Mexico is the biggest danger spot for Americans outside an actual war zone.

Over 200 Americans killed in Mexico since ‘04
State Dept.: More lives lost than in any other country outside combat zones

MSNBC

February 9, 2009

HOUSTON - More than 200 American citizens have been killed since 2004 in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence, amounting to the highest number of unnatural deaths in any foreign country outside military combat zones, according to the U.S. State Department.

The deaths included a 22-year-old Houston man and his 16-year-old friend who were hauled out of a minivan and shot execution style. They also included a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville found floating in the Rio Grande after visiting a Mexican beauty salon and a retiree stabbed to death while camping on a Baja beach, reported the Houston Chronicle in a story published Sunday, which examined hundreds of records related to the deaths.[More]

Caught in the chaos More than 200 U.S. citizens killed in Mexico since ‘04,
By Lise Olsen, Houston Chronicle, February 8, 2009

22-year-old man from Houston and his 16-year-old friend are hauled out of a minivan in Mexico, shot execution style by thugs in a black Lincoln Continental, and left dead in the dirt.

The body of a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville is found floating in the Rio Grande after a visit to a Mexican beauty salon.

An American retiree, an ex-Marine, is stabbed to death as he camps on a Baja beach with his dog.

More than 200 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2004 — an average of nearly one killing a week, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation into the deaths.

Rarely are the killers captured.

The U.S. State Department tracks most American homicides abroad, but the department releases minimal statistics and doesn’t include victims’ names or details about the deaths. The Chronicle examined hundreds of records to document the personal tragedies behind them.More

What this means is that  you’ll be safer if you decide, come March Break, to “See America First!“ That way, your chance of being murdered by a Mexican gunman, or gang member is…still pretty high.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Home countries frustrated as U.S. deports criminals
Influx creates challenges for residents, civic groups

—Antonio Olivo and Oscar Avila

February 9, 2009

JUAREZ, Mexico — When he crossed illegally into the U.S. in 2002, Cesar Sanchez didn’t plan on stabbing a girlfriend’s estranged husband eight times.

Yet there he was, a convicted murderer dropped at the Texas border last month—one less worry for U.S. officials but a source of concern for the cities in Central America receiving thousands of freed convicts.

“I crossed like so many others; for a dream,” said Sanchez, 25, wondering how he’d make it back to his family in Veracruz. “And, then …”

U.S. Immigration officials are escalating efforts to put some 450,000 illegal immigrants serving prison time in the U.S. on planes back home. In 2008, about 113,000 such convicts were deported.

Perhaps the establishment press should have been more concerned about criminally-inclined foreigners coming to this country in the first place.

Thanks to reader Tino, who found this HUD document, here are the mortgage default rates by ethnicity for three vintages of 1990s FHA-insured mortgages. The sample size is 240,901 loans.

The Federal Housing Administration insures smaller-sized mortgages of low and moderate income folks upon appraisal, so this is roughly an apples to apples comparison of fairly similar borrowers. In other words, we’re not comparing rich whites to poor minorities, at least not as much as if we were looking at the population as a whole.

Moreover, the FHA seems to have been somewhat more responsibly managed than most other sectors of the mortgage industry. And this data is from the 1990s when housing was a more boring sector of the economy than in the 2000s.

So, we’re looking at representative, long term ethnic differences.

As you’ll recall, late 1992 was when the Boston Fed, under the leadership of Richard Syron, published a warmly welcomed study claiming that mortgage lenders discriminated against minorities and should be loaning more to minorities. As Peter Brimelow asked in Forbes at the time, doesn’t that mean minorities should have lower default rates? (more…)

The Canadian economy is now being dragged down by the U.S. collapse, but Canadians aren’t as burdened by debt as Americans are. The Canadian government has been running surpluses, and there wasn’t much of a housing bubble up there. There are a lot of Canadian baby boomers reaching retirement age, and the idea of buying or renting a cheap winter home in California, Nevada, Arizona, or Florida has to sound appealing.