Former President Vicente Fox and his family, who decided to live in Mexico, are dedicated to attending to the tasks that arise from the "Fox Center" in Guanajuato, as well as the "Fundación Vamos México" and "Crisma."
By Gardenia Mendoza | La Opinion | JUN. 27, 2022 | Photo by Andres Tapia
MEXICO - The auditorium is a reverberation of students. The corridors, the dining rooms, the living rooms. They are the children of Mexicans from several universities born in the United States or taken to this country from a very young age. They visit the Fox Center with the aim of looking for a different way out from their parents.
"What do we do with migration?" they ask.
It is no coincidence that the young people arrive at the Fox Center, a former hacienda, a non-governmental organization's work center and hotel located in San Cristóbal del Rincón, Guanajuato, just over 300 kilometers north of Mexico City.
It is the place where former President Vicente Fox was born and he dedicates his life to this project after he left Los Pinos in 2006 and put an end to the seven-decade hegemony of a single party: the Institutional Revolutionary (PRI).
Young visitors from the United States are there for an agreement between the University of California San Diego (UCSD), former President of Mexico Vicente Fox and his wife Marta Sahagún. They seek to train binational leaders among many other activities related to the empowerment of vulnerable groups.
They will soon inaugurate a UCSD study center that will offer courses and classes in Spanish online from the campus library. The library of the Fox Center was built by the architect and professor Francisco Serrano, who in turn is the author of the Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City...
All this, visitors learn through guided tours or through their walk in the corridors and enclosures, where the former president and his wife appear omnipresent. They are looked at in photographs, in paintings, in black and white color; in person, in the offices, the courtyards, the auditorium.
Marta hugging Vicente and he embraced Sahagún. Holding hands in gardens, in front of the cameras at official events, with the family, elegant, casual, on horseback...
"Once we finish the Presidency of the Republic, we come to this place to work on what we like: the education of people who have nothing and deserve everything," says Marta Sahagún in an interview with this newspaper about the life of the Foxes (or the presidential couple as they called themselves) after leaving power.
"It's the only house we have, it's Vicente's house 45 years ago and here we have a lot of commitment, a lot of passion and here we are going to continue," he says. "Here we are going to die."
President Vicente Fox and his family are, along with Felipe Calderón, a president who did not go to another country when he left office. But, unlike the latter, who declares his residence in Mexico City, the former resides in this Mexican province beset by organized crime in the most violent state of recent times: Guanajuato.
Violence is ravelling with many states of the country, but only six account for 48% of intentional homicides in the country, according to official figures. Led by Guanajuato, Michoacán and the State of Mexico; Baja California, Jalisco and Sonora.
From San Cristobal del Rincón and its surroundings there are reports of murders of women in their homes, men in shredders, arrests of cartel square chiefs, operations, extortion from businesses, tortilla shops, taxi drivers...
Either way, the Foxes get up to work there. They have three projects. In addition to the Fox Center, the Vamos México Foundation, for education, and Crisma, for low-income and educated children.
At the Fox Center they have courses and workshops, the President for a Day program, the Presidential Museum of those times when the founder rubbed shoulders with the bosses on duty and even an orchestra made up of low-income children.
At the same time, the former president has some companies that he manages with the support of Cristina, one of his daughters who is looked at listening to the proposals of the children of migrants. She was a visible face at the time of her father's mandate; now, she is behind the scenes, single and in business. "We have Paradise, a store in León and San Miguel Allende. Blueberries, a tractor distributor and we also manage the Hacienda San Cristobal hotel. With what is collected from the lodging, the foundations are fed," he says.
"Our normal life because we never stop having our feet on the ground."
The presidents
It's 10:00 in the morning. American students visiting the Fox Center have already had breakfast and arrived in shirts and cocktail dresses in the auditorium to listen to the keynote speech. The host will tell you why leadership and migration converge.
"Leadership allows people to achieve almost the impossible," he warns. "But there can be no leadership without compassion and we have to understand that."
Compassion echoes. Those who are present know that compassion for their country of origin is key in these times. That's why they are looking for formulas to team up with their peers here although away across the border.
It's 10:00 in the morning. American students visiting the Fox Center have already had breakfast and arrived in shirts and cocktail dresses in the auditorium to listen to the keynote speech. The host will tell you why leadership and migration converge.
"Leadership allows people to achieve almost the impossible," he warns. "But there can be no leadership without compassion and we have to understand that."
Compassion echoes. Those who are present know that compassion for their country of origin is key in these times. That's why they are looking for formulas to team up with their peers here although away across the border.
In one of the corridors of the former hacienda, Laura Enríquez, a professor at the University of California Irving, is clear that rapprochement between them is only possible to the extent that travel can be financed. "It's very expensive and when we can come it's usually to see the families," he warns. "But we want to come more to work together with people here."
The debate in the future while the host is in the present. In an interview with this newspaper at one of its glass wall offices located at the back of the Fox Center, it is clear that it is more than two decades away from the glory of power and other scandals that involved its stepchildren.
The Bibriesca Sahagún brothers, Marta's children, were investigated for deficiencies in house construction, irregularities in land acquisitions and influence peddling in contracts of the company Oceanografía, of which they were partners. However, the complaints did not proceed in the then Office of the Attorney General of the Republic.
Fox is now closer to two topics in which he was most successful in his administration: migration and security.
It was he who first supported the political rights of migrants and resolved to compensate temporary workers of the Bracero program defrauded decades ago by PRI governments, among other actions.
On the issue of security, official statistics reveal that he delivered the best accounts of the last former presidents: with Carlos Salinas, 76,767 homicides were recorded; with Ernesto Zedillo, 80,671; With Vicente Fox, 60,280; with Felipe Calderón, 120,463 and with Enrique Peña, 156,066.
Until last May, the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador recorded 123,435 murders and thus already exceeded the deaths recorded in the administration of PAN member Felipe Calderón, who initiated the war against organized crime.
During the first half of 2022, AMLO has 412 massacres; this week two priests were riddled and the pope condemned the crime. Extortion was sophisticated and today it controls everything from the sale of chicken in Chilpancingo, to that of lemon and avocado in Michoacán.
Faced with such a situation, Vicente Fox has been a retired politician in fact, but not in words. Through the social network Twitter has been a harsh critic and even more so of the current administration whom it considers "subordinate" to American policies.
"I don't understand why the U.S. gives AMLO the go-ahead"
- What has become of Vicente Fox's daily life after the presidency?
- Well, everyday life has been going on for 18 years. In 2006, Marta and I continued with a new life, related to service to others, working for others and creating three foundations.
- Why does the issue of migration follow? Do you still think that the exit is temporary work?
- Yes, but a very big deal has to be made. We know that the United States. The United States determines its opening of migration depending on the economy, when it grows more, opportunities open up, it needs migrants, when its economy becomes small, things work the other way around.
- But we need a regulatory framework, a public policy that the United States. The United States has and is not complete. That's how it was for many years. Then Trump came in and gave him a 180-degree turn, Biden tries to improve it but he has not been able to and Mexico does not have an integrated policy, there is no policy with López Obrador, it only corresponds to American interests, he submits and does what he is told in the North, now Biden and Kerry.
- What is needed is a Canada-style agreement, but between Mexico and the United States? USA?
- That was the intention of President Bush and your servant. We got a bill and a regulatory framework that gave migrants broad opportunities to work in the United States with a kind of conditional quota. If there was economic growth, they would give more visas and less than 3 or 4% would be less. The United States needs migrants to do the tasks that they cannot fill.
- Are temporary work agreements very superficial?
- There is no specific position, it varies according to the US administration. U.S. in turn and is not regulated by law or by Congress.
- What does it take?
- A leader in front of the congress who takes the bull by the horns.
- How can you put pressure on Mexico?
- He will not do it because there is a president absent from the issue, he does nothing to defend Mexicans abroad, he does nothing to order the southern border and he does nothing to take care of migrants who are in Mexico, he only uses the club of the American empire to force migrants to stay at home. What is needed is a regional plan that covers more of a country in a regional development that generates jobs and opportunities.
- But as long as they pay better salaries in the United States. Everyone will want to leave anyway, is it a lost fight?
- Yes, it is lost because people need those salaries and the border with Trump was closed, not even the issue with young people in DACA has prospered, Biden has not been able to break that barrier and from Mexico nothing will change as long as we do not have a president to stand up, one-on-one with the United States. USA.
- What do you think of insecurity in Mexico?
- It is an absolute and total disaster, a president who is afraid of drug lords or who is frankly associated with them and with the posters because he greets them, takes off his hat, applauds them and security is not taken care of. The Mexican Army is a shame that follows the instruction not to arrest criminals and is losing in image and respect for following López Obrador's instructions. The visible issue of security is disastrous with organized crime, but the invisible, what is not put on the table is much worse: theft, assault, transport trucks, public transport, blackmail to businesses. There is an absent and failed government in security and I don't understand why the United States gives it the go-ahead because the United States. The United States is the most affected by the fact that these drug lords are not arrested.
- The current president says that his predecessors did nothing for security either.
- He's crazy and lying: Calderón put on his pants, I didn't have to use violence, the best safety index is mine, the only time when crime went down. With Calderón there was no effectiveness, but there were actions: he had the drug traffickers on the defensive. Peña contained them and AMLO gave free passage and gave franchise to the criminals. They control the municipal president, the governor and the businesses.
- Are you controlling the economy?
- The economy, gasoline theft and the government do nothing.
- Something you want to add to this interview
- That the United States. The United States must continue to be the world leader, the one who guides the way to democracy because there are storms worldwide. In Latin America there is a shift towards demagogy and there will be no employment or solutions and only promises that are not fulfilled with these demagogue and populist leaders.
