MEXICAN VIOLENCE SENDS HOMEBUYERS TO EL PASO

When John Dahill put his El Paso house on the market two years ago,
an eager young couple from Juarez looked at it the first day it was listed.

They liked the house for the same reasons the Dahill family did: It
had a large, grassy lot with river irrigation and mature trees; a
church was at the end of the street, and the nearby school had a
sterling reputation. It was a great place to raise two young boys.

But the Juarez couple had another reason to be looking.

They were worried about the safety of their family in Juarez, just
across the border in Mexico. Murder, kidnappings and extortion were
becoming daily events as the battle between two warring drug cartels
escalated. The couple was hoping to sell their house so they could
move to safer El Paso. As it turned out, the Dahill house sold
quickly -- but to another couple. They were moving from Mexico City.

I followed this story closely because John Dahill, a former Dallas
assistant district attorney, is my son-in-law. Those two young boys
are grandsons. Today, they live north of Dallas in Celina, where the
boys are learning to speak football.

The quick home sale stands as odd proof that "it's an ill wind that
blows no good."

While millions of Americans from Boston to Seattle were having
trouble selling their homes and home prices were plummeting, the
proximity of gunshots across the border has proved an unusual boon to El Paso.

The most recent National Association of Realtors home price data show
the median U.S. home price has fallen 18.4 percent since 2007. During
the same period, home prices in El Paso have risen 5.5 percent.

But it is a sad gain. Once a matter of hearsay, an increasing number
of news stories cite moves by Mexican wives and children -- and often
business-owning husbands as well -- from cities in Mexico to cities
in the Southwest. Moving to the U.S. appears to be the only way to
avoid kidnappings, extortion and murder.

The days of easy border crossings are over. When visiting El Paso,
I'm not likely to make a run to a Juarez pharmacia for my drug of
choice: Lipitor. I could still go to Rosa's Cantina in El Paso and
hum the old Marty Robbins song, but the level of violence across the
border makes the song seem pretty silly.

Things change.

Nearly 11 years ago, I reported on a motorcycle trip when I rode the
U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville to San Diego on a fast BMW. I
called the trip "reader-directed reporting" because most of the
columns came from reader suggestions.

Even then there was concern about the border. While I was in San
Diego, Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez was shot to
death. He was ambushed by assassins with automatic weapons -- 53
bullets were found in his body.

At the beginning of the trip, one reader wrote to ask whether I was
"packing." (Answer: No, but I did have pepper spray for dogs.)

I walked across the border into Nuevo Laredo late one night. I also
crossed the border in Brownsville, El Paso, Presidio and Algodones.
No concern. No worries. Few were crossing at Presidio, but if you've
been there, you know why.

There isn't much to cross to, in either direction. Mostly Mexicans
were crossing in El Paso, doing their daily commute from Juarez. Lots
of Americans were crossing in Algodones, in search of dental work and
margaritas (not necessarily in that order).

Not today. According to recent reporting from Stratfor, an
Austin-based global intelligence firm, the violence along the border
continues to escalate. Entire towns are becoming no man's lands.
Recent Wall Street Journal photos from Mier, a town on the border
between Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo, could be from Afghanistan. And
the known body count continues to rise.

Perhaps the body count is evidence that the Mexican government is
starting to win the war against the cartels. Or not. It could also be
a sign that chaos may soon be part of daily life in America.