Elizabeth Silva

Elizabeth Silva: The killings in a sun-seared farming region of western Mexico prompted her to board a bus to the U.S. border to seek asylum, a hugely popular escape route in a remote area that has seen some of the country's worst drug-fueled violence. As gunfire rang in the distance, her family hurried out of the cemetery after burying the bodies and fled the same day, according to Times Colonist. The AP counted 44 women and children from the Tierra Caliente released in San Diego in just one month, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 27, including the 25-year-old Silva, her 2-year-old daughter, mother, grandmother and sister and SAN DIEGO - Elizabeth Silva was walking her younger sister to school when two hooded men burst into her house and pumped three bullets into her father. When her 14-year-old brother rushed out of his bedroom to see what was happening, he was also shot dead. Asylum requests from Mexico have surged in recent years and, while the U.S. government doesn't say from where within Mexico, The Associated Press has found that many are now arriving at the border from the "Tierra Caliente," or Hot Country, about 250 miles west of Mexico City. Word has spread there that U.S. authorities are releasing women and children while they await hearings before immigration judges, emboldening others to follow. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.