Mexico’s Bravest Women Fired

She made international headlines last October when, at the age of 20, she accepted the job as police chief of a violent Mexican border town. But on Monday Marisol Valles Garcia was fired by the mayor of Praxedis G. Guerrero after failing to show up for work following a visit to the United States.

Local media report the mayor as saying Garcia has sought asylum in the United States and that she received death threats from drug cartels.

When she took office last year the 20-year-old criminology student said, “Here everyone is afraid. … We are all afraid.” Garcia’s predecessor was killed in the drug violence in 2009.

In the border town drug cartels battle each other over lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.