Most of the American expatriate enclave in Mexico lean left in their politics, but a small group say the Republican candidate is just misunderstood
Ed and Karen Cage fly the Mexican flag outside their home in the hills aboveLake Chapala. Speaking to their maid or fellow worshipers at the local church, the two septuagenarians make an effort to use their halting Spanish. And they both profess a deep love for Mexico, where they have lived for eight years and hope to attain permanent resident status.
We love the people and the culture, said Karen Cage, whose business card reads, Retired in paradise.
But the Texan couple actively support a US presidential candidate who has stirred outrage and disgust in their adopted country. They also back his proposals to build a border wall, rip up the Nafta trade pact and deport undocumented Mexicans.
Dadgummit! They broke the law coming in and they took American jobs, said Ed Cage, while sipping Tecate and considering the merits of Donald Trump. I want the wall built!
The Cages are among an unlikely cohort of voters in the 2016 elections you might call them Gringos for Trump. Its a group whose size is hard to gauge; most Americans in this expatriate enclave are active Democrats or at least lean left in their politics.
But with an estimated one million US citizens living in Mexico a large portion of whom are retirees it is perhaps inevitable that some should support a candidate whose campaign has been built on the vilification of the country.
Opinions of Trump tend to range between the skeptical and the unprintable in Mexico, where his rise is described as the biggest threat to the country since the Mexican-American war.
Many Mexicans still seethe with outrage that their own president invited the Republican candidate to Mexico, then stood meekly beside him at a joint press conference.
But according to the few Trump supporters willing to speak on the record all of whom speak in superlatives of their adopted country and its people Mexicans simply misunderstand the real-estate mogul.