The well-heeled Mexicanos de Tijuana flee to Chula Vista as a safe haven

[doombug]

You might find this interestin', Ray, since this is in your neck of the woods. Jon and Ken are currently discussing this story on the radio as I type:

Wealthy Mexicans flee Tijuana for U.S. to escape kidnappings

By Elliot Spagat
ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:29 a.m. January 9, 2007

CHULA VISTA – A border city that long has watched illegal immigrants pass through on their way north is increasingly welcoming a very different kind of arrival: well-heeled Mexicans seeking refuge from kidnappings and other violence.

Francisco Villegas Peralta is among the new residents of Chula Vista, where new boulevards front gated communities and trendy malls.

He knew he had to leave Tijuana, Mexico, one July morning, when three SUVs trailed him from his house through Tijuana's streets in an apparent kidnapping attempt. He escaped – and moved soon after with his wife and three children to a one-story house in one of this city's more modest neighborhoods.

“I feel a sense of relief as soon as I cross the border” into the U.S., his wife, Lorena Flores, said in the living room of their sparsely furnished home, which the couple bought for $585,000. She rarely visits Tijuana; Villegas drives there daily to check on his five restaurants.

The chaos in Tijuana has gotten so bad that last week Mexico's new president sent troops to disarm local police – some officers are suspected of being in cahoots with drug trafficking syndicates.

Villegas, who heads the Tijuana chapter of Mexico's restaurant association, has counted about 200 people – just among restaurateurs and their families – who have left the border city of 1.3 million in the last two years. It is difficult to gauge exactly how many Mexicans have fled Tijuana, but a drive through Chula Vista shows that Villegas has plenty of company.

A Starbucks-style Mexican coffee chain with about 40 stores in Tijuana opened its first U.S. store here in November. A private elementary school that caters to Mexicans filled up six months before classes began.

The city has nearly doubled to 230,000 people since 1990 as new housing tracts have sprawled from an aging downtown over plains and rolling hills. City Hall is sandwiched between San Diego's sky scrapers and the Mexican border, eight miles in either direction.

Juan Jose Plascencia, whose family owns upscale Tijuana restaurants, moved to Chula Vista two years ago and opened his first U.S. restaurant in May.

“People feel at home here,” said Plascencia, ticking off the names of other new restaurants whose owners have left Tijuana. “First, people rent. If they like it, they buy.”

[Continued in the link below]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20070109-1129-wst-mexicanhaven.html

If the latter sentiments were the Good, then contrast them with these of the Bad and the Ugly. After skipping over to J & K's site, I found this awaiting:

America to Blame for Illegal Aliens Turning to Crime, Latino Advocate Says

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Fox News

Americans are to blame for some illegal immigrants becoming serial crooks because "they're picking up those bad habits of cheating, of drinking and drugs," according to an official of a prominent Latino advocacy organization.

Jesse Diaz of the League of United Latin American Citizens made the claim on Monday during an interview on Dallas talk radio station KRLD, and then repeated them on Tuesday to WFAA-TV.

Diaz was discussing a federal study of 100 illegal immigrants with arrest records. The study found they had each been arrested and released six times on average.

When questioned about how living in America is responsible for them becoming serial lawbreakers, Diaz stood by his remarks, arguing that conservative Catholic values learned in Mexico start to break down once immigrants are in the U.S.

Diaz pointed to an increase in teen pregnancies and broken homes in the immigrant community and also blasted the wearing of baggy pants.

Diaz's remarks caused shock in the Dallas area, immediately lighting up KRLD phone lines.

[Continued in either of the links below]

http://www.johnandkenshow.com/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242902,00.html

A hopeless ingrate.

[Ray]

Francisco Villegas Peralta is among the new residents of Chula Vista, where new boulevards front gated communities and trendy malls.

There is only one mall in Chula Vista and it's far from "trendy". There is a new shopping center in East Chula Vista, but it isn't a mall and it certainly isn't what I would call "trendy".

Most of these guys living on the U.S. side and running businesses in T.J. are U.S. citizens, not Mexicans. A lot of Mexican business owners have border crossing cards for shopping, etc., but they aren't supposed to use them to live here.

What irks me is the Chicanos (U.S. citizens) who live in T.J. because it's much cheaper, then send their kids across the border every day to attend the public schools here. This is big and there are even jitneys that shuttle students between the border and the local schools. The problem is that these bozos aren't legally eligible to attend our public schools because they aren't residents and they don't pay property taxes which provide much of the public school funding. They can pay non-resident tuition (a few thousand per year?) but instead they lie on their records and claim phony resident addresses in the school district. The schools won't do anything about it because they are all run by a bunch of leftist whackos.

A major part of the local school enrollment is either Mexican residents lying about their residence or ILLEGAL ALIENS leeching off of us taxpayers. I say throw them all out...NOW!

Now let's hear from the bleeding-heart open-border-whackos on the left... (Only local property tax payers need respond)   

[Red Clay]

I was thinking the same thing, Ray. If Chula Vista is trendy/upscale, it's happened since the last time I drove through.

Liberal latino wackos trying to blame drinking/crime among illegals on us is like fat Americans trying to blame obesity on Mexican "pan dulce" brought up by the illegals.