Mexican president’s relatives in U.S.

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Mexican President Felipe Calderon arrived in Sacramento today. Last week, The Times conducted an interview with Calderon in Mexico City, in his offices in the official residence, Los Pinos. In that interview, we asked him about the relatives he is said to have living in the United States.

Calderon referred to these relatives in remarks he made during the 2006 election campaign, and again at a 2007 summit with President Bush. He suggested the relatives were farmworkers, but his office declined to offer details. We sent a reporter to Calderon’s home state, Michoacan, in March 2007 to see if we could find anything out about these U.S. relatives. We struck out.

What follows is a transcript (translated into English, with the Spanish following) of the part of the interview in which Calderon talks about his relatives living in the United States.

Question: You mentioned once that you had family in the United States, with different legal statuses. When you go to the United States, do you visit them? Do you communicate with them?

Calderon: The truth is no, generally I know about them through family stories. We miss them a lot. Over there in California, for example, I have a cousin, Lourdes Madrigal: she’s already, in addition to being married to an American, in a legal situation. I have cousins and relatives in various states of the United States. I don’t know what the migratory status of all of them is, but I do aspire that one day they can be reunified with their relatives. It seems to me very sad that they can’t see their parents. I would hope, I repeat, that Mexico generates [jobs] that would allow everyone to have a dignified job here, and that’s what I’m working for.

Question: There are many Mexicans in that position. It’s very dramatic, very sad, to meet someone who hasn’t seen their relatives in five or 10 years.

Calderon: In fact, some of them have parents, or a few of them do, who have died without their being able to see them again. In other cases, they have children [they haven’t been able to see]. In the end, these are situations that are very sad in a human sense; besides that, I know that they are people who are contributing to American society, who are good citizens, who behave well, who work.

The interview in Spanish:

Pregunta: Usted mencionó en algún momento que tenía familiares en Estados Unidos, en diferentes estados legales. Usted los visita cuando va a Estados Uniods? Tiene comunicación con ellos?

Calderon: La verdad no, generalmente sé de ellos por las historias de familiares. Los extrañamos mucho. Allá en California, por ejemplo, una prima que es Lourdes Madrigal: que ya es, además está casada con un americano, en fin, en una situación legal. Tengo primos y parientes en varios estados de la Unión Americana. No sé cual sea su situación migratoria de todos, pero sí aspiro a que un día se puedan reunificar con sus familias. Me parece muy triste que no puedan ver a sus padres. Yo quisiera, insisto, que México generara y permitiera que cada quien pudiera tener un trabajo digno aquí y para eso estoy trabajando.

Pregunta: Pues hay miles de mexicanos que están en esa posición, es algo muy dramático, muy triste, encontrarse con gente que no ha visto a sus familiares desde hace cinco, diez años.

Calderon: De hecho, algunos de ellos sus padres, o unos cuantos, han muerto sin que pudieran verlos nuevamente. En otros casos tienen hijos. En fin, son situaciones humanamente muy tristes: a parte, yo sé que son gente que están aportando a la sociedad norteamericana, que son buenos ciudadanos, que tienen un buen comportamiento, que trabajan.

-- Hector Tobar in Mexico City