The backstory, the journey and the Obama connection
Cynthia Montoya was born in Guadalajara, MX. In 1991. During the summer after Cynthia’s sophomore year of high school her father took a job as the Senior Vice President in charge of manufacturing for RailCar, a part of Trinity Industries. The new job required a move to Castanos, MX. Castanos has two large railcar manufacturers, RailCar and Freight Car America. It is considered the Rail Car capitol of South America. He moved the family to Castanos in the summer of 2007. As a junior in high school Cynthia was not happy about the move. But that summer she met Beto at a church youth rally. He was entering his senior year and they began dating soon after that. It wasn’t long after school started that the kids began calling them M&M.
Prior to her death from cancer Beto’s mother had been a school teacher. Cynthia’s father was a successful businessman and traveled extensively. Because of their family backgrounds education was important in each of their homes and it was impressed upon them that speaking English was a must. As a result both had developed very good English skills by the time they entered high school. Cynthia was a very good student. Beto was bright but his reports from school had the tag “doesn’t apply himself”. Futbol and horses were much more important.
The Journey
The year Cynthia graduated she became pregnant. This was not part of her father’s plan, but having a baby out of wedlock was not an option. So they got married in the fall of 2009. She delivered fraternal twins, Bonita and Anthony, in May of 2010. It soon became obvious that living in her father’s home wasn’t working. So the first of October they packed up what little they had and headed out for El Paso, TX., a 624 mile bus ride. It was surprisingly easy for someone as smart as Beto to get into the U.S., but not without it perils. Juarez is can be an inhospitable place even without a young wife and two babies. Beto had saved money working for his grandfather on the ranch so they had traveling money. The crossing at Juarez provides a direct route to Colorado on I-25. They spent the night in a Motel 6 in Las Cruces, NM. and made it all the way to Grand Junction the following day. They were almost there. He would have like to have gone by way of Pueblo, Salida an over Independence Pass, but buses are not allowed on the pass.
Beto and Cynthia had friends that were living in a trailer park in El Jebel. They were able to stay with them until finding a place. But they quickly discovered how expensive it was to live in Pitkin County and he and Cynthia began rethinking their decision to move to Colorado. As fortune might have it Beto saw an ad for a ranch hand in the Aspen Daily News. He applied and was hired on the spot. It was round-up time at Kevin Jensen’s ranch and his foreman had just been arrested for the third time for possession. Jensen was desperate, he needed a cowboy.
The Connection
Not long after that Cynthia got a job as a waitress at the Snowmass Club. Beto worked days and she worked evenings and nights so they were able to make things work with the kids. Beto turned out to be a good ranch hand so Jensen was eager to keep him. There was a single-wide trailer on the ranch that the ex-foreman lived in and so in 2011 he offered it to Beto, rent free. Four people in a 40ft. trailer was comfortable, but then came little Heloise. She was born in 2012.
That same year Beto was leading a trail ride for guests of the ranch. One of the guests on the ride was a guy named Barack and the other Oprah. Beto thought it unusual that two people would have such a large entourage, but Beto quickly figured out that the Barack was Barack Obama, President of the United States. President Obama and Kevin Jensen were good friends. Both were from Chicago and both had gone to Harvard Law School. Jensen was a significant donor to both of Obama’s campaigns. As it turned out Oprah and Barack were at the ranch for a fund raiser. The guest list was the who’s who of Billionaire Mountain. Many of whom were already familiar with Beto and People Against Income Disparity.
Barack was impressed by the young Mexican when he discovered that he was a community organizer of sorts and Obama was very interested in Beto’s work on PAID. It was through this connection and at Jensen’s urging that President Obama agreed to use his influence to get Beto and Cynthia EB-1 Visas. On the surface this seemed like a highly unusual move but not in the Obama administration. As it turned out Alejandro Mayorkas, Obama’s Inspector General, was discovered to have arranged for a number of EB-5 Visas for some wealthy foreign investors outside of normal channels. It just seemed to be part of the culture. Business as usual in the “Swamp”.
Beto knew full well that he had hit the motherload. He was no longer concerned about his illegal status and potential deportation. He could travel freely and now focus more of his attention on PAID.