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| Caribbean-Latin America | |
| Coyote Campaigns in Caribbean | |
| 2006-03-06 | |
| Narciso 'Chicho' Ramirez has spent time in prison on suspicion of smuggling migrants and was stripped of his U.S. visa. But in his hometown he's mayor material - the man who helped hundreds of Salvadorans achieve 'el sueno Americano' - the American dream. Now running for mayor, Ramirez says he stopped smuggling people in October 2001, when El Salvador made human trafficking a crime punishable by eight years in jail. But his reputation as a 'coyote' - slang for smuggler - abides. 'Here, they only say good things about Don Chicho,' said Blanca Rosa Coreas, 50. 'He's taken many people north, and they are grateful to him.' 'I saw it as helping people who most need it,' said Ramirez, a 44-year-old rancher who owns construction and bus companies as well as restaurants and hardware stores. A simple man..a man of the people. Ramirez says his ties to people-smuggling make him the perfect candidate to lead a group of 10 small rural towns 60 miles west of the capital, San Salvador. They include Cara Sucia, a village of 5,000 whose name means 'dirty face.' It's a district where nearly everyone heads to the United States to work at some point, and where four bank branches mostly handle money the migrants send home. Recent polls make Ramirez the favorite in next Sunday's election, ahead of Mayor Remigio Morales, who has served for nine years and is seeking a fourth consecutive term. 'Parties choose as their candidates, especially local ones, someone that is going to win. This is the criterion,' commented Rodolfo Cardenal, vice rector of El Salvador's Catholic University and a Jesuit priest. 'It's not the moral suitability of a candidate.Spoken like a true holy manÂ…morals..heh..we donÂ’t need no steenkinÂ’ morals.
'Coyotes are very popular because the safest way to arrive in the United States is with a good coyote. He'll charge a good amount of money, but the person will arrive safely,' he added. DamnÂ…you canÂ’t buy that kind of unsolicited endorsement. (Or maybe you can?) Ramirez has had a career path that many hope to follow. No DoubtÂ…Pun intended. He spent his childhood delivering giant bags of Wonder what kind of business you have that requires a Bus? Ramirez claims he never charged for his smuggling services, and simply 'volunteered to help people without money,' leading them across Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico and dropping them off to find coyotes who would lead them across the U.S. border for money. He certainly passed the BS test for third world politician with that statement. Ramirez was arrested in 2002 on charges of helping to organize the smuggling of 144 migrants found in a banana truck in Monterrey, Mexico. He said he had already gotten out of smuggling and had nothing to do with the banana truck, but spent 14 months in a Salvadoran jail and one year under house arrest before he was cleared. The U.S. Embassy still stripped him of his visa. ChichoÂ…consider yerselfÂ…undocumented! Ramirez says politicians are demonizing smugglers. 'Instead of spending so much money to eradicate the trafficking of illegals to the United States, that money should be used to create more jobs in the country,' he says. At a recent rally, Ramirez rode a horse through the streets of Cara Sucia, accompanied by Horacio Rios, a prominent politician, who said: 'Narciso helped a lot of people go to the United States, and now they are good workers - businessmen that send home money.' El Salvador survives on that money - $2.8 billion last year alone - from the 2.5 million Salvadorans living in the United States, Rios said. More than 300,000 of those migrants are there illegally. Ramirez says that if he becomes mayor, his first order of business will be to lobby the U.S. Embassy for a visa, so he can visit his seven brothers in the United States. WeÂ’ll send that new Visa thingy out pronto. Do you have yer brothers addresses handy? | |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #4 We had a bug where if you post directly from the editor it wasn't filling in the poster's name. I fixed that, but ended up putting the editor's name in over the poster's. Now (I think) I've fixed that, too. |
| Posted by: Fred 2006-03-06 17:39 |
| #3 How many MS-13 members has this asshole helped smuggle into the states? |
| Posted by: Anonymous-Not bigjim-ky 2006-03-06 17:33 |
| #2 Um, wasn't me who posted the article - don't know what happened. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2006-03-06 11:36 |
| #1 Of course he didn't charge for "smuggling". Dat's illegal! He just charged 'em $50 for a sack lunch, $1000 for a seat on the bus, $25 for a bottle of water.... |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2006-03-06 11:04 |