A 'sanctuary' for immigrants in Mexico
The mayor of Ecatepec says those on their way north illegally are safe and welcome in his city.
ECATEPEC, MEXICO — Jose Luis Gutierrez is the mayor of the biggest city in Mexico you've never heard of, a sprawling suburb of Mexico City built by people on the move.
And the charismatic Gutierrez has done something almost as unheard of: He has declared this city of as many as 3 million people a "sanctuary" for the illegal immigrants from Central America who pass through here each day.
He has ordered his police officers and city officials not to arrest, extort or otherwise harass the migrants. He's also ordered them not to cooperate with Mexican immigration agents.
"Let them go and guard the borders," he said. "For Ecatepec, migration is not a criminal act. It's a universal right: the right to seek work and the right to travel freely from one place to another."
Ecatepec is the place where Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and others begin the long, final stage of their journey across Mexico, northward to the U.S. border aboard a freight train known as "the beast."
Thousands of undocumented immigrants pass through here every year, but you won't hear many Ecatepec residents call them "illegal."
"A lot of people help them," said Guadalupe Ambriz, a 33-year-old resident of Xalostoc, an impoverished Ecatepec neighborhood divided by the rail line. Ambriz, like many residents along the tracks, lives in an old boxcar that's been converted into a home.
"They might let them take a bath, or give them some food, or some old clothes," Ambriz said.
Given Ecatepec's history, the mayor's decision was not a controversial one. This city is made up of migrants, people who resettled here from other impoverished corners of Mexico, including the nearby states of Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Puebla.
And every year Ecatepec sends many of its sons and daughters northward. There are large communities of Ecatepec natives in California, Texas and other U.S. states.
"For us, the bravest people of Ecatepec are the ones who go take the risk of going to the north, with all the abuse and the hatred that goes on there," Gutierrez said. "Those people are heroes for us."
Gutierrez, 42, is a longtime activist with the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, which won the 2006 municipal elections here.
Immigration is a deeply personal issue for him, Gutierrez said. One of his cousins has lived in the Los Angeles area, "without papers," for 10 years.
