Pat Dollard

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Fox News:

Ernesto Enriquez Corralejo lives in a dilapidated home in Fort Hancock, Texas, with no water, gas or electricity. But that’s better conditions, he says, than in his hometown of El Porvenir, Mexico, where drug cartels continue to terrorize residents.

“It’s bad, real bad, sir,” Correlejo, 46, told FoxNews.com. “It’s not safe to be there.”

Corralejo, who came to the U.S. at age 4 with his family, said he knows of at least 20 people who have been killed by drug cartels for either not cooperating in the drug trade or fort not settling marijuana or cocaine debts.

“If you don’t got money to pay them back, they’re going to get you,” he said. “These people are being killed for no reason.”

Corralejo – clad in a dirty green sweatshirt and heavily weathered pants – said he has not worked in 10 years, unable to find a job in industries like construction, farming and manufacturing. His silver beard and hair are unkempt, and most of his upper teeth are missing.

Corralejo is able to survive, he says, with help from his older brother and by doing odd jobs in the Texas town of roughly 1,700 residents. He looks over the border, just a stone’s throw away, with equal parts of disgust and sorrow.

“All my friends, man, all my friends have been killed,” he said. “And no one knows really why.”

Corralejo’s rundown home is not far from Fort Hancock High School, where, according to one secretary, officials are preparing for more students as families in Mexico send their children to live with relatives on the U.S. side of the border.

For Corralejo, who said he frequently hears gunfire pulsating through the Mexican town after sundown, the choice is clear.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “They will be safer here.”