Businesses Flee Ciudad Juárez for Texas
Published March 04, 2011

El Paso – The high crime rate in Ciudad Juárez has spurred many Mexican businessmen to transfer their business operations to El Paso, where there are already 100 new companies that have opened their doors in U.S. territory.

Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from this Texas city, is Mexico's murder capital, where more than 8,000 people have died since early 2008 in drug-related mayhem.

The Juárez business owners now in El Paso have created an organization, La Red (The Network), to provide logistical support so that Mexican exiles can begin their business activities anew.

"We Mexican businessmen who invest in El Paso come to create sources of work, to put in our grain of sand so that the local economy becomes strengthened; and not to ask for help from the government or be a burden for U.S. citizens," La Red president Jose Luis Mauricio Esparza told Efe.

The organization has more than 450 members, among whom are owners of restaurants, bars, furniture stores and many other businesses, as well as hundreds of professionals who have begun to get their careers going in the United States.

Yet some El Paso residents are concerned about the arrival of the businessmen, thinking that along with them could come an overflow of the violence that is being experienced in Mexico.

"The arrival of so many people from the most dangerous city in the world is worrying, since we don't know who is who, and what could come to pass with them here," said Juan Uribe, the owner of a real estate brokerage firm in El Paso.

Uribe said that the real estate sector has not benefited at all from the arrival of the Juárez businessmen, since many of them come without much capital to invest.

"Many businesses that existed here have had to close because of the high competition generated by the new businessmen," he said.

Esparza, however, dismissed concerns about possible bad apples among the Juárez refugees.

"The city of El Paso has federal security agencies like the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, the Fort Bliss military base, the sheriff's office and the police department. I'm sure that these institutions are investigating the legal records of all of us Mexicans who want to invest here. We only want to work and make progress," he said.

But the lack of confidence persists, since many in El Paso feel that sooner or later the violence affecting Mexico could expand north of the border.

"Nobody knows what problems are coming with (the businessmen), and there is the possibility that at some point the cartels operating in Juárez will dare to commit a crime in our territory," said an activist who asked that his name not be revealed.

But other residents of El Paso see the presence of the Mexican businessmen as positive since they feel that diversity in the business sector benefits the local economy.

"I believe that honest competition is favorable for everyone, especially for the public, since they have more alternatives to satisfy their needs. As long as these businessmen comply with the legal regulations of this country, then they'll be welcome," says prominent restaurateur Iván Torres.

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