L.A. Man Shows Clout of Mexican Expatriates

Quick with a joke and passionate about public policy on both sides of the border, West Los Angeles businessman Eddie Varon Levy embodies the growing influence that Mexican expatriates have on the political scene back home.

After a historic election last week that ended the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Varon--a 42-year-old U.S. resident and Mexican citizen--is expected to be confirmed this week as the first person living abroad to be named to the Mexican Congress.

A politically agile son of a Mexico City jeweler, Varon has a legal consulting business in Los Angeles. He said his life has already become more hectic.

“Man, I feel jet-lagged,” he said late last week, in town from the elections to visit his wife and twin 5-year-old boys before heading back to Mexico the next day.

Appointed to his seat by the PRI under the country’s system of proportional representation, he plans to commute to a second home in Mexico. He wants to be a voice for Mexican expatriates throughout the U.S., as well as for residents in and around Mexico City, the region from which he was officially selected.

“This is going to be hard work,” Varon said. “But it’ll be rewarding because I’ll be working for the people.”

However, many Mexican expatriates in Los Angeles have never heard of Varon and others are scratching their heads in disbelief over the PRI candidate’s selection.

They wonder: Isn’t the PRI the same force famous for keeping Mexico’s political system closed all these years? And aren’t the party’s leaders resented by millions of Mexican here who came to the United States to escape dire economic conditions down south?

“The situation is ironic, to say the least,” said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego. That is especially so given that Varon promises to pursue several issues considered contrary to the traditional PRI platform.

One Los Angeles critic of Varon’s selection, Manuel Gutierrez, said: “He may be a nice guy, but he is not my representative.” Gutierrez, a PRI supporter, helps run a hometown association of Mexican expatriates from Sinaloa state.

Jose Jacques Medina, a Los Angeles union activist, said Varon “really hasn’t done any work with the community here in the U.S.” Medina, a Mexican citizen, was on the list for a slot in the Mexican Congress for the Democratic Revolution Party, but did not make it.

Some people question Varon’s credibility and say he has been known to overstate his credentials. Varon has a tendency, for instance, to tell new acquaintances and reporters that he is an attorney, when he in fact is not licensed to practice law in the United States or Mexico.

Pressed on the point by The Times, Varon said last week he once studied law in Mexico City and has represented clients in Mexican administrative law cases that do not require a license or a law degree--something Varon also does not have.

He is nonetheless considered an expert on Mexican business and immigration law by some U.S. attorneys, as well as an effective cross-border liaison by political figures here.

Varon, who came to the United States when he was about 20, holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cal State Long Beach and has done graduate work there in political science.

Working mostly out of his West L.A. apartment, Varon said he provides legal counseling for lawyers with Mexican clients facing immigration problems, or hoping to establish a business in the U.S. He also has an office in Mexico City that provides similar services for U.S. visitors, he said.

“He’s very well-connected in Mexico,” said Fernando Oaxaca, a Los Angeles business consultant who has visited Mexico with Varon and Republican Party officials. Among Varon’s influential political friends below the border is the former Mexican consul general of Los Angeles, Jose Angel Pescador Osuna.

With his new post, Varon can open the political door for Mexican expatriates in what experts believe is a new day for U.S.-Mexico relations.

Absentee Voting From the U.S.

Along with some members of both opposition parties, Varon seeks a law allowing Mexican nationals living abroad to vote in Mexican national elections through absentee ballots, something experts say would further weaken the PRI.

For that reason, many figured that the first Mexican expatriate to win a seat in Congress would come from the PRI opposition, either the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) or the conservative National Action Party (PAN)--whose candidate, Vicente Fox, won the presidency last week. Both opposition parties have been pushing for such legislation, but PRI members killed such a bill last year.

Varon was not elected, but rather was selected to serve in Congress’ lower house by his political party under Mexico’s system of proportional representation.

Of the 500 seats in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies, 300 representatives were elected directly. Varon will take one of 200 slots that were divided among the parties according to the percentage of votes each party got in five multistate districts. The PRI ranked Varon No. 5 on its candidate slate for the Mexico City region, and the party ended up securing about a dozen Chamber of Deputies seats in that region.

Varon sees his new post as evidence that the PRI “is serious about Mexicans abroad,” he said. “They’re saying: ‘Let’s face reality. We lost the election. We accept it. . . . Now, we have to re-create ourselves and bring the party back to the state where it once was.’ ”

The fact that Mexicans in the United States send about $8 billion home every year is a big reason expatriates are courted, Varon said.

A high-ranking PRI official said the party supports Varon’s agenda. It is behind his aims of using his office to represent the interests of Mexican immigrants in the United States, said Javier Trevino, the PRI’s head of international relations.

Such backing is testament to the new political viability that Mexican expatriates enjoy in Mexico. Reforms passed in 1996 allowing expatriates to vote in Mexican elections make the 7 million to 10 million Mexicans in the U.S. a potentially significant constituency.

It is something Varon said he and other U.S.-based Mexican professionals affiliated with the PRI, PAN and PRD have been trying to exploit for years.

Their efforts went into high gear last year after expatriates successfully lobbied against a Mexican law requiring owners of U.S.-registered cars to leave refundable deposits of up to $800 before crossing the border.

Several expatriate business groups with members who travel frequently across the border threatened to boycott Mexican products if Mexico did not soften the measure, which it did.

Hoping to use their buying power as leverage, Varon and others formed a lobbying group in February called the International Coalition for Mexicans Abroad.

The organization is composed of hundreds of expatriates from around the country.

The boycott “proved to us that we [expatriates] are a strong and powerful force to the Mexican economy,” said Carlos Olamendi, a PAN supporter from Laguna Niguel who helped Varon start the coalition. “We wanted to do the same thing with Mexican politics.”

The goal of having added clout in Mexican politics appears close, Varon said, a prospect that both excites and intimidates him.

As a political pioneer, “I have a big weight on my shoulders; I realize that,” he said. “It’s a new world for us. Only time will tell how I do.”

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Olivo reported from Los Angeles, Kraul from Mexico City.