In the interview, Rosa Guzmán Ortiz acknowledges two very important things. The first is that she is a US citizen by virtue of naturalization. As a resident alien who has gone through the process of acquiring the proper documents to be in the United States there have been countless times that I have felt like a second-class human being because as a Mexican citizen it was assumed that I must be up to no good by some of the US officials that I encountered.
Many times the process has been so unpleasant that I have abandoned it, only to start again or I have asked myself why bother to go through the process at all. Even today, as a resident alien, I still feel like a second-class human being in certain situations. In an intellectual level I understand that the process must be somewhat burdensome in order to ensure the security of the nation. I get that.
However, many times it seems to me that the process is heavily skewed towards those with money. Yes, I know that money makes the world go round and round but it still remains unfair. I am lucky because I am educated and have a few resources that I can rely on.
But there are many Mexicans who only want an opportunity to provide for their families but do not have the education or the resources to go through the process. I often wonder how they must feel. For me the process is burdensome and somewhat tiring but for them it must be extremely intimidating.
Imagine how they feel about the daughter of a self-admitted drug dealer being able to live and work in the United States unimpeded.
This leads us to the second point she made in the interview. She is an entrepreneur by virtue of her father’s money.
As a small business owner I have always struggled to have enough money to grow my business. As a matter of fact, I often equate small business owners as always chasing the dollar. When I sold computers I was approached by individuals with dubious computer purchase schemes that I instinctively knew were money laundering scams.
No one offers to pay you for 100 computers and expects only 5 delivered and a refund of 60% of the money paid upfront for 100 computers. Of course, it was to be a cash payment. I politely declined arguing that my business was too small to handle such a large quantity of cash. The truth is that I saw it for what it was and I dissuaded further approaches by pretending to be dumb.
I often dream about what I could do with my small business if I had $100,000, half a million or even one million dollars.
The point is that building a business requires upfront money. When you use money from a drug dealer is that not money laundering? There is no such thing as non-illicit money when it involves drug dealers. The question then becomes, how is it that Chapo’s eldest daughter is allowed to be in the United States and operate businesses?
Many in the United States routinely blame Mexican corruption as the reason drugs enter the United States. Very few bother to look at the roles the United States plays in facilitating the money that allows those drugs to enter the United States.
How is Chapo’s daughter situation not US corruption?