Ernesto Enriquez Corralejo lives in a dilapidated home in Fort Hancock, Texas, with no water, gas or electricity.\u00a0 But that\u2019s better conditions, he says, than in his hometown of El Porvenir, Mexico, where drug cartels continue to terrorize residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bad, real bad, sir,\u201d Correlejo, 46, told FoxNews.com. \u201cIt\u2019s not safe to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corralejo, who came to the U.S. at age 4 with his family, said he knows of at least 20 people who have been killed by drug cartels for either not cooperating in the drug trade or fort not settling marijuana or cocaine debts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t got money to pay them back, they\u2019re going to get you,\u201d he said. \u201cThese people are being killed for no reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corralejo \u2013 clad in a dirty green sweatshirt and heavily weathered pants \u2013 said he has not worked in 10 years, unable to find a job in industries like construction, farming and manufacturing. His silver beard and hair are unkempt, and most of his upper teeth are missing.<\/p>\n
Corralejo is able to survive, he says, with help from his older brother and by doing odd jobs in the Texas town of roughly 1,700 residents. He looks over the border, just a stone\u2019s throw away, with equal parts of disgust and sorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my friends, man, all my friends have been killed,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd no one knows really why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corralejo\u2019s rundown home is not far from Fort Hancock High School, where, according to one secretary, officials are preparing for more students as families in Mexico send their children to live with relatives on the U.S. side of the border.<\/p>\n
For Corralejo, who said he frequently hears gunfire pulsating through the Mexican town after sundown, the choice is clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will be safer here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ernesto Enriquez Corralejo lives in a dilapidated home in Fort Hancock, Texas, with no water, gas or electricity.\u00a0 But that\u2019s better conditions, he says, than in his hometown of El Porvenir, Mexico, where drug cartels continue to terrorize residents. \u201cIt\u2019s bad, real bad, sir,\u201d Correlejo, 46, told FoxNews.com. \u201cIt\u2019s not safe to be there.\u201d Corralejo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6594,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6594"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}