NightBlogger

SAN DIEGO (Reuters)
San Diego’s city attorney said on Wednesday he filed a lawsuit against Bank of America Corp and its Countrywide unit to prevent the mortgage lenders from foreclosing on homes in the city, which he aims to make a “foreclosure sanctuary.” City Attorney Michael Aguirre plans to file similar lawsuits against Washington Mutual Inc, Wells Fargo & Co and Wachovia Corp in an effort to make the lenders negotiate with mortgage borrowers facing foreclosure. “We would like to see San Diego become a foreclosure sanctuary,” Aguirre said. Housing markets across Southern California, including the city of San Diego and the county of the same name, are seeing steep increases in foreclosure rates because so many homes bought there earlier this decade involved subprime mortgages and other types of risky loans. More

LA Times
Real estate agents, business owners and victims groups estimate that more than 1,000 Tijuana families — including those of doctors, lawyers, law enforcement officials, Lucha Libre wrestlers and business owners — have made this move in recent years as the drug- fueled violence has worsened.

People have arrived in south San Diego County with only the clothes on their back. Kidnapping victims released after lengthy captivities have shown up long-haired and disheveled, sometimes with fresh wounds. Real estate agents tell of clients with fingers missing, sliced off by kidnappers who sent them to relatives as proof the victims were alive.

The presence of the immigrants, most in the U.S. legally, is unmistakable in the many gated, master-planned communities of eastern Chula Vista, where parking lots for upscale stores and spas are sprinkled with Baja California license plates. More