Americans in Baja Cling to Homes, Hope

Two hundred U.S. residents ordered off their Baja California beachfront property last month have dodged one bullet and remain in their homes, but another round might be coming their way.

Last month, the Mexican federal Agrarian Reform Ministry in charge of the controversial eviction order opted not to send police across a sand barricade to enforce it. But a court decision is expected shortly that could reinstate the eviction order and put more teeth in it by making a Baja California federal judge responsible for its execution.

A spokesman at the Agrarian Reform Ministry in Mexico City said Friday that a federal district court there is also considering whether residents should be compensated for the value of their property if they are forced to abandon it. Mexican legal sources until now had discounted any chance of reimbursement.

“Everybody has now kind of gone into a calmer mode,” said Yuma, Ariz., retiree Alex Sanchez, one of the residents on Punta Banda, a scenic peninsula 15 miles south of Ensenada and about 85 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. “We know we aren’t out of the woods, but at least we don’t have anyone breathing down our necks.”

Mexican officials tried to carry out the initial eviction order between Oct. 8 and 11, but were kept off the property by a sand barricade erected by the Ejido Coronel Esteban Cantu, the peasant community that has controlled the beachfront acreage since 1973.

Since taking possession of the land, the ejido has leased lots there, mostly to Southern California residents and retirees who then built houses ranging in value from $50,000 to $1 million. The ejido also sold or leased land to an Ensenada developer who built the Baja Beach and Tennis Club hotel and an adjoining subdivision.

The ejido and the residents have defied the formal eviction notice, issued by Mexican courts last summer after the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the ejido’s possession of the land was invalid and that the pre-1973 owners should retake control. Those owners have been trying to reclaim the land ever since the ejido was formed.

The formation of ejidos, or cooperatives, has been a means of land redistribution since the 1910 Mexican revolution. But many ejidos have come under legal challenge in recent years, creating enormous legal problems for U.S. residents who have bought or leased lots in Mexico.

Punta Banda residents admit they are confused by the legal issues, but they remain hopeful they will be allowed to stay. Some say a recent spate of bad publicity for Baja California will somehow result in their getting a break.

Residents say that Baja tourism has declined noticeably with the widely publicized eviction squabble, a recent wave of violent crime, a new rule requiring $800 deposits on U.S. vehicles in Mexico, and recent traffic accidents in which injured Americans have had difficulty returning to the United States for treatment.

“Everyone is confident that something reasonable will be worked out because of all the bad publicity. Mexico doesn’t want to shoot itself in the foot over this,” said Grant Hoel, 78, a Punta Banda retiree from San Juan Capistrano.

But Mireya Sandez, a Tijuana attorney representing several of the seven pre-1973 landowners trying to retake the property, was adamant Friday that the Agrarian Reform Ministry abrogated its responsibility in failing to carry out the eviction and that her clients are hopeful that the order will soon be reinstated.

Sandez dismissed the possibility that her clients will reimburse residents for their property. “The owners don’t have the obligation to reimburse anything,” she said.

About half a dozen residents have already abandoned and boarded up their property after stripping the interiors of anything of value, fearing imminent eviction, Hoel said. “They should have waited,” he said.