Andres Bermudez,candidate for mayor and U.S. resident, also known as "The Tomate King," a nickname he earned after inventing the tomato-planting machine that turned him into millionaire, made history by becoming the first migrant living in the United States to win a Mexican mayorship. Bermudez died of cancer at the age of 58 on Thursday.
Andres Bermudez, who made a fortune as a “tomato king” and history by becoming the first migrant living in the United States to win a Mexican mayorship, has died of cancer. He was 58.
Bermudez, a flamboyant lawmaker for President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, died Thursday, the party said in a statement. He had battled stomach cancer since March.
He died at a hospital in Houston, where he was receiving treatment since December, the daily newspaper El Sol de Zacatecas reported.
Andres Bermudez left Zacatecas state as an impoverished field hand in 1974. He and his pregnant wife sneaked across the border, hiding in the trunk of a car. After a short stint working in a suitcase factory, Bermudez began laboring in the fields of northern California.
His luck changed after he invented a device for planting tomatoes. The new contraption quickly became popular among growers, earning Bermudez the nickname, “The Tomato King.” It also earned him a small fortune.
He returned to his hometown of Jerez, Zacatecas in 2001 as a celebrity, a migrant made good from a spot lacking opportunities — a place where much of the population survives on remittances sent home from the United States.
He capitalized on his notoriety, capturing the popular vote in the 2001 mayor’s race, but was subsequently denied office by election officials, who ruled that he failed to meet the state’s residency requirements. After successfully lobbying for a change in the law, he won again in 2004, this time running under the banner of Zacatecas’ least popular political party.
“I’m not the king of tomatoes here,” Bermudez humbly said during an interview at his wood-paneled office in Jerez city hall on a chilly December morning. “I’m the king of tomatoes in the (United States); I live like a king in the (United States), but not here.”
Bermudez’s electoral feat and his incredible rags-to-riches story captured international headlines. Observers hailed his triumph as an example of migrants flexing their political muscles in the communities they have long propped up through remittances.
The Tomato King promised to turn Jerez, a sleepy burg of 60,000 in the Central Mexican highlands, into a mini America, a well-governed place teeming with prosperity and most importantly jobs. And in a threat to the old guard, he vowed to “Get the rats out of city hall.” Somewhat bizarrely, he also promised visas for young workers heading to the United States and tomato-planting devices for poor campesinos (peasant farmers), who have been abandoning the countryside in droves.
Although rough around the edges — he was known to urinate in public and speaks passable English peppered with off-color words — the Tomato King at first encounter seemed more uncouth than threatening. A burly and gregarious fellow with a junior-high-school education, who virtually always wore black cowboy clothing, dark glass and thick gold jewelry,
Bermudez regularly welcomed foreign journalists. His celebrity, improbable story and Robin Hood-style rhetoric generate incredible curiosity. He employed a competent media relations staff — something rare in Mexican politics.
But with notoriety came controversy and enemies. Several journalists and opposition city councilors alleged Bermudez has engaged in corruption, nepotism, and lewd behavior and governed in an authoritarian style — like a king — intimidating opponents and employing thugish tactics. Emotions about Bermudez —a polemic figure — ran high. Many Jerez residents preferred not to make on-the-record comments about the mayor.
As Bermudez tells it, he returned to Mexico out of a love for his hometown; a desire to give something back to his people, who the Tomato King said, “See hope in me.”
After taking office, he initiated a bus service for students pursuing university studies 50 kilometers away in Zacatecas. He also tripled the number of scholarships given to needy students. And in a well-worn political stunt common to virtually every Mexican municipality, he passed out 700 backpacks to children and roofing materials and cement to home and business owners.
He also viewed himself as a sort of pioneer, a migrant returning to unseat the old corrupt guard, which had presided over the demise of Zacatecas and sent hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing the state.
n 2006, Bermudez, who shuttled between his ranch in California and Jerez, won a seat in the lower house of Congress for the PAN.
Illegal immigrants fearful of being caught in stepped-up workplace raids are fueling a growing market in Houston for phony immigration and work documents.
The result, experts say, is a glut of false, altered and counterfeit documents that are easily obtained at Houston-area flea markets, businesses and clandestine printing shops set up in homes and apartments. The bogus documents include counterfeit Texas driver’s licenses, fake Social Security and “green cards,” and even worthless international driver’s licenses sold here and in other states.
“You could put all of HPD full time on this thing, and I don’t think we could put a dent in it,” said Lt. Robert Sells, with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s driver’s license fraud unit.
The demand has been so strong that law enforcement officers in Texas have been bribed in recent years to sell the valuable documents, and several dozen have been caught.
An ex-federal prosecutor said heightened enforcement has not only boosted demand for counterfeit documents, but increased the price and quality of the fakes.
“You’re seeing stepped-up law enforcement of the worksite, and that leads to more identity theft and false document prosecution,” said Kevin Lachus, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney now with the Tindall & Foster immigration firm in Houston. “That results in more training for human resource officials, which makes them more expert in spotting documents, and results in even more sophisticated counterfeit identity documents.”
On Houston streets, a top-quality counterfeit green card proving legal residency commands $500, federal agents say. Even shabby green cards bring $15 to $100 while a good-quality package — a driver’s license, green card and Social Security card — can cost $350.
Immigrants sometimes resort to buying real documents from corrupt officials at steep prices.
The most significant recent case involved five immigrants from India and the Caribbean who were fooled by immigration agents posing as crooked law officers. Three were videotaped in a Houston government office last summer as they handed over $15,000 apiece for green cards, according to court records.
Read the rest of the story at Houston Chronicle
Hey, how about that! There are illegals other than Mexicans in the US! Imagine that! I bet that will cause shock and dismay amongst the ranks of the nativists and other looney toons! But hey, if this is the best they can do with fake ID, we have nothing to worry about except for maybe the lazy jerkoffs in LE that can’t tell the difference
On April 16, 2008, Lou Dobbs took his “advocacy journalism”1 to a new low in mischaracterizing Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to the United States.
False Claim: Pope Benedict supports “amnesty” and wants the U.S. to “ease any enforcement.”
DOBBS: Well, Pope Benedict XVI is in the nation’s capital tonight, there to help the Catholic Church and the Council of Bishops push the amnesty agenda.
Pope Benedict himself, obviously, supporting that approach and calling upon the United States to ease any enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
The Facts:
The Pope, in fact, did not announce that he supports an “amnesty agenda,” nor did he call upon the U.S. to “ease any enforcement.” Pope Benedict’s actual statement from the White House that aired later in Dobbs’s program was:
As a nation faces increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I’m confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible, and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more humane and free society.
Pope Benedict has never supported any specific piece of American legislation, but instead has called upon the American public to engage in a rational immigration debate. Dobbs’s accusations have no basis in reality.
False Claim: Pope Benedict is anti-American
DOBBS: Also, Pope Benedict XVI meeting with President Bush at the White House, calling upon the United States to be more humane to migrants, as he put it. The Pope, obviously, considering the United States something less than its actual standing as the most welcoming country in the world to immigrants, legal and illegal.
The Facts:
Pope Benedict never suggested the U.S. was an unwelcoming country. The joint statement released by the White House states:
The Holy Father and the President also considered the situation in Latin America with reference, among other matters, to immigrants, and the need for a coordinated [international] policy regarding immigration, especially their humane treatment and the well being of their families.
Even while en route to the United States, Pope Benedict spoke to reporters of the need to treat immigrant families humanely:
The separation of families “is truly dangerous for the social, moral and human fabric. . . The fundamental solution is that there should no longer be a need to emigrate, that there are enough jobs in the homeland, a sufficient social fabric,” he said. Short of that, families should be protected, not destroyed, he said.
In Washington, Benedict encouraged the American bishops and their communities “to continue to welcome immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home.” That, he said, was the American tradition.
Again, the Pope’s message has consistently been about reason and humanity, not secular details such as legalization or border fences. Dobbs also fails to mention how Pope Benedict repeatedly spoke of America in positive terms during his visit:
POPE BENEDICT XVI: I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel, and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society. America’s Catholics have made, and continue to make, an excellent contribution to the life of their country. As I begin my visit, I trust that my presence will be a source of renewal and hope for the Church in the United States, and strengthen the resolve of Catholics to contribute ever more responsibly to the life of this nation, of which they are proud to be citizens.
Mr. President, dear friends, as I begin my visit to the United States, I express once more my gratitude for your invitation, my joy to be in your midst, and my fervent prayers that Almighty God will confirm this nation and its people in the ways of justice, prosperity and peace. God bless America.
Tancredo Chimes In
Lou Dobbs wasn’t the only anti-immigrant spokesperson to comment on Pope Benedict’s visit. In an attempt to overshadow previous controversies, like when he referred to Miami as a “Third World country,”8 or when he attempted to pull Spanish-language books off the shelves of the Denver Public Library,9 Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo issued this press release during the Pope’s visit:
“I suspect the Pope’s immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church,” said Tancredo. “This isn’t preaching it is ‘faith-based’ marketing.”
It is no surprise that the Pope’s call for “reasoned, responsible, and respectful dialogue” has offended Dobbs and Tancredo. As main contributors to the current anti-immigrant atmosphere in the United States, it is expected that they would attack anyone who calls for the humane treatment of immigrants and the need for reasoned debate on immigration.
What a pair of horses asses! And this is the face of the anti immigrant lobby!
I ran across an excellent Discourse this morning regarding our attitude towards Mexicans and anything perceived to be hispanic.
The author, a Professor at a midwestern college, gives an excellent history of bigotry and racism against those different from us through history.
He also points our and gives examples of the racist drivel being spewed by right wing talk radio hosts such as Michael Savage, Neal Boortz and others.
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Two guards and two of their supervisors at a South Texas immigration prison were charged with trying to use their positions to smuggle more than two dozen undocumented immigrants into the country, according to federal prosecutors. The U.S. attorney’s office in Houston said Tuesday that the four prison employees had worked out a shrewd scheme to pick up and transport 28 immigrants from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador by pretending that they were inmates being transferred to San Antonio.
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An excellent article published by Andrew Greeley: in the Chicago Sun Times.
I wonder when it will become unfashionable to engage in slurs against Mexican immigrants — they don’t work hard, they don’t learn to speak English, they are taking money away from other Americans, some of them may be terrorists, they don’t drive trucks safely.
The well-educated, upper-middle-class nativist bigot will justify his position with the argument: I don’t have anything against them, but I resent the fact that they’re ILLEGAL!
Read more
RIO VERDE, Mexico — While living in the shadows inside the United States, Mexican immigrants stoke controversy from the Rio Grande to Washington.
But when they return home, they’re hailed as heroes. They’re seen as triumphant soldiers who have risked their lives in the war against poverty.
On Friday, this central Mexico town welcomed returning immigrants — legal or not while in the United States — with a special morning Mass, a parade and a concert at a dance hall.
The “Paisano Day” celebration is rare in most parts of the country, but as an estimated 1 million Mexicans return home for the holiday season, it’s likely that many of them will be questioned by countrymen who wonder how tough it is to sneak past the U.S. Border Patrol and find a job.
Locals, awed by the preening cowboys in white hats, crocodile skin boots and blaring stereos from newer model American trucks parading around the local plaza, know that even if they’re washing plates or hammering nails, they likely could make at least as much working an hour in the United States as they could in a day in Mexico.
And the $1 billion a month they send home is vital to Mexico’s economy.
Eddie Varon Levy, a former Mexican congressman, said his countrymen who headed north once were considered traitors, but that people now realize the money they earn in the United States is a lifeblood back home.
The dependency on immigrant-earned money is especially strong in the state of San Luis Potosi, which sends many immigrants to San Antonio.
And so, the gold chains around their necks, the fancy trucks they drove and the hand-tooled cowboy boots they wore were just some of the trophies returning immigrants used to serve notice: There’s money to be made in the United States.
“Some people say that when you’ve been up there, you come back full of yourself,” said Nicanor Rangel Bautista, 28, who wore a cowboy hat and a crocodile belt and whose hair fell to the middle of his back over a full-length black leather coat. “Not me, I am just the same.”
As soon as the immigrants hit town, they’re said to go on spending sprees, buying custom clothes for themselves or furniture, appliances and other items for their families. Weddings spike. Normally quiet streets are jammed. And business is good.
People waved and shouted as a line of 51 vehicles, driven by returning immigrants as part of a parade and car concert, made its way through the streets of this town of 88,000.
Among the notable absences was the boyfriend of parade queen Maria Luisa Sanchez, 19, who said her guy worked construction in San Antonio, but was unable to get home, perhaps because of the tightening of security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“God bless him, and I hope he keeps earning money so we can get married,” said Sanchez, who wore a crown and was perched atop the first truck in the parade.
Although most license plates were from Texas, others were from as far away as Nebraska, Virginia or Florida.
The upscale vehicles, which included a Hummer and dualie pickups, were sprinkled with holy water by a priest. They were decorated to salute Mexico and driven by men who could reel off success stories after leaving here without a peso to their names.
“I am not ashamed. I was poor and humble, but knew there was a better life with hard work,” said Francisco Morales, 38. “I have three homes, two for renting and one for me.”
Morales said he loved the welcome, but remembers the bad old days when returning immigrants were targeted by police or bandits or charged five times the normal price for a bottle of soda.
Soyd Perez de Rocha, who organized the seventh annual Paisano Day, said immigrants often leave desperate and nearly broken, but return swelled with pride.
“They are saying, ‘I am back, I have dollars and I can buy what I want,’” she said of the immigrants who walk the streets with a new swagger. “They have been gone for one or two years and with a party like this, they feel important.”
And they have fans.
Clad in hot pink stiletto heels and jeans, with a patch strategically torn from the rear, Saraid Avila, 20, was cruising for the man of her dreams.
“They are so handsome and the trucks are beautiful,” Avila said, seconds before she climbed aboard a friend’s scooter and gave chase to the parade.
Jose Ines Flores Martinez, of the music group Imperio Texano, which performed during the festivities, said he knew first hand that working in the United States was far from an easy road to a better life.
He said he’ll never forget the night he made his way across the Rio Grande’s powerful current near Piedras Negras as he clutched a plastic bag filled with his clothes. Things got worse as he ran out of drinking water and walked for three days.
“It is very difficult and you are playing with your life,” he said during a break. “(The United States) needs workers and we need jobs. I do not know why they can’t work something out.”
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