MEXICAN COP FLEES TO U.S.

Young Woman Hailed For Leading Town's Force Amid Drug Violence Seeks Asylum

A young woman who volunteered to lead her Mexican hometown's police
department after a predecessor was beheaded by drug gangs has fled her
post to seek asylum in the U.S., authorities said Tuesday.

Marisol Valles was declared in headlines "The Bravest Woman in Mexico"
when she took the job in the Mexican town of Praxedis G. Guerrero last
year. Now, she is seeking asylum near El Paso, Texas, said Gustavo de
la Rosa, the human-rights ombudsman in the Mexican state of Chihuahua
where Praxedis is located. Ms. Valles couldn't be reached for comment
and it wasn't clear if she was represented by an attorney.

A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Ms.
Valles was in the U.S., adding that "she will have the opportunity to
present the facts of her case before an impartial immigration judge."
He said he couldn't comment further because of privacy concerns.

Ms. Valles's asylum request adds to Mexico's struggle to convince both
the U.S. and its own people that it can take on drug gangs that have
killed more than 31,000 people since the nation declared war on them
in 2006.

Just this week, Ms. Valles was ranked by Newsweek alongside talk-show
host Oprah Winfrey and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a list of
"women who shake the world."

In northern states such as Chihuahua, hundreds of police officers have
been slain by drug traffickers who have targeted officers' families,
homes and places of work. Recent days have been particularly bloody.
On Sunday, seven state policemen were ambushed and killed in Culiacan,
home to Mexico's most powerful drug cartel. The next day, 18 people
were killed in a shootout in the northern state of Tamaulipas that
authorities attributed to rival gangs.

Officials contacted Tuesday said they didn't know of other cases of
law-enforcement officials who had fled Mexico seeking asylum.

Ms. Valles took the job in October as police chief in Praxedis, a
small but very violent town of about 9,000 people along the border. It
is just a short drive from Mexico's most violent city, Ciudad Juarez.

Few wanted the job. Earlier in 2010, towns in the cotton-growing
valley where Praxedis is situated had been ransacked as two powerful
drug gangs, the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels, fought for control outside
of Ciudad Juarez. Many fled as churches were set ablaze and residents
were ordered from their homes by menacing messages left in public
places by cartel hit men.

Many Mexican cities facing similar problems have hired former military
generals to head their police departments as a signal to organized
crime of a crackdown. Praxedis seemingly took a much different
approach with Ms. Valles, who at just 20 years old was still working
on a criminology degree when she was tapped to head the 13-officer
department.

Ms. Valles said she wouldn't take on cartels directly, but focus on
preventative measures like neighborhood watch groups.

The week Ms. Valles took the job, a local politician and his son were
killed in the valley. In Guadalupe, a neighboring town where police
officers had fled or been killed, 28-year-old Erika Gandara, the last
officer remaining, was kidnapped. She hasn't been heard from since.

Those in Praxedis say Ms. Valles didn't say she was about to flee.
"She gave no indication that she had been threatened, and she didn't
act in a way we could guess she was fearful," said Andres Morales, the
mayor's secretary. Mr. Morales said she had asked for an eight-day
leave for a personal matter involving her child and said she would
return Monday. The city fired her when she didn't come back and they
couldn't reach her.

It isn't clear how Ms. Valles's case will fare in a U.S. immigration
court. Steve Legomsky, an asylum expert and professor at Washington
University in St. Louis said that while most asylum cases involve
victims persecuted by a government, it is also possible to receive
protection in cases where a government is unable to protect one from
private individuals, such as a drug gang.

The harder task, he said, would be proving to a judge that Ms. Valles
would be harmed because she belong to one of the five traditional
categories covered by U.S. asylum law: race, religion, nationality,
political opinion or membership in a specific social group. The
social-group category seemed the most likely fit, Mr. Legomsky said.
"But you'd have to argue that law enforcement officers-perhaps
police chiefs specifically-are part of a 'social group,' " he said,
which might be difficult.

Asylum attorneys say such cases put the U.S. in a tough position,
because granting requests could encourage more Mexicans in violent
areas to flee their country, putting a burden on the U.S. In 2009, the
U.S. received some 2,816 defensive asylum requests form Mexico with 62
approved and 366 denied. In 2008, the figure was 3,459 with 72
approved and 250 denied, according to the Justice Department.