The rich flee Mexico drug violence

Fearing for their lives, affluent seek asylum in Houston, other Texas cities
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
March 9, 2009, 11:42AM

Mexican businessman Jorge Hernandez abruptly relocated his family to Houston last year, terrified that family members would be abducted by kidnappers.

He had ample reason to be afraid. He left in August, days after a father was kidnapped for ransom as he dropped his child off at the same school Hernandez's children attended in a north Mexico city.

"One night, I told my wife 'Pack the bags — we’re leaving,'" Hernandez said. "The fear we felt caused us to get in the car and drive for 12 hours to get to Houston."

The 43-year-old businessman joined a growing number of affluent and middle-class Mexicans fleeing comfortable lives in Mexico for the comparative safety of Houston and other major Texas cities. They are desperate to escape an unprecedented wave of lawlessness in their home country where warring drug cartels — whose fighting claimed more than 6,000 victims last year — have also taken up kidnapping as a lucrative business.

The article concludes:

'Huge brain drain'

Ricardo Ainslie, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has produced a documentary on Mexico's kidnapping industry. He said the kidnappings have motivated many of the nation's leading professionals to leave.

"In Mexico, there is a real anxiety about it because it's a huge brain drain. The money and talent is leaving Mexico in huge numbers to San Diego, San Antonio and Austin," Ainslie said.

Hernandez said he had to leave Mexico when he saw the drug gang battles in the streets and the police and military presence. But while the family was drawn to Houston because of the culture and educational opportunities for his wife and three children, it has been hard to transition.

"Your family suffers," Hernandez said. "But when you turn on the TV and listen to the news from Mexico, that’s when you say to yourself you made the right decision to leave."

As I post this, there are 550 comments and many are spot on. A repeated idea in the comments is something that I think as well. It is your country, we know your loyalty will always be to Mexico, yet you flee.

For how MANY years did those fleeing use the Mordida System to benefit your business and families? You allowed it flourish, it has overtaken your FAILED STATE and now you come to your neighbor for help.

I have no sympathy whatsoever about you or your family's hardships, quite simply- FIX YOUR OWN HOME!

WP