Boycott of Mexico supported

Utah Minuteman group joins call to end tourism there

An apparent call for "reconquest" by a Mexican consular employee in San Diego has prompted at least one Utah anti-illegal immigration group to join in a boycott of travel to Mexico.

Eli Cawley, head of the Utah Minuteman Project, says the group's board had originally opted against the boycott. It started recently in Southern California as an attempt stop Mexico's government from influencing American politics, says organizer Stewart Hurlbert.

"The aim is simply to tell Mexico, you will hurt your own people if you continue aggression against the U.S.," said Hurlbert.

The Utah group reconsidered the boycott after a video appeared on YouTube in which a man identified in the video as consular employee Alberto Lozano Merino, said, "This has been, and will be Mexico," during a verbal confrontation with protestors outside the San Diego Mexican Consulate.

That comment, Cawley said, "set people on edge," and was among several reasons considered by about 35 members present at a Minuteman meeting this past weekend when they gave unanimous support to the boycott.

The San Diego consulate did not respond to an interview request. In Utah, Guido Arochi, community affairs coordinator for the Salt Lake Mexican Consulate, said business is normal and there hasn't been any backlash from the March 13 incident in San Diego.

Cawley acknowledged that joining the boycott will be largely symbolic but hoped it would raise awareness for his cause.

"People who would consider going to Mexico will probably go regardless," Cawley said. "People who are against illegal immigration just won't go to Mexico, they don't want their money to facilitate the reconquest."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com

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