday with the discovery of a man shot to death and left in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, according to a police report. He was found with a threatening message -- two days after Mayor Jose Luis Avila Sanchez warned people to stay indoors after dark because of rising violence in Acapulco.

Six people were killed in the city Wednesday, including three men and a woman found with their hands bound and tied.

Authorities in Acapulco are also investigating the disappearance of a Canadian businessman who disappeared there last week.

In western Michoacan state, meanwhile, soldiers arrested five people traveling in two cars with weapons and marijuana. Among those detained was the former mayor of the town of Tzitzio. A Defense Department statement said they are suspected of having ties to La Familia drug cartel.

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Wife of Man Missing on Border Lake Wants Obama to Take On Mexican Cartels

Tiffany Hartley, the wife of David Hartley who was allegedly shot and killed by Mexican pirates on a border lake with Texas, is telling President Obama that it's time to take on drug cartels.

"He should wake up and look what's going on in our backyards," she told the Denver Post.

Hartley says her husband's death should be a focal point as to why the U.S. should take on these drug cartels.

"David is not the only American who has been killed, but this situation may be a turning point," she told the paper.

Hartley returned to Colorado on Saturday to be with her family from McAllen, Texas, where the couple had been living.

"The hardest part of it all was leaving without him," she told Colorado Fox affiliate KDVR.com.

She says she wants to continue raising awareness about the ongoing border violence crisis.

"I am ready for the challenge. I don't want his death to have been in vain," she told the Denver Post.

Hartley told authorities the couple were sightseeing when her husband was shot Sept. 30 by gunmen who ambushed them on the Mexico side of Falcon Lake, where pirates have robbed several Americans this year. 

Authorities have not found David Hartley's body.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click here for more on this story from KDVR.com.

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Gunbattles stir panic in 2 Mexican border cities

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico –  Mexican soldiers battled gunmen in two cities across the border from Texas on Wednesday, prompting panicked parents to pull children from school and factories to warn workers to stay inside. Assailants in a third city threw a grenade at an army barracks.

The U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo warned American citizens to stay indoors. The statement said there were reports of drug gangs blocking at least one intersection near the consulate in the city across from Laredo, Texas.

The local city government and witnesses reported several more blockades — a new tactic that has emerged in northeastern Mexico, where violence has soared this year amid a split between the Gulf and Zetas drug gangs.

Cartel gunmen frequently use stolen cars and buses to form roadblocks during battles with soldiers. Witnesses in Nuevo Laredo said gunmen forced people from their cars to use the vehicles in the blockades.

Shootouts also erupted in Reynosa, across from McAllen, causing a huge traffic jam in the highway connecting the city with Monterrey and Matamoros.

The local governments of Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo warned residents to stay inside through a series of Twitter and Facebook messages.

By the evening, the Nuevo Laredo government said in a Twitter message that the "situation of risk" had ended, and most of the vehicles blocking the roads had been removed.

The city government also said federal authorities reported no fatalities, but it was unclear if anyone was injured. Officials at the press office of the Mexican Defense Department said they had no immediate information on the shootouts.

Witnesses and reporters at the scene said four shootouts erupted in Nuevo Laredo, including one behind a Walmart store near a residential area.

Bullet casings from assault rifles littered the scene, and at least one house and two cars had bullet holes. Apolinar Rodriguez, a resident of the neighborhood, said he thought he heard grenade blasts.

"They are fighting with everything they have," he said.

Parents rushed to schools to pick up their children. Factory managers at one industrial parked closed their gates, ordered their workers not to leave and canceled night shifts.

"We were not allowed to leave for two-and-a-half hours," said Eva Lara, a worker at one factory.

Meanwhile, assailants hurled a grenade at military barracks in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville. A Red Cross worker, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said four adults were injured, none seriously. He said they were treated inside the barracks.

Mexico's northeastern border with Texas has become one of the most violent fronts in an increasingly bloody drug war.

Shootouts in the middle of cities erupted frequently, and in the most horrifying attack, 72 migrants were massacred near Matamoros in August, apparently because they refused to work for the Zetas. Several mayors and the leading gubernatorial candidate for Tamaulipas state — where Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros are located — have been assassinated.

In Ciudad Juarez, a 21-year-old Texas National Guard soldier was reportedly one of two men killed Wednesday.

Spokesman Arturo Sandoval of the Chihuahua state attorney general's office says family members identified the soldier as 21-year-old Jose Gil Hernandez of El Paso. The identity of the other man was not available, and details on the incident were sketchy.

A message left with FBI El Paso spokesman Michael Martinez was not immediately returned. However, he told the El Paso Times that Hernandez was shot about 1 p.m. Wednesday in the Colonia Revolucion Mexicana in Ciudad Juarez. Martinez told the newspaper that the FBI and the Army's Criminal Investigation Division were trying to verify the details of the shooting.

Nationwide, more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug gang violence since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers to battle the cartels in their strongholds in northern Mexico and along the Pacific coast.

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Twenty-Year-Old Woman Named Police Chief in Dangerous Mexican Border Town

PRAXEDIS G. GUERRERO, Mexico -- There's a new police chief in this violent borderland where drug gangs have killed public officials and terrified many citizens into fleeing: a 20-year-old woman who hasn't yet finished her criminology degree.

Marisol Valles Garcia was sworn in Wednesday to bring law and order to a township of about 8,500 that has been transformed from a string of quiet farming communities into a lawless no man's land. Two rival gangs -- the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels -- have been battling for control of its single highway, a lucrative drug trafficking route along the Texas border.

The tiny but energetic Valles Garcia, whose only police experience was a stint as a police department secretary, says she wants her 12 officers to practice a special brand of community policing. In fact her plan is to hire more women -- she currently has three -- and assign each to a neighborhood to talk with families, promote civic values and detect potential crimes before they happen.

"My people are out there going door to door, looking for criminals, and (in homes) where there are none, trying to teach values to the families," she said in her first official appearance on Wednesday. "The project is ... simple, based on values, principles and crime prevention in contacts house-by-house."

She has been assigned two bodyguards but won't carry a gun. She says she leave most of the decisions about weapons and tactics to the town's mayor, Jose Luis Guerrero.

Whether her decision is courageous or foolhardy, the appointment shows how desperate the situation has become in the Juarez Valley, a lucrative trafficking corridor along the Texas border.

Local residents say the drug gangs take over at night, riding through the towns in convoys of SUVs and pickups, assault rifles and even .50 caliber sniper rifles at the ready. The assistant mayor of nearby El Porvenir and the mayor of Distrito Bravos were killed recently even after they took refuge in nearby Ciudad Juarez.

While the bullet holes that pockmarked police headquarters in Praxedis have been painted over, police buildings in other towns in the valley remain empty, with broken windows and few sign of life.

"Let's hope it is not a reckless act on her part," said Miguel Sarre, a professor who specializes in Mexican law enforcement at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. He said that "a municipal police force cannot protect itself against such powerful forces."

Local residents like farmer Arturo Gomez are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"This is a town without law," Gomez said. "It is not likely things will change from one day to the next, but let's see what a woman can do ... things can't get any worse."

Drug cartels in many drug-plagued parts of Mexico have killed or threatened police chiefs and their departments, buying off some officers and prompting some others to quit en masse.

In past months, soldiers and then federal police largely took over patrols in the Juarez valley, but they stick mainly to the main road, afraid to venture down unfamiliar dirt roads that are well-traveled by drug traffickers.

"Here, everybody is afraid, and anything that can be done to remove that fear would be good," said Fidel Vega, a 46-year-old gas station employee. "You can see that this girl has a desire to get things done."

But question whether a young inexperienced chief can handle a problem that has stumped even Mexico's federal government: how to cope with the drug cartel threat and underpaid, untrained local police, who are easily corrupted by criminal gangs in Mexico's roughly 2,022 municipal police forces.

President Felipe Calderon has recognized the problem faced by local police forces, whose officers earn average monthly salaries of only 4,000 pesos (about $300). Most of them have completed less than 10 years of schooling and are either at basic education levels or illiterate, according to the report.

In some cities and towns, entire municipal forces have been fired or arrested for allegedly cooperating with drug gangs, and officials say their low wages and poor weaponry -- most use shotguns and pistols, while drug gangs have assault rifles -- make them ineffectual or worse.

Calderon has proposed a "unified command" structure in which Mexico's 32 state governments would have state police take on the main responsibility, backed up by federal officers and soldiers where needed.

While the cartels have been more than able to penetrate much tighter security details -- killing mayors and police chiefs throughout northern Mexico -- Valles Garcia says she isn't afraid.

For residents, her personal courage may not be enough.

Amalia Garcia, 58, had to send her five children to live in Ciudad Juarez for their own safety, and now lives in Praxedis with her husband.

"Whoever is here, man or woman, things are not going to change," said Garcia. "Things are bad here and nobody pays any attention." `

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Search teams seek US man shot in Mexican waters

SAN ANTONIO –  Texas officials renewed warnings Friday about pirates marauding on a U.S.-Mexico border lake after a Colorado tourist was gunned down in Mexican waters while his wife dodged bullets and raced her Jet Ski back to American soil.

Search teams combed the U.S. side of Falcon Lake for David Michael Hartley, 30, whose wife told police he was shot in the back of the head Thursday after being ambushed by gunmen on boats.

The gunmen are suspected pirates who have turned Falcon Lake, a water-skiing and bass fishing hotspot down the border from Laredo, into uneasy waters for fishermen and boaters. There have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake this year, though prior holdups had never been deadly.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday that Hartley was believed to be killed, but nearly 24 hours after the shooting, there was still no word whether the oil industry worker had been found. U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Narcizo Ramos said he didn't know whether Mexican authorities were searching their side.

The shooting led Texas DPS to again urge boaters to stay on the U.S. side of the 60-mile lake, five months after issuing its initial advisory following three pirate attacks.

But state Rep. Aaron Pena, a south Texas lawmaker briefed on the pirates earlier this year, said it has become dangerous enough to stay off the lake altogether.

"I wouldn't do it," Pena said. "When I go out there I have all the protection Texas can provide. But the average fisherman doesn't have that."

Pena said he has no doubts the pirates are working with Mexico's drug gangsters. The cartels that control the area wouldn't let the pirates operate otherwise, he said.

While Hartley's fate remained unclear, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said 29-year-old Tiffany Hartley fears her husband is dead. She circled back to rescue him but had to retreat when she heard bullets whizzing by.

Gonzalez said he had contacted the Mexican consulate to ask them to search for Hartley on its side of the lake.

Some campers along Falcon Lake had taken to arming themselves following the state's first warning in May. In one incident that month, state officials said five armed men boarded a boat on the U.S. side of the boundary.

The pirates either use powerful AK-47s or AR-15s to threaten their victims, Texas DPS said. The agency believes the pirates use local Mexican fishermen to operate the boats to get close to American fishermen.

Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that straddles the border. The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

According to Gonzalez, Tiffany Hartley told police that the couple rode their Jet Skis for sightseeing and to take pictures of a famous church in Old Guerrero. They were riding back when they saw the armed gunmen on the boats, and immediately began racing back to U.S. waters.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department spokesman Mike Cox said one of the boats may have crossed into U.S. waters briefly while trying to run down Tiffany Hartley. He said Tiffany Hartley estimated that the shooting took place about five to six miles from the Texas shoreline, where she parked and called for help.

In April, pirates robbed another group of boaters who also went to Old Guerrero to see the church. Cox said the most recent reported pirate sighting had been Aug. 31, when boaters saw gunmen riding a small skiff with "Game Wardin" misspelled in duct tape on the side of the vessel. Cox said it appeared the pirates were trying to imitate state game warden boats they have seen patrolling the lake.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the shooting underscores the need for the federal government to further secure the border.

"It's really become substantially worse in the last 18 months with the drug cartels having almost free rein," Perry said Friday in Austin. "This is about our citizens, on both sides of the borders, safety."

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several months, as a fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican border cities into violence.

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Associated Press Writers Kelley Shannon in Austin and Schuyler Dixon in Dallas contributed to this report.

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Sheriff: Pirates shoot US man in Mexican waters

SAN ANTONIO –  An American tourist was shot in the back of the head in Mexican waters on Thursday after being ambushed by armed boaters, a Texas sheriff said. It happened near the U.S. boundary of a lake where run-ins with pirates already had fishermen and Texas officials on alert.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said a 30-year-old man and his wife were riding personal watercrafts back from Mexico when about six gunmen approached in two boats. Gonzalez said the man was shot as the couple sped away at the sight of the boaters.

What happened to the man was unclear. Gonzalez said the man's wife tried circling back to get him, but retreated back to U.S. waters after being fired upon again.

"They saw them approaching and started revving it up back to the U.S. side," Gonzalez said. "The guys just started shooting at them from behind."

Gonzalez said he has contacted the Mexican consulate and asked them to look for the man. He said there was nothing else he could do.

One of the boats may have crossed the U.S. side of the lake to fire at the woman, said Mike Cox, a spokesman for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. The shooting renewed warnings of pirates on Falcon Lake, which is about 60 miles down the border from Laredo and is popular with water skiers and bass fishing.

Earlier this year, several fishermen were robbed at gunpoint on the lake's Mexican side. In those holdups, authorities say the gunmen traveled in the low-slung, underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar in the area. They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available, but no one was hurt.

Gonzalez has previously chalked up the dangerous waters as the product of fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.

"I would think that, right now, the prudent boater would want to stay on the Texas side," Cox said Thursday.

Gonzalez said the couple shot at Thursday never spoke the gunmen. He said the couple lived in McAllen, Texas, and had ridden over to Mexico for sightseeing and to take photos of a famous church in Old Guerrero.

That is identical to what five boaters did in April when authorities say they were approached by men who identified themselves as "Federales" and asked for drugs. Those boaters handed over $200 before the pirates chased them back to U.S. waters.

Authorities said Thursday's shooting happened about 2:45 p.m. Gonzalez said the woman raced her watercraft to the shores of the first lakeside homes she could reach and asked for help.

Gonzalez said the man who was shot worked in the oil business. He said the couple is originally from Colorado and had planned to move back there in a few weeks.

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several months, as a fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican border cities into violence.

Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that straddles the border. The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

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Associated Press Writer Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report.

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Sheriff: American on Jet Ski Shot in Mexican Waters

ZAPATA, Texas -- An American tourist was shot in the back of the head in Mexican waters on Thursday after being ambushed by armed boaters, a Texas sheriff said. It happened on a lake where run-ins with pirates had already put fishermen and Texas officials on alert.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said a 30-year-old man and his wife were riding jet skis back from Mexico when about six gunmen approached in two boats. Gonzalez said the man was shot as the couple sped away.

What happened to the man was unclear. Gonzalez said the man's wife tried circling back to get him, but retreated back to U.S. waters after being fired upon again.

"They saw them approaching and started revving it up back to the U.S. side," Gonzalez said. "The guys just started shooting at them from behind."

Gonzalez said he has contacted the Mexican consulate and asked them to look for the man. He said there was nothing else he could do.

The shooting happened on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, about 60 miles down the border from Laredo. Earlier this year, several fishermen were robbed at gunpoint on the lake's Mexican side.

In those robberies, authorities say the gunmen traveled in the low-slung, underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar in the area. They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available, but no one was hurt.

Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that straddles the border. The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

Officials have sought in recent months to assure boaters that the U.S. side of the lake is safer.

Gonzalez said the couple shot at Thursday never spoke the gunmen. He said the couple lived in McAllen, Texas, and had ridden their jet skis over to Mexico for sightseeing.

The shooting happened about 2:45 p.m., said Texas Parks & Wildlife Department spokesman Mike Cox. He said the department has two boats with seven game wardens on the lake.

Gonzalez has previously chalked up the dangerous waters as the product of fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several months, as a fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican border cities into violence.

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Mexican Authorities Capture 30 Drug Cartel Suspects

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican marines captured 30 suspected Gulf cartel members and seized an arsenal of weapons during two days of raids in a northern border state torn by drug gang battles, officials announced Wednesday.

The marines, acting on intelligence obtained by the navy and other agencies, conducted the raids in Matamoros and Reynosa, two cities across the border from Texas in the state of Tamaulipas, Rear Adm. Jose Luis Vergara said.

The troops seized more than 50 guns, two shoulder-fired rocket launchers, 21 grenades and ammunition.

The 30 suspects, including one woman, were paraded before reporters at an air base in Mexico City, handcuffed and flanked by masked marines in black-and-white combat gear. They were lined up in front of a helicopter, the arsenal of weapons laid out in front of them.

Despite the display, the navy gave no indication of how significant the arrests were in the government's efforts to destroy the Gulf cartel, which is waging a bloody turf war in Tamaulipas with its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men.

Vergara said all 30 are believed to belong to the Gulf cartel but gave no details on their alleged roles in the gang. He took no questions.

Parading drug suspects in front of the media is a near-weekly ritual in Mexico that has come under increasing criticism from human rights groups.

Last week, opposition politicians grilled Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna about the practice during a congressional hearing, calling it propaganda meant to deflect the public's concerns over the power of drug gangs.

According to a report President Felipe Calderon gave to Congress this month, just 12 percent of criminal investigations under his administration have ended in convictions. Government figures obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year show that three-quarters of the drug suspects arrested since Calderon took office in late 2006 have been freed.

Drug-gang violence has claimed 28,000 lives since December 2006, when Calderon deployed thousands of troops and federal police seeking to wrest territory from the drug lords.

Since the split between the Gulf and Zetas gangs this year, Tamaulipas and neighboring Nuevo Leon state have seen some of the most horrific attacks, including the assassination of a gubernatorial candidate and several mayors and the August massacre of 72 migrants.

In the latest violence, attackers threw an explosive at city hall in Matamoros early Wednesday, injuring three people, the federal Attorney General's Office said.

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U.S. Worsens Mexican Violence by Returning Criminal Aliens to Border Cities, Mayors Say

A coalition of Mexican mayors has asked the United States to stop deporting illegal immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. to Mexican border cities, saying the deportations are contributing to Mexican border violence.

The request was made at a recent San Diego conference in which the mayors of four Mexican border cities and one U.S. mayor, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, gathered to discuss cross-border issues.

Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes blamed U.S. deportation policy for contributing to his city's violence, saying that of the 80,000 people deported to Juarez in the past three years, 28,000 had U.S. criminal records -- including 7,000 convicted rapists and 2,000 convicted murderers.

Those criminal deportees, he said, have contributed to the violence in Juarez, which has reported more than 2,200 murders this year. Reyes and the other Mexican mayors said that when the U.S. deports criminals back to Mexico, it should fly them to their hometowns, not just bus them to the border.

But critics in America say the Mexican lawmakers are simply trying to pass the buck to the U.S. and its taxpayers. They say the Mexicans should take responsibility for their criminals, who are putting both Mexican and American lives in danger.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transports a majority of Mexican criminal aliens back to Mexico on buses. Since they're often held in U.S. detention centers near the border prior to deportation, busing them to Mexican border cities is much less expensive than flying them to the interior of the country.

Those convicted of crimes in the U.S. are required first to fulfill "any sentence imposed by the U.S. courts,"  ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told FoxNews.com. 

She said all of the deportees are then inspected by Mexican immigration authorities when they arrive in Mexico, and if they are wanted for crimes in Mexico, they are also met by representatives from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office. 

But if they don't have charges pending against them in Mexico, they are free men and women once they cross the border regardless of what they have done in the U.S. 

Despite that, ICE says it recognizes the threat posed by Mexico's cartel-related crime and has been working closely with Mexican authorities to address it.

"Earlier this year, ICE suspended the removal of Mexican nationals with criminal records to Ciudad Juarez," Kice said. "…In addition to dedicating unprecedented manpower, technology and infrastructure resources to the border, ICE has also collaborated with Mexico to adapt its removal procedures in response to safety considerations."

And while criminal aliens continue to be repatriated to Mexico at other locations along the border, Kice said, "those removals are coordinated closely with Mexican authorities and advance notification is provided prior to the return of convicted violent offenders."

Juan Hernandez, founder of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and former director of Mexico's Presidential Office for Mexicans, says he's spoken to the border city mayors, and they don't believe the U.S. is doing enough.

"Mexico believes that individuals who commit crimes in the United States should be prosecuted in the United States and not sent to Mexico to continue their performing of crimes," he told FoxNews.com.

Critics of the Mexican lawmakers say the U.S. is prosecuting the criminals in question, and if Mexico wants to keep them out of its border towns, then it should be up to Mexico to lock them up or transport them elsewhere.

"It's almost perverse that foreign officials would blame us for sending their criminals back to their country. Sovereignty entails responsibility. This country needs to take responsibility for its own criminals, and other countries -- Mexico included -- need to take responsibility for their own criminals and deal with them," Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told FoxNews.com.

But Hernandez, a dual citizen of both the U.S. and Mexico, says the U.S. can't wash its hands of this issue.

"The border will never totally be shut down because we don't want that to happen in the United States. Mexico is our second most important trading partner, there are close to one million people crossing legally every day between Mexico and the United States," Hernandez told FoxNews.com. "So we can be strict to the letter of the law and say these criminals are Mexico's problem, but it's not just their problem because it will come back to haunt the United States."

Melhman says in some cases it may be worth spending the extra time and money to fly criminals to the Mexican interior to lower the risk of them coming back over the border. But that decision, he says, needs to be made because it's deemed to be in the best interest of the U.S., not because of pressure from Mexico.

"Every day, American citizens are victimized by illegal alien criminals because, for political reasons, our government refuses to enforce immigration laws," he said. "…We need to put resources into protecting our own interests and making sure violence doesn't spread across our border."

Asked whether ICE planned to make any changes to its deportation policy since the conference, Kice simply said, "While ICE has suspended criminal alien removals to Cuidad Juarez, criminal aliens continue to be repatriated to Mexico at other locations along the border and to the interior of the country."

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