Student Mugged in Mexico

A sophomore in Leverett House said he was mugged by a group of men, probably involved in smuggling migrant workers, in a Mexican city near the American border.

Kyle A. De Beausset ’08, a Guatemalan native who is taking the year off from Harvard, was in Mexico researching the experiences of illegal immigrants who travel from places like Guatemala, through Mexico, and eventually to the United States.

When De Beausset’s bus dropped him off in a depot at 3am in Altar—a border city between Mexico and the United States—a green van came by claiming to be a taxi service that would take him to nearest hotel for the night.

“[The driver] was really enthusiastic and opened the side door,” De Beausset described. “There was a guy sleeping in the back. I got in the front and sat next to [the driver].”

But the taxi driver—who asked De Beausset for drugs—didn’t stop at any of the hotels.

“This guy thought I was a migrant,” said De Beausset. “I didn’t know where the heck I was or where he was taking me.”

De Beausset said that he told the driver repeatedly that he was a reporter, and even “showed him my camera.”

De Beausset, who is a Crimson editor, was blogging his immigration research with Raquel O. Alvarenga ’07, co-chair for the Immigration Policy Group at the Institute of Politics (IOP).

The van brought him to what De Beausset described as a “migrant safe house” where migrants are usually brought overnight. There, coyotes—people whom the migrants pay to smuggle them across the Mexico-US border—will give the drivers a commission for bringing them customers.

De Beausset said that a group of five men at the safe house tried to convince him to pay a coyote to smuggle him across the border.

After insisting that he was a foreigner who did not need to pay a smuggler, De Beausset said he succeeded in convincing the men to take him back.

After several more stops, including some that seemed to be for drugs, the men tried to take De Beausset’s wallet, camera and other possessions.

“He said, ‘give me all your money.’ So I gave him all my money,” he said. “Then he finally left. I rolled out the car, because they were trying to take off while my stuff was still in the car.”

De Beausset walked for three hours back to Altar, where he later returned to the US.

“I didn’t want to finish the trip because I knew the coyotes would see me, and they had a reason to kill me,” he said.

De Beausset said his desire to do the research came to him after the US House of Representatives passed a bill in December that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally and force employers to verify their workers’ legality.

Controversy over the legislation has erupted across the country over the past week, with about half a million people estimated to have marched in Los Angeles alone.

“I have great admiration for him and his journey,” Alvarenga said of De Beausset. “I think he is an incredibly committed person who is brave enough to risk his life to start dialogue with regards to this issue.”

According to Alvarenga, their blog—which is located at immigration.campustap.com—has been hit by over 100 readers per day.

—Staff writer Shifra B. Mincer can be reached at smincer@fas.harvard.edu