Migrant family endures hardships in order to escape crime at home
MEXICALI — Hundreds of immigrants, some with families, have been forced to spend the night outdoors in the city’s downtown, after having arrived as part of Central American caravan seeking political asylum in the United States.
One of the families, consisting of a father who identified himself only as Jose, his wife, two daughters and two grandchildren, slept under blankets on the sidewalk on Lerdo Avenue.
Natives of the city of Libertad, El Salvador, the father said they came to escape crime he said is killing his country.
“Poverty can be survived,” he said in an interview Monday.
Jose, 44, arrived with his family at dawn on Sunday. They tried to sleep in Niños Heroes Park, next to the international border, but a city police officer chased them away.
He questioned the posture of city officials toward the immigrants, among them Municipal President Gustavo Sanchez, who has stayed on the margins of the debate about the asylum seekers. Jose said he is only looking for a place to sleep and has no criminal intent.
He said two of his brothers were murdered by gangs in El Salvador that are involved in extortion and that the gangs had tried to recruit one of his children who had accompanied him to Mexicali.
Jose called on U.S. President Donald Trump to permit the immigrants to live and work north of the border. He said he had worked in agriculture and that he only sought a place to raise his family in the United States.
Jose said he has one son who came to the United States five years ago. He said he hopes to meet up with this son, although he does not know his whereabouts.
Concerning derogatory comments some Mexicali residents have made toward immigrants on social media, he said the immigrants are paying the consequences of a criminal element in El Salvador.
“A rotten apple can spoil it for the others.”
Jose said he and his family decided to join the caravan after seeing the fruitless efforts of his country’s government to stop the crime.
“I am very happy with Mexico,” he said, referring to treatment he has received since leaving El Salvador.
He said he is confident that as Trump sees how Mexico is treating the immigrants, the United States will in turn treat them in the same way, as human beings.
“We are workers, not criminals.”
He and his family weathered overnight cold outdoors, he said, because beds in all the city’s shelters have been taken up by other immigrants.
City officials said 3,325 Central Americans have arrived in Mexicali, of whom two-thirds are men. Another 381 are minors and 661 are women.
City officials say they have enough beds to accommodate the immigrants, but many could be seen camped out Monday on Mexicali streets.