A Mexican Mayor’s Odyssey: From Undocumented Migrant to Cartel Target

Crispín Agustín Mendoza had just announced he was running for mayor of Alcozauca, a remote hamlet in the strife-torn mountains of southwest Mexico. Then, in the middle of the night, the gunmen arrived.

His wife and children screamed in fear as the men sprayed their home with gunfire in a failed bid to kill him. Undeterred, Mr. Mendoza stayed in the race and won. He is among the politicians who somehow survived assassination attempts this year in one of the most violent election cycles in Mexico’s recent history.

But Mr. Mendoza stands out for another reason. Smuggled as an adolescent into the United States, he lived undocumented in Silicon Valley’s shadow economy well into adulthood, only to follow his star back to Mexico, start his own thriving business and try his hand at politics.

Now, he is getting a frontline glimpse of the cartel turf battles overwhelming Guerrero, a Mexican state of 3.5 million known for exceptionally brutal attacks on public officials in recent weeks: like the beheading of the mayor of the state capital, Chilpancingo; and the fatal shooting of a judge in Acapulco in broad daylight.

“You have to assume one day you’ll be attacked and killed,” Mr. Mendoza, 41, said nonchalantly in lightly accented English, which he frequently peppers with Californian slang, during a recent interview in Alcozauca’s Town Hall.

A security detail of six soldiers accompanies Mr. Mendoza 24 hours a day. He faces both the challenge of staying alive and political shifts in the United States that could potentially upend towns like his own.