ho cross the
porous border looking for work in Mexico and the United States

Refugees and internally displaced persons:
IDPs: 10,000-12,000 (government's quashing of Zapatista uprising in
1994 in eastern Chiapas Region) (2006)

Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Mexico is a source, transit, and destination
country for persons trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor;
while the vast majority of victims are Central Americans trafficked
along Mexico's southern border, other source regions include South
America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia; women and
children are trafficked from rural regions to urban centers and
tourist areas for sexual exploitation, often through fraudulent
offers of employment or through threats of physical violence; the
Mexican trafficking problem is often conflated with alien smuggling,
and frequently the same criminal networks are involved; pervasive
corruption among state and local law enforcement often impedes
investigations
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Mexico remains on the Tier 2 Watch
List for the third consecutive year based on future commitments to
undertake additional efforts in prosecution, protection, and
prevention of trafficking in persons, and the failure of the
government to provide critical law enforcement data

Illicit drugs:
major drug-producing nation; cultivation of opium poppy in 2004
amounted to 3,500 hectares, but opium cultivation stayed within the
range - between 3,500 and 5,500 hectares - observed in nine of the
last 12 years; potential production of 9 metric tons of pure heroin,
or 23 metric tons of "black tar" heroin, the dominant form of
Mexican heroin in the western United States; marijuana cultivation
decreased 23% to 5,800 hectares in 2004 after decade-high
cultivation peak in 2003; potential production of 10,400 metric tons
of marijuana in 2004; government conducts the largest independent
illicit-crop eradication program in the world; major supplier of
heroin and largest foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine
to the US market; continues as the primary transshipment country for
US-bound cocaine from South America, accounting for about 90% of
estimated annual cocaine movement to the US; major drug syndicates
control majority of drug trafficking throughout the country;
producer and distributor of ecstasy; significant money-laundering
center

Th