Mónica Ortiz Uribe is a public radio reporter based along the U.S./Mexico border. She lives andworks in her hometown of El Paso, Texas as a correspondent for KJZZ in Phoenix. Mónica covers immigration, drug violence and international trade among other subjects.
The federal government is a major employer in El Paso, one of the largest cities along the US-Mexico border. The shutdown has affected thousands of customs, Border Patrol and drug enforcement agents who are reporting to work without pay.
A study says 98 percent of crimes in Mexico go unsolved. The nation is changing its justice system to try to change that.
In northern Mexico, there's a place called Copper Canyon. It cuts six slits into the Earth and hidden between the cliffs and valleys is where an American concert pianist has decided to settle with his one-ton grand piano.
Factory workers in Ciudad Juárez now make only 40 percent of what Chinese factory workers do, on average. For the first time, efforts to unionize are meeting with some limited success.
French chef Thierry Marceaux lost his job at a five-star hotel in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit the city. The storm also destroyed his home. So he left the bayou and moved to the desert, and started over.
In this small city in Mexico's Yucatán, the choice between staying near family or earning more in the United States leaves some people restless.
Texas Governor Rick Perry ordered 1,000 National Guard soldiers to the border, saying the deployment is needed to stop cross-border drug smuggling. But the move is getting mixed reviews from locals and law enforcement officials, who argue it's a job for police.
For the last six years, a little-known infusion of American tax dollars has played a part in the fight against organized crime in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez. Part of the money for the Merida Initiative is used to keep young people out of drug cartels and help boost the economy.
Not long ago, violence related to Mexico's drug cartels devastated Ciudad Juárez, a city on the Texas-Mexico border. Now, violence is down and residents are trying to help the children left behind by it.
This story takes us to the banks of the Rio Grande river in South Texas. It's where a cat-and-mouse game plays out every night between migrants crossing into the US illegally and the Border Patrol. That game is intensifying.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 granted amnesty to some three million illegal immigrants already in the country. One of those who benefited was Rosaura Piñera, the great-grandmother of Fronteras reporter Monica Ortiz Uribe.