A Mexican journalist is living in Las Cruces and seeking asylum in the United States, but he isn’t fleeing from the drug cartels – he’s fleeing from Mexican soldiers.
From the Albuquerque Journal:
“Mexican journalist Emilio Gutierrez Soto says he has no backup plan if his request for political asylum in the U.S. is rejected when he goes before an immigration judge in El Paso in late January.
“His El Paso lawyer, Carlos Spector, says one thing is clear: No place in Mexico is safe for Gutierrez Soto since he was threatened by Mexican soldiers in two harrowing encounters in 2005 and again in 2008 for several articles he wrote.
“‘He’d be a dead man within a couple of months,’ Spector said, ‘and they’d probably make it look like an accident.’”
Gutierrez Soto is a former reporter for El Diario de Juárez who fled with his son from Ascension to the Antelope Wells port of entry in 2008. After being detained for months, both were released in the United States pending their request for asylum.
Gutierrez Soto’s trouble began in 2005. From the Journal:
“Gutierrez Soto says he provoked the wrath of Mexican soldiers in early 2005 when he wrote three articles based on locals’ claims that troops had, among other things, barged into a local hotel and stolen food and money from patrons.
“That February, he was summoned to a meeting with a regional military commander at a hotel in Ascension. Before he could enter the hotel, Gutierrez Soto said, he was surrounded by dozens of soldiers. When an angry general confronted Gutierrez Soto and asked why he did not write about drug traffickers, the reporter replied that he did not know them and feared them.
“‘I kill them,’ the general said, according to Gutierrez Soto. ‘Aren’t you afraid of me?’
Things got much worse in 2008:
“On May 5, 2008, just after midnight, masked soldiers armed with assault rifles smashed in the front door of Gutierrez Soto’s home and, after ordering him and his son to lie on the ground, proceeded to tear through the house in a purported search for drugs. They seized various forms of Gutierrez Soto’s identification and told him to behave.
“On June 14, Gutierrez Soto said he noticed he was being followed by several men using two different trucks. That night, he received a call from a female friend who was in a relationship with a soldier. She told Gutierrez Soto that there was talk the soldiers planned to kill him and he needed to leave immediately.”
Gutierrez Soto has been doing odd jobs around Las Cruces to make ends meet. His son is attending high school.
Read the Journal article here.
A Las Cruces group is planning a fundraiser for Gutierrez Soto on Jan. 28, but details haven’t yet been announced.