No Place to Hide?(Review)

Michael Longo is a U.S. citizen. In late December, shortly after the bodies of his wife and three children turned up in Oregon, he flew to Cancun. He checked in to a thatched-roof beach hut in the low-key town of Tulum, told tourists he was a journalist and even attended a town meeting. Not long after the FBI plastered wanted posters of Longo along the coast and publicized the case on "America's Most Wanted"--a TV show available on cable in Mexico--a local turned him in. The next day the FBI flew Longo to Houston.

Agustin Vazquez Mendoza is Mexican. In 1994 he allegedly ordered the killing of a U.S. drug-enforcement officer in Glendale, Arizona. He, too, fled to Mexico. After a manhunt that cost the U.S. government more than $1 million, Mexican police arrested him in July 2000, and Arizona began extradition proceedings. At the time, the DEA chief said the arrest proved that the "DEA will pursue traffickers to the ends of the earth." Maybe. But last month a Mexican court denied the request of U.S. prosecutors to extradite Vazquez to Arizona for trial.

Two men accused of murder on U.S. soil, both subject to the death penalty if convicted, both seeking refuge in Mexico. Taken together, their stories show how well the United States and Mexico have come to cooperate on bringing criminals to book--and how far they have to go. Mexico has long refused to extradite its own citizens who would potentially face the death penalty. But last fall the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that life in prison also violates the principle of the Mexican Constitution that all criminals can be rehabilitated. So while the year-old government of Vicente Fox now sends home wanted Americans at a record pace, returning Mexicans has become even more complicated.

Hollywood has long portrayed the U.S. southern border as the gateway to freedom for criminals. U.S. citizens need only a birth certificate to board a plane to Mexico--and often no document at all to cross on foot or by car. Last fall U.S. officials worried that accomplices in the September 11 terrorist attacks would flee south.

But disappearing in Mexico has never been harder. Last year Mexico returned more than 100 U.S. fugitives, more than triple the number in 2000. At least half are accused of ...