Joe T. Hodo: The Migrants' Rights Movement Wants to Stop Me From Privatizing Mexico

An interview with the leader of Mexico's GUERO party in the newspaper Sin Embargo

By Dulce Olvera and Joe T. Hodo
Special to Narco News

April 10, 2017

This interview with Joe T. Hodo, the host of Narco News TV’s “El Joe T. Hodo Show”, originally appeared in the Mexican newspaper Sin Embargo. The following is a translation authorized by Mr. Hodo.

Texas oilman Joe T. Hodo has toured the country as part of his campaign to be the first gringo President of Mexico. He’s discovering that Mexicans are more organized than he thought, so he plans to buy them off with greenbacks. If a broad movement made up of people that Joe T. Hodo has met on his travels, like Mexico’s indigenous-community police force; a supermodel who fights for the rights of the Afro-Mexican community in Guerrero; and organizers of the migrant-support movement, including Father Alejandro Solalinde, all got together, “who knows what they could do,” Joe T. Hodo said with a note of concern in an interview.

Joe T. Hodo tries to recruit migrants for his Mexican fracking operations.

The Texas oilman is seeking to become, in his words, “the first gringo President of Mexico,” and is worried about “how well organized” certain sectors of the Mexican population are. He plans to buy them off, just like the country’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) does, he says, but for a better price: He wants to give them Apple computers. As for the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, the candidate for the GUERO party plans to stick to playing golf with the tycoon, while at the same time building a tunnel so that Central American migrants, after working for years without pay in his Mexican fracking business, can cross into the United States.

Eyeing the 2018 elections during his campaign tour, he also films his Internet TV program, “El Joe T. Hodo Show.” He sat down and spoke with the indigenous-community police; the current “Miss Guerrero,” Samantha Leyva; and also “Las Patronas,” a group of rural women in Veracruz who give free food to the migrants that pass their town atop the freight train known as “La Bestia.” Recently he spoke with social-justice advocate Father Alejandro Solalinde, whom Joe T. Hodo calls a “communist.”

“People like ‘Las Patronas,’ and that supermodel in Guerrero, and those damn community police, and that Catholic priest [Alejandro] Solalinde are all up to no good. And if they can all organize their communities and be so rude with me, then that means maybe we have to think of stronger measures to control this country. There are many more organized people in Mexico than I had thought, and that’s bad. My idea of the show was to tour the country so that people could get to know me, the man who will be their leader. But I don’t like what I’m seeing. If these people got together, who knows what they could do? It is of the utmost priority to buy off all the people of Mexico,” stressed businessman Joe T. Hodo in an interview with Sin Embargo.

This strategy, he acknowledges, is the same as that of the ruling party, The PRI, but now that oil prices are rising again, he has more resources than any other party to finance his race toward the presidency.

“I’M GONNA BUY VOTES WITH QUALITY BRIBES”

From somewhere in Morelos State, Mexico’s presidential candidate, Joe T. Hodo, spoke to us by telephone on the same day the press reported the PRI party gave away water-storage tanks with the state’s government logo stamped on them in Coahuila, another state that will hold elections for governor this year in June.

Sin Embargo: (SE) How’s the campaign going? The 2018 elections are getting close.

Joe T. Hodo: (JTH) Yeah, it’s chargin’ up fast like a bull. I’m gonna be honest, I’m having a challenge. As part of my campaign I’m doing a television show on the internet that’s called “El Joe T. Hodo Show” and what I’m seeing out there is that unfortunately Mexicans are more organized than I thought. That’s a nuisance. Anyway, I’m confident that my purchasing power will fix things in my favor. But it’ll be harder than I expected and that concerns me.

SE In Mexico State they’re already buying votes, how’s that coming along for you?

JTH Exactly. But if they buy votes with a thousand pesos, I’ll buy them with five thousand. I have deeper pockets.

SE But they’re giving away laptops and debit cards with three thousand pesos…

JTH I’ve heard that, but they don’t have direct access to the Apple brand like me. I’m gonna buy votes with quality bribes.

SE And do you think the citizens of the State of Mexico need that?

JTH Yes… Unless they act as pesky as some of the people I’ve found on the road, which is worrying me.

SE That’s right. First you went to Guerrero with the community police and then to Veracruz with “Las Patronas.” What are your intentions with them?

JTH Ugh, what a story. I’m not in favor of Donald Trump’s plan to stop migration to the U.S. I want to privatize it. It would be highly profitable now that all those Central Americans are making it to the border where the wall is gonna be built, because they’ll all be stuck there. In Coahuila there’s a lot of gas under the ground, and I’m an expert drilling for gas using fracking. My idea is to “borrow” the migrants and bring them to the fields where I have concessions from the Mexican Government to frack, and I can have all them Central American migrants working there two, five or 10 years. I obviously won’t pay them: To work for free for me is gonna be fabulous for them. Then I’ll reward them by sending them through my tunnel underneath Trump’s wall. It’s a win-win situation for everyone, especially me.

Migrant advocate Father Alejandro Solalinde, and Joe T. Hodo

First, I went to speak with [crusader for migrants’ rights] Father Solalinde and proposed the idea to him. I don’t know what God he prays to, but his words for me weren’t very polite. During the conversation about the migrants that go through Veracruz, he told me he feeds them. I told him maybe I could open franchises of the “restaurant” that Las Patronas has for migrants and put them all through the country along the train tracks, but Solalinde told me that “Las Patronas” charges nothing to the migrants for the food they give them. Not a penny! That’s dangerous, that’s why Mexico doesn’t progress. It’s flunking basic economics, and we don’t want to teach that to Mexican children. And those women chased me away. … If 25 farmer ladies, most of them with just a sixth grade education, can organize that well and feed the migrants every day without fail for free, then my campaign may be in danger. There’s nothing that will stop those women.

SE As a businessman, you say it’s crazy that these women don’t charge money for the food they give to migrants. How do they organize to get the money and give food?

Joe T. Hodo tries to take a bite of “Las Patronas”

JTH According to them, it comes from their own pockets and from other people. From foundations, churches and supermarkets. I mean, it’s not just them with that awful sense of kindness. There are people in other parts of the country. It’s gross. We have to fix it. Besides, they cook their food with the Mexican herb epazote, and that should be banned as well.

SE With zapote fruit?

JTH No, I didn’t say that. But now that you mention zapote fruit, I don’t feel comfortable with fruits that have colors that are different than what I’m used to.

And speaking of that, did y’all know there are black people in Mexico? I went to the State of Guerrero recently because the lady that works as my model, I mean assistant, is preggers, and the awful thing is that, since we’re in Mexico, I have to give her three months’ maternity leave; that’s unfair to me.

So anyway, I needed another model. I was in Guerrero State figuring out how to buy coastline along the Pacific because soon I’ll be building ports to haul minerals out of Mexico along with my Canadian friends, but that’s another story. People told me there was a supermodel nearby, Samantha Leyva, the current Miss Guerrero. I went to talk to her, and it turns out there are black people descended from slaves that are living in Guerrero. Who knew?

Samantha, who is also black, is even working to try and get constitutional recognition of Afro-Mexican people. That proves how bad things are. Even beauty queens, whose job is to be pretty and keep their mouths shut, are organizing their neighbors and causing trouble for me. If even supermodels are learning to organize, you can see we have our work cut out for us.

CHARGING 25 DOLLARS FOR CHECKED BAGS WHEN RIDING “THE BEAST”

Over five thousand agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were hired for border surveillance on the border between Mexico and the U.S. at the request of President Donald Trump. The routes for migrants trying to make it to the U.S. have become longer and the crossings more dangerous. Given the situation, the prices charged by “coyotes,” the migrant smugglers, have gone up. They charge anywhere from $5,000 to $12,000. But the flow of people looking for the American dream continues.

“If before there were six immigration officers watching our local stretch of border, now there are 22, divided into shifts,” Altagracia Tamayo Madueño, founder of the Coibina shelter for migrants in Mexicali, Baja California, told the EFE news agency.

A migrant explained that Central Americans have to flee their countries because of poverty, violence, and drug trafficking, but now their chances of achieving a better life have been diminished at the border due to extreme surveillance and the ambition of the “coyotes.”

SE Going back to the privatization of migration, you mentioned you wanted to take advantage of migrant labor to do business in Coahuila. The way that migrants travel from South to North through Mexico is by using the freight train known as “The Beast.” How will you improve that train?

JTH As of May 1st, everyone riding on top of “The Beast” gets to take on only one bag. If they want to bring another bag, they’ll have to pay $25. This has worked terrifically for the airlines. That’s what I’ll do for “The Beast,” and it’ll be great.

SE And you were saying “Las Patronas” kicked you out of their camp. Why?

JTH Well see, I have some maps of how to get to my fracking fields in the North of Mexico, where migrants can “volunteer” their labor for me. I thought it would be just great to stick that map in the food bags they give the migrants, so they could figure out how to get there. I started stuffing the flyers in the bags, but they didn’t let me. “Las Patronas” may seem sweet and gentle, but when you get them mad they give you this death look, I had to run until I fell, and when they lifted their pots and pans, I could see they were high caliber, and I knew they were serious.

SE And what did Father Solalinde tell you about migration?

JTH For starters, he said he would not vote for my party, GUERO, because some hippie thing he said about “Mexico should be governed by Mexicans.” That’s racism! I’ll sue him for violating my human rights and discriminating against me. He also mentioned the Holy Ghost and I asked, “Where did that ghost come from?” And if his immigration papers were in order. He couldn’t give me a clear answer. I talked to my friends at Mexican Immigration and they’re already in the process of deporting the Holy Ghost from Mexico.

“WHY BOTHER WITH CHARITY?”

Joe T. Hodo is running for the Presidency of Mexico on the ticket of his party GUERO. He sees no real opponents to stop him. For him, everything can be solved with greenbacks.

SE You mentioned your party, GURO. In Mexico, the PRD is already wearing out and fracturing. Will GUERO absorb it?

JTH Many politicians in Mexico are glad to work for the highest bidder. We’re negotiating. I can’t give names. A lot of the people in the PRD and other political parties are migrants too, because they migrate from party to party. I’m going to welcome those migrants with open arms. I’ll give them shelter in the GUERO party. They will be very well received. I’ll give them a quality bribe.

SE And what will you do with the other competitors for 2018? The PRD is no longer a problem.

JTH The PRD is not a problem. [The president of Morena, Andrés Manuel] López Obrador can be taken out of the race with just a few silly commercials showing he’s a “danger” to Mexico, and people will be frightened and won’t vote for him. Suckers. Margarita Zavala [possible candidate for the PAN], well, I’m not a Trump fan, but we’ve already seen that in the Americas, strong men defeat women every time. And the PRI, their only strategy is to buy votes, and I can pay more than they can. That means no party can beat me, I have vanquished them all in every possible way.

SE You say you don’t like Trump, but he’ll be your fellow head of state when you become President of Mexico. What will you do with him?

JTH Play golf, of course, what else?

SE So you have not formed an alliance with him, or Putin?

JTH Not yet. Look, I invented the concept of fake news before Trump. I’ll sue him for copyright theft. I own that concept.

SE Regarding your ties to the energy sector, other brands besides Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) are now allowed to do business here. Will Joe bring his own gas station to Mexico?

Joe announces plans to privatize Mexico’s oil reserves

JTH Yes, it’ll be called “Hoder,” because the slogan will be “Joe Hodo, tu coche mejor” (I screw your car better). Oil runs in my blood. I know how to manage gas stations better than Pemex. I come from a family of oilmen in Dallas.

SE You’re a businessman and you want to be President of Mexico. It is said that in Mexico, businessmen have more power than the government itself. Will you continue giving benefits to these big companies, by for example, not making them pay taxes proportional to their incomes, or how will you ally with them?

JTH Yes, absolutely. The only bad thing right now is that there are a lot of companies in this country that have to play tricks like doing telethons on TV for charity to get out of paying taxes. That’s a lot of hassle for them. Why go through all the motions? We already know it’s a trick and a smoke screen. Let’s cut to the chase and be honest, and just say they won’t pay taxes, period. That’s the tax reform I plan to pass.

SE How will you control the organized people you mention aside from buying them off?

JTH For many years, my friends in the corporations had a tight control on information. Companies like General Electric and Disney own a lot of media, and so information that was bad for business got hushed up. Now Trump has ruined this system, because everyone hates him and talks bad about him, and so there’s this idea now that journalists are supposed to speak out against the powerful.

Dulce, would you like to be in a partnership with the GUERO party? How would you like to have a spa in your newspaper’s building with a jacuzzi, a hibachi grill, handsome young people for all to enjoy, a free bar, a swimming pool, and pilates classes for free? Sounds good? I can do that and more for you.

SE It sounds good Joe. We would have to talk about it off the record. But I’m up for it.

JTH Have you ever tried a chayote martini? My friends in Texas won’t get that joke, but I know you do.

SE What will you do if some journalists don’t accept these little gifts? Will you come up with tougher measures?

JTH I’m not in favor of direct violence towards journalists. I just think they should be deprived of all income. Let them starve. The media that join with me will have a rich and fruitful career writing stories that will be so good it will seem like fiction. Can I do business with the editorial board of Sin Embargo? Maybe we’ll need to fix the name of the newspaper. If they don’t want to work with me, we’ll change it to just plain “Embargo” because I’ll have to send agents to take possession of their property. And if they do want to work with me, then we’ll change the name of the newspaper to something better, like “Petroleum Today.” I have a great reason why ya’ll should do what I say. I’ll give you a clue: My reasons are all green and have the face of gringo presidents on them…

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