U.S. Citizen in Mexico’s Congress

Immigration activist Manuel de la Cruz, who swam across the Rio Grande 30 years ago and raised a family in Norwalk, has become the first U.S. citizen to hold a seat in Mexico’s Congress.

De la Cruz, who was elected on a slate to the Congress’ lower house Sunday, is one of six Mexican expatriates who sought legislative seats from homes north of the border. Their goal, they say, is to give political clout to the millions of Mexican immigrants who send regular financial aid to their home states.

“My top goal is to give immigrants a voice in this country,” De la Cruz, 53, said from his native state of Zacatecas. “Immigrants have a social, cultural and economic role in Mexico, but they have no political role.”

Another Southern Californian who ran for a seat in the 500-member Mexican Congress is former labor leader Jose Jacques “Pepe” Medina of Arcadia, who was still awaiting late returns.

De la Cruz said he hoped to pass laws that would allow Mexican nationals in the United States, who number at least 10 million, to vote in Mexico’s 2006 presidential election through absentee ballots.

He said he also hoped to create a new legislative electoral district that would represent Mexicans abroad.

Work for Home State

Operating from a Norwalk office, De la Cruz has worked for the Zacatecas state government for the last three years, traveling across the United States and organizing 250 hometown clubs.

The clubs raise funds through social events, and send the profits to the club members’ native towns for public works projects. The hundreds of thousands of dollars they send are matched in Mexico by local, state and federal funds. Immigrants from Zacatecas have created an aid network stronger than that for any other Mexican state.

“The people who most help have not received adequate recognition,” De la Cruz said. “I want to make the matching program smoother, more efficient and create incentives to bring more money in.”

De la Cruz said he also hoped to work on legislation that would protect Mexicans who return to Mexico as they travel through that country’s customs checkpoints and on highways, where they are often subjected to bribe-seekers and robbery.

De la Cruz was elected as part of a slate to serve in Congress’ lower house by the Revolutionary Democratic Party -- known by its Spanish acronym PRD -- under Mexico’s system of proportional representation.

Mexico’s political system is still unsure what to do when Mexicans living in the United States seek political office south of the border.

Carlos Navarro, an official of Mexico’s Federal Elections Institute, said Mexican law on that point is ambiguous and has never been tested in court. A bill that would recognize the right of dual nationals to hold elective office in Mexico languishes in a Mexican congressional committee.

Even De la Cruz said he has been waiting for someone to challenge him.

However, Jose Alberto Aguilar, assistant director of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s international relations department, said before the election that his party would not challenge De la Cruz’s right to sit in Congress.

Until now, the only U.S. resident ever known to win office in Mexico was West Los Angeles resident Eddie Varon Levy. His election three years ago was not challenged, although it was not as widely publicized as that of De la Cruz.

Unlike Varon, De la Cruz is a U.S. citizen, since 1997. He later obtained dual nationality, a designation similar but not equal to dual citizenship.

He said he came to the United States in the 1970s illegally, crossed the Rio Grande and later re-crossed in a car trunk. He has four grown children who live in Norwalk, and his wife expects to live with him in Mexico for at least part of each of his three years in office.

As an employee of Zacatecas state, De la Cruz’s efforts to increase the number of hometown clubs were applauded.

Praise and Criticism

“He is the best person to represent migrants. He really deserves it. He has been helping us for so long in the United States. I think he will do a great job because he really understand our needs,” said Erika Gonzalez, president of the Orange County Zacatecas Club.

He does have critics, however.

“Manuel de la Cruz is not a representative of the whole Mexican community,” said Gustavo Santiago, who heads a federation of 52 hometown clubs from Oaxaca state. “He was a government employee of one state.... I just wonder if he will represent everyone. I think Mexico’s political parties didn’t reach far enough to find real representatives of the migrant community. We really weren’t taken into account. In time, we will know what De la Cruz’s interests are.”

Meanwhile, Jacques, who is also running as a PRD candidate, said that political representation of Mexicans living in the U.S. was a long time in coming.

“We’re a binational culture in two languages, in two cultures, and we pay two taxes,” Jacques said. “That’s why we do have a right to run for office.”

Jacques ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies in 2000. Still, he said he and his like-minded colleagues are slowly inching toward their goal, despite years of stalling and legislative roadblocks in Mexico City.

“We’ll keep struggling for our rights,” he said.

Times staff writers Daniel Hernandez, Monte Morin and Richard Boudreaux contributed to this report.