BAJA News

04/03/2026

Kimicolor is now in Ensenada!!

26/02/2026

Profitable Violence: A New Era of the Border Industrial Complex
Todd Miller.

In 2025, a dramatic increase in contracts to private industry correlates with increasing violence committed by border and immigration police forces.

Last year was a bonanza for private companies doing business with Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Never had contracts been so lucrative, never had so much money been made.
In 2025, CBP and ICE signed 7,331 contracts worth $14.2 billion. When I first investigated this, I figured there would be an increase over 2024, given all that had transpired during Donald Trump’s first year back in office. But I wasn’t sure, since Joe Biden’s presidency, from January 2021 to January 2025, had signed a record number of contracts. The total for his four years was $32.3 billion. The Democratic president had topped his predecessor (the first Trump presidency) by a startling $11 billion. In 2023, he set the record for most contracts by any president for one year at $9.8 billion.
No one had even come close to that number until now.
The annual spending on contracts by CBP and ICE per year. As you can see, there was a noticeable leap during Joe Biden’s four-year presidency from 2021 to 2024. However the contracts for 2025, Trump’s first year, top them all. This graph is from usaspending.gov.
It was only his first year, but Trump was off to a blistering pace. The $14.2 billion not only topped Biden’s record number from 2023, but it was also the largest jump in private contracts ever from one year to the next. And the total for 2025 is only $6.7 billion less than Trump’s total contracts between 2017 and 2020 (which amounted to $20.9 billion). If he continues at this rate, Trump will end his term with $56.8 billion given to private companies, nearly doubling up Biden.
No wonder there was such enthusiasm in April at the Border Security Expo an annual event that brings together private industry with DHS high brass, especially from CBP and ICE. DHS secretary Kristi Noem’s keynote received multiple standing ovations, as did Trump’s “border czar” Thomas Homan. The big business leaders of border policing were smelling blood undoubtedly prompted by comments comparing rounding up people to Amazon’s “efficient” delivery business and sensing a new phase of the border industrial complex that had already been growing significantly since 9/11. What was incoming, however, was something new, a new era of even more privatized border and immigration enforcement and, if the sweeps of 2025 were any indication, an era of profitable violence.
This “new” development in the industrial complex did not take place under the first Trump administration, whose budgets were considerably smaller than today’s (he started with a combined CBP/ICE budget of $20 billion), and the contracts issued under his watch were only a smidgen more than his predecessor at the time, Barack Obama. But if the first year of Trump’s second presidency is any indication, there is now a clear and loud demarcation. Of that $14.2 billion in 2025, $9.27 billion went to new contracts, 3,058 of them, the most expensive of which go to constructing the border wall system.
The further construction of this “system” is fueled by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July, which added $170 billion to CBP and ICE budgets over the next four years. The system is what CBP commissioner Rodney Scott called a “smart wall,” not only for the roads and lights and other infrastructure that comes with the barrier, but also for the cameras and sensors and other technology mounted on or near it. This, according to Scott, will give it “more capability for our agents on the ground.” In September, CBP spent $4.5 billion on this, much of which went to BCCG A Joint Venture, a company that also received a contract in 2024 to build a processing center in Laredo, Texas, with a capacity to detain 1,000 people. Also receiving contracts were old Trump favorites Barnard Spencer Joint Venture and Fisher Sand and Gravelthe company in charge of building the wall in the riparian and environmentally sensitive San Rafael Valley of southern Arizona.
In 2025 there were also plenty of contracts for ICE. One of them, worth $562 million, went to CSI Aviation to “provide daily scheduled large aircraft & special high risk charter flights to facilitate ICE’s enforcement and removal operations of illegal aliens” in other words, to deport. Also, according to the online outlet Popular Information, in 2025 ICE boosted its weapons spending by 600 percent. This included a $9.1 million purchase from Geissele Automatics, which produces automatic (and semiautomatic) rifles. According to the award description, “This delivery order procures precision long guns and accessories to support armed agents and ICE office of fi****ms and tactical programs.” CBP also involved in sweeps across U.S. cities—was not to be left out of the rifle game, issuing a contract to Geissele for $3 million worth of “duty rifles.” In short, immigration agencies are becoming a well-armed domestic army.
These new contracts are layered on top of the legacy ones, such as the one with Deployed Resources, whose $1.3 billion contract started in December 2022 under Biden and ends this year. Under this contract, the company will build what CBP calls soft-sided facilities—meaning tent detention and processing centers in El Paso and San Diego, with an option for El Centro. It is the infrastructure of mass detainment and mass deportation. Many such legacy contracts have crossed multiple administrations, Democrat and Republican, a reminder that the industrial complex is ultimately bipartisan. Remember that during the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden received three times more campaign contributions from top border companies than Trump.
This Trump administration, however, with its multiple, violent operations across the country, and narratives to justify them, received the largest budget in U.S. history for border and immigration enforcement in 2025: $33.5 billion, if you combine CBP and ICE. This was a massive increase from the approximately $20 billion it started out with in 2017.
Since DHS was implemented in 2003, the CBP/ICE budgets have continually increased, regardless of the president. When Biden was inaugurated in 2021, this budget was about $25 billion. By the end of his term, it jumped past $30 billion—the first president to reach that threshold. The border industrial complex has no moral code; it is motivated by revenue, thrives off our era’s divisive and violent language and narratives, and becomes a force unto itself. As more companies gain contracts, they get the access behind closed doors in Washington, they lavish campaign contributions, and lobby for ever-increasing budgets.
Since the inception of DHS and its agencies CBP and ICE after 9/11, many scholars, journalists, activists, and thinkers have been warning about this special hybrid police/military force that operates with extra-constitutional powers. Throughout those years, with more forceful budgets, we’ve seen their expansion across the borderlands of the United States, both south and north, and increasingly along the coasts. The budget for ICE/CBP in 2026 is anticipated to be $34.3 billion, which will be yet another record. There is money for more detention capacity, transportation for removal operations, biometric screening and vetting, artificial intelligence capabilities, integrated and autonomous surveillance towers, and the hiring of new agents for both CBP and ICE.
And so far, 2026 is on pace to exceed the record contracts of 2025. Since October, $9.6 billion worth of contracts has been doled out by CBP and ICE. This is the thing with the border industrial complex: it will grow for its own sake. And if the violent operations in cities across the country generate revenue, that too is justification enough.

Editors Note; This article is shared to Baja News from www.theborderchronical.com / top investigative reporting on our US- Mexico border region.

26/02/2026

26/02/2026

Black Magic Witches Curse Dog Abusers..
by Vivian Marlene Dunbar..
Recently we ran a story titled Justice for La Chata about a Tijuana neighborhood enraged over the abuse and killing of a little boxer dog named La Chata. The case involved dozens of police and over 100 neighbors who held candlelight vigils in front of the little dog’s home. Inside information revealed the police had to stage an arrest of the perpetrator to remove him from his home. to avoid the enraged neighbors attacking him. This La Chata case was evidence of a new level of public concern and intolerance for animal abuse. However, since then a new case has emerged... for Orelha. Orelha was a 10-year-old " neighborhood dog" living in the town of Praia Brava Florianopolis Brazil. The story goes that everyone loved and cared for the friendly old dog.
One day 4 local teenagers got hold of Orelna and beat her shoved a piece of wood down her throat and left her to die in the streets. Neighbors discovered Orelna and took her to a local vet who declared she was" beyond help" and with the agreement the people who brought her, euthanized her. As news spread though the community reports of witnesses being intimidated by the teen boy’s family members emerged. Apparently. the boys were sons of well to do local business owners. The boys in order to avoid the growing conflict. were packed up and sent to Disneyworld in Florida There in Orlando a protest broke out. hundreds of people chanting " Justice for Orelna!" intent on not allowing the boys to run and hide. Similar protests erupted in their Brazilian home town of Praia Brava. As the outrage grew. social media coverage began to include videos of Black Magic ceremonies with witches and paleros performing spells cursing the boys so they would not escape justice! Detailed elaborate altars featuring black candles, bells, skulls and an assortment of magic paraphernalia left no doubt as to the sincerity of these spells. One dark magic practitioner said these words as he lit a black candle." Fazendo bem unda minha parte com os meninos que fizeram aquillo com cachorro Orelha. " which is Brazillian for " doing well my part with the boys what they did to Orelha " Apparently the magic is working because now the case is in the Brazilian court. The main abuser has been identified. and 3 family members are indigted for intimidating witnesses. and the Santa Cantareira court is having the body of Orelna exhumed for examination. The boys aged 16-17 yrs. old. had also been noticed attempting to drown a dog which survived. Penalties are likely to be mild considering that the boys are under age and Brazilian law is not harsh on minors. However, it would be interesting to follow this case to see just what fate these cruel young men face in the wake of the many Black Magic curses and spells cast their way.

26/02/2026

Why I love Baja' by Noel Guerita Anchutz
Why I love Baja and Why I’m Committed to . People move to Baja for various reasons, not limited to: retirement, divorce, financial reasons, remote work but the themes are the same: escaping a nervous system–triggering environment, improving health, and seeking a change of scenery. What I did not expect was how deeply connected I would become to the people, the small businesses, the neighborhoods, and the shared responsibility we all have in shaping Baja’s future. What do I like best about Baja? THE PEOPLE. The “Guerita” in my name was given to me by others my Mexico-adopted name, because yes, Mexico adopts orphans, like me. I was born in Chicago, lived in Tucson, and then Las Vegas. The aunt who raised me was a Mexicana from Nogales, and my cousins are Mexican-Irish. For the last 30 years, my professional career has centered on advocating for the disabled in the arena of Social Security Disability Law, including owning my own firm for 10 years. In Mexico, I did not additionally expect but have naturally become a connector of people and a synthesizer of information. I Baja , I have helped connect residents, visitors, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits through gatherings, collaborations, and initiatives that highlight the very best of our region. Along the way, one theme continued to surface in conversations with locals and tourists alike: Is it safe in Mexico? The resounding answer is YES. Is anywhere 100% safe? NO. Information and connection are power local knowledge and real support matter. And did you know other Latin American countries which have run safety campaigns increased tourism by 20%?! Safe in Baja is not a slogan meant to ignore reality, nor is it a campaign that claims Baja is perfect. It is a community-driven initiative grounded in facts, local knowledge, and shared responsibility. Its mission is simple but essential: to promote accurate information about safety in Baja California, support local businesses and tourism, educate residents and visitors, and counter harmful narratives that often originate far from the communities they affect. Too often, Baja is reduced to headlines that lack context. Isolated incidents are amplified, while the daily reality of millions of people living, working, raising families, and welcoming visitors safely is overlooked. These narratives don’t just affect perception they affect livelihoods. They influence tourism, investment, and the confidence people feel about calling Baja home. Safe in Baja exists to balance that conversation. Our commitment is to transparency without fear-mongering, and advocacy without denial. Safety is about preparedness, awareness, community trust, and communication. Part of our work involves educating visitors and new residents on how to move through Baja respectfully and responsibly, just as one would in any city anywhere in the world. Knowing local customs, understanding neighborhoods, supporting vetted services, and staying informed all contribute to safer experiences for everyone. Another important pillar of Safe in Baja is collaboration. This is not a solo effort. We work alongside local businesses, community organizers and influencers, and civic groups to amplify positive stories and provide practical resources. Whether hosting community conversations, inviting people to local events, or sharing reliable updates through social and local media, our approach is rooted in connection. Baja California is a region of innovation, culture, food, wine, art, and resilience. From Ensenada to the Valle, from border communities to coastal towns, this is a place shaped by people who care deeply about where they live. Safe in Baja is here to support that reality and ensure it is represented honestly. This column will serve as an ongoing space to share insights, updates, resources, and stories from across the region. My hope is that it becomes a bridge between locals and visitors, perception and reality, concern and confidence. Baja is not just a destination. For many of us, it is home. And home is worth protecting, understanding, and standing up for. Join us today on Facebook & TikTok SAFE IN BAJA I love Baja.

16/02/2026

Visual Artist Sharina Fong Pays Tribute to Healthcare Workers with Impressive Mural at IMSS Bienestar General Hospital in Ensenada

February 12, 2026

As part of a social awareness and community strengthening initiative through art, the mural “Empathy and Resilience” was created on the facade of the IMSS Bienestar General Hospital in Ensenada.

The artwork, created by visual artist Sharina Fong during the second week of January 2026, aims to promote values ​​such as empathy, resilience, and recognition for healthcare workers, who provide daily care and support to the community.

The mural is part of the “Murals for Peace and Security in Ensenada” project, which includes 15 artistic interventions with different social awareness themes throughout the city.

With over 15 years of experience and national and international acclaim, Sharina Fong has developed a distinguished career in Mexico and abroad, incorporating symbolic elements into her work that evoke hope, strength, and solidarity.

This artistic intervention seeks to create a space for reflection for patients, families, and visitors, contributing to the strengthening of the social fabric through cultural expression.

06/02/2026

At Mándala Salon, we distinguish ourselves by offering more than twelve different nail service techniques, so today we're going to talk about dipping powder, also known as dip powder nails.
Dipping powder, or powder manicure, offers several benefits, including greater durability and resistance, does not require a UV lamp to dry, and can help strengthen natural nails. Additionally, some products contain vitamins and minerals that nourish the nails.
Detailed benefits:
Durability and resistance:
Dipping powder creates a protective layer on the nail that is more resistant to chipping and breaking than other types of manicures, such as traditional nail polish.
No UV lamp required:
Unlike gel nails, dipping powder does not require a lamp to dry, which means less exposure to ultraviolet light. Nail strengthening:
Some dipping powder products contain vitamin E and calcium, which can help strengthen nails and prevent breakage.
Faster application:
The dipping powder application process can be faster than that of acrylic nails.
Less damage to the natural nail:
If applied and removed correctly, dipping powder shouldn't weaken natural nails.
Professional finish:
With practice, you can achieve a professional finish at home with dipping powder.
No strong odor:
Unlike acrylics, dipping powder doesn't typically have a strong odor.
Bottom line: Dipping powder is a popular choice for its durability, ease of application, and potential benefits for nail health.

At Mandala Salon, we offer the Gelish Dipping Nail System, which has several benefits, including durability, shine, and a faster application process compared to traditional gel.

It also strengthens nails and promotes nail growth, thanks to ingredients like vitamin E and calcium.
Durability:
Gelish dipping nails are known for their durability and can last up to a month, often longer than traditional gel polish. Shine and Finish:
The finish is smooth and glossy, similar to a fresh manicure, and maintains its shine for the duration of the polish.

06/02/2026

US Gun Violence, Riots Threaten Tourism by Vivian Marlene Dunbar.
Mexico, Germany, Japan, and many countries around the world are warning their citizens that travel to the United States can be dangerous. Their number one concern is gun violence. Most countries have strict gun laws and US gun violence has sent shock waves around the world. Germany has very strict gun laws and warns travelers to US that it " is easy to obtain guns in America "adding that there are " killing sprees"! New Zealand authorities caution travelers that US gas a " high incidents of violent crime and firearm possession" pointing out that it is legal to openly carry guns in public. Canada, the UK, and Australia all warn their citizens that travel to US involves risk of gun violence. Japan takes caution an extra step by advising travelers to US to learn active shooter drill exercises. Ethnic tensions, and riots have added to a worldwide apprehension of travel to US. Germanys Federal Foreign Office just updated its travel advisory stating " Be aware of demonstrations and clashes with American migration and security authorities. In March of 2025, German tourists were told that a Visa or waiver may not work after several German citizens were detained at the US border. Italian state broadcaster journalists for news group RAI reported being threatened by ICE while working in US. Mexico lists rising racial tensions in America as reason to exercise extreme caution when in the US. Certain states, like Florida and Texas are considered risky to Mexican travelers as well as cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and most recently Minneapolis because of demonstrations and riots. Will this spreading worldwide apprehension of travel to US affect its tourism economy? That remains to be seen and seems inevitable

06/02/2026

What is Kimicolor and how to use it?

Kimikolor Kimiplaster Architectural Mortar is a specialized stucco for obtaining
different architectural finishes, enhancing natural hues such as APPARENT CONCRETE and the countertype to the CHUKUM finish, among others. It comes reinforced with cementitious agents, minerals, inorganic R-UV pigments, and
specialized additives that aid in adhesion and facilitate its installation.

ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS
•It is excellent for more aesthetic finishes.
•For coating and protecting all types of interior and exterior facades:
applicable to indoor and outdoor walls, ceilings, countertops,
and others.
•It can be under continuous water immersion.
•The product is applicable to pools, fountains, and ponds.
•It has excellent adhesion and good flexibility.
•Ready to use, just add water.
•It can be applied over vertical and horizontal areas.
YIELD
On average, a 20-kilogram sack covers 3 to 4 m2 at an average
thickness of 3 mm. For pool floors, the applied thickness may
reach a maximum of 5 mm.
APPLICABLE SURFACE
• Mortar plasters.
• Fiber cement panel.
• Plaster panel with KimiTX Smooth Surface Texturizer.
SURFACE PREPARATION
We recommend Before applying the product, ensure that the surface is solid and
firm, plumb, clean of dust, grease, paint, oil, mold release agents,
waxes, or any other material that could interfere with proper adhesion.
Make sure that the surface temperature is between 4°C
and 40°C during application. In case of high temperatures, depending
on the conditions in the area, we recommend over-saturating the surface with water before proceeding.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
•Use clean water and carefully control the amount of mixing
water. Avoid excess water as it may reduce the mechanical
properties of the product and alter the final shade.
•Prepare the amount of mixture to be used in less than 45 minutes.
Avoid adding water to moisten the mixture afterward.
•If the substrate is highly absorbent and the weather conditions
vary widely such as high temperatures, low relative humidity
and strong winds, it would be necessary to moisten it beforehand
to avoid the plaster losing its workability and strength.
•For cast concrete walls, verify that the release agent used has
not left any residue over the applying area. If so, clean thoroughly
and wait for it to dry.
•We recommend removing or reducing any paint or imperfections
over the surface to ensure mechanical anchoring.
Call now and make your order with this fantastic product and improve your home or business, more information in the ad or dial (999)257-9858 English Spoken

06/02/2026

"Urgent Rosarito Rescue Report
Baja News has just received news of the situation of a local dog sanctuary whose proprietor, Juan Carlos, has suffered a heart attack and is in the hospital
His brother Yajairo Arroyo, is taking charge and is in need of help.
The Rosarito Volunteer group led by Liz Lopez and her daughters, Tania and Damaris, are organizing help and donations. Damaris sent us this story:
There are 120 dogs, 3 pigs, and 6 cats. At this moment, Juan Carlos is unable to take care of them, as he suffered a heart attack. He is stable but in delicate condition. His brother, Yajairo, is currently taking charge. An adoption campaign will be launched, along with a census to determine which dogs need to be spayed or neutered. The animals are currently spread across four different properties. The plan is to move them all to one piece of land where there is already a structure, but fencing is still needed (permits and coordination with authorities are already in progress). The goal is to reduce the number of animals through adoptions. After a heart attack, it is very difficult to maintain the same level of physical strength. Most of the dogs are doing well, but support is needed to take those who require it to the veterinarian once the census is completed. What is urgently needed right now is food.
Donations and dog food may be dropped off at the Canela Pet Lovers Shop located on Blvd. Benito Juárez Playas de Rosarito enseguida del restaurante el noble, Rosarito BC Mexico 22703. / Volunteer Tania may be reached at 52-661-0476./ Juan Carlos Brother Yajairo may be reached at 52-661-113-9100.