Mexico Mayor Helps Illegals Reach the U.S.

Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:12 AM
By: Philip V. Brennan

In Ecatepec, a sprawling suburb of Mexico City, Mayor Jose Luis Gutierrez has done something almost unheard of: He has declared his city a "sanctuary" for the illegal immigrants traveling from Central America to the United States.

Every day scores of Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and others begin the long, final stage of their journey from Ecatepec to the U.S. border aboard a freight train known as "the beast."

Gutierrez, a longtime activist with the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, has ordered his police officers and city officials not to arrest, extort, or otherwise harass the migrants, according to the Los Angeles Times which added that he has also ordered them not to cooperate with Mexican immigration agents.

"Let them go, and guard the borders," he told the Times. "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."