Has the U.S. annexed a Mexico City street?

Between NAFTA and the drug war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will have a lot to talk about on her visit to Mexico today, but she probably wasn’t anticipating defending the U.S. conquest of a Mexican sidewalk. Some Mexico City politicians that security barriers set up around the U.S. embassy have effectively annexed an ajacent side street:

“It seems to me to be a lack of respect, and it is also a violation of national sovereignty,” said city legislator Tomas Pliego of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, who pledged to force the Embassy obey a law against occupying public streets, parks and sidewalks.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, of the same party, also has taken up the cause of reopening Rio Danubio, a narrow one-way street off Paseo de la Reforma, the capital’s main promenade modeled after the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

“The Embassy has not had, nor does it have, authorization to occupy public spaces,” Ebrard told reporters. “They shouldn’t be the ones who occupy the city with the aim of providing security.”

SUSANA GONZALEZ/AFP/Getty Images