A Mexican Cobbler in San Diego Reads Me the Riot Act

"Never give them any money, never. If you do, you are part of the problem."

These were the words that came out of the mouth of a visibly agitated cobbler in San Diego yesterday when I relayed to him the story of my recent encounter with corrupt Mexican police. A story I had published here only a few days ago.

"If they ask you to follow them to the station, or go anywhere with them, you put your hands on the wheel, and you just say vamanos. (Most of the time) they will just tell you to get out here and let you go right there, and if they do follow through it is a 100 peso fine."

I happen to really like this particular cobbler (not that I know very many, or any other cobblers), but this guy (sad to say I actually do not know his name) is great. Warm smile, enganging personality with a slightly disturbed, self deprecating, sense of humor, and obviously a great love of shoes. I liked him from the very first moment I met him and have had a chance to spend just a few minutes with him on four seperate occassions now. As a Mexican national living and working in the United States, who owns real estate in Mexico (not too far from my home), his perspective on my own living situation has been interesting and helpful in equal measure.

After I left his shop I was definitely taken aback at his response. I began to question exactly what we had done during that stop. Could it be we really were in the wrong for so easily handing over the payoff money with basically no questions asked? Turns out my cobbler friend is not the only person with this particular opinion, and a quick Google search returns scads of people giving the same, or similar advice. Our own neighborhood homeowners association office has posted a small FAQ sheet which includes a long description of how to handle such encouters which very much follows the cobbler's line of thinking. In truth I have a lot of sympathy for that point of view and given my generally anti-authoritarian tendencies my natural inclination would (normally) be to respond exactly that way. However, the more and more I thought about it, and discussed the situation with my wife, the more convinced I became that we had done the right thing. Or, if not the right thing, at least the safest and most conservative thing for us in our situation at this particular time. Mostly it comes down to the future, and our desire to continue to live in Mexico for the long term. My wife may disagree but I had no concerns about our personal safety, but with permanent residency potentially on the line the stakes were just too high to take any risk at all in an encounter with law enforcement.

What if the particular policeman was having a particularly bad day that day and really took offense at our refusal to hand over the cash right then and there? What if he did have us follow him to the station, we paid our 100 peso fine, but some sort of permanent record is generated that we are unaware of? Fast forward to next year or two years from now and one or both of our residency applications are denied because of that. Now you may try and tell me that is impossible, systems don't exist, communication between layers of government does not happen like that, etc. and so on. But no matter what you tell me I will not fully believe you because I have seen the craziness and insanity that is the Mexican immigration first hand. I know that you can be blackballed at any point for any reason with no explanation given and no recourse. I would always question. If my knowledge of the Spanish language were more solid, and I were already a permanent resident or citizen, yes, I would probably take the chance and do as the cobbler and others suggest, but until such time, it is a risk I am not willing to take. Unfortunately, this equation is well know to the corrupt policemen and therefore why they continue to be successful in extorting persons for money in illegal actions like the one I described. The power dynamic is so skewed in favor of the police, and the stakes potentially so high, that the risks of any action other than paying the bribe are simply too high.