To whom it may concern,

I am fully aware of the risks of writing a letter like this. I understand what it means to speak while unprotected, to name power while standing alone. But I am writing precisely because the institutions that are supposed to protect human life have already decided that my life is expendable.

I am a victim of human trafficking in the form of labor exploitation, including wage theft, deprivation of basic necessities, forced starvation, harassment, retaliation, intimidation, including threats of deportation, abuse of legal process, and repeated death threats invoking your organization's name, and several incidents concerning sexual and physical assaults committed, organized and orchestrated by Ramon Ontiveros Medina, a man who has explicitly identified himself to me as a member of your organization, and associates Josias "Alekzz Ito Val" Armengol Torres and Dacia Ontiveros Medina.

I am writing without a specific name because I do not know who, if anyone, in your structure can be addressed. But the question I am forced to ask, because the State refuses to ask it for me, is this:

If Ramon Ontiveros Medina is truly a member of your organization, and if he truly has the authority to invoke your name as a death sentence, then why is he still hiding behind intimidation instead of action? What purpose does the threat serve if it is never meant to be carried out other than psychological torture?

And if, on the other hand, Ramon Ontiveros Medina is not a member of your organization, then something else far more revealing is happening: the name of your organization is being weaponized by a private individual to terrorize Mexican immigrants into silence, to steal their labor without pay, and to enforce compliance through fear rather than contracts or law.

That should concern you because what is being impersonated here is not power, it is impunity. And impunity only thrives when everyone looks away.

I have sought help from the United States government, been repeatedly to the El Paso Police Department, contacted federal authorities. I have attempted to engage every channel that claims to exist for victims of human trafficking. Each door closed the same way. Not because the evidence was weak. Not because the threats were unclear. But because I am a Mexican immigrant, and therefore, apparently, not fully human in the eyes of the system. I have been told, implicitly and explicitly, that I do not have rights worth enforcing.

And yes, this may sound bitter, even blasphemous, but I have also asked God for help. The silence has been absolute. If there is a divine order to justice, it has not extended to this side of the border. Either God is deaf, speechless, or absent, or He, too, has decided that some lives fall outside His jurisdiction.

I was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México. I have no powerful family. No institutional shield. No media protection. No capital. I have no one who can correct what has been done to me, and no authority is willing to name what is being done to others like me.

Let me be clear because I know exactly the United States government would reframe it as criminal conspiracy as justification to erase my case entirely: I am not asking for your assistance. I am not seeking protection from violence. I am exposing a fact:

• Ramon Ontiveros Medina threaten to send you to kill me if I continued to reporting him to the police to a new address I have not disclosed to him, but he obtained through impersonation of a friend to also threaten me with reporting me to Border Patrol, requesting them my deportation and also abuse of legal process;

• Ramon Ontiveros Medina is using your name as a tool of coercion to maintain an illegal labor operation built on fear, starvation, and silence;

• Ramon Ontiveros Medina is laundering exploitation through the mythology of the Juarez Cartel power because he knows the United States' law will not intervene on behalf of Mexican immigrant workers.

If Ramon Ontiveros Medina speaks for you, then the silence around him speaks volumes, hiding behind threats of intimidation instead of resolve. If he does not, then understand this: your name is being used as a costume to terrorize your people, Mexican immigrants, the most disposable people in the United States' economy.

I didn't write or post this letter with the intent of exposing Ramon Ontiveros Medina to harm by addressing the Juárez Cartel directdly or convincing you to retaliate against him by testifying about what he has done to me, but I'm aware that I cannot prevent you from doing what you deliberately choose to do. I am not naive. This letter exists because the United States justice system has failed, because El Paso, Texas, has become more of a moral graveyard, and because Ramon Ontiveros Medina's threats of violence now carry more weight than documented evidence of my human trafficking experience.

Either way, the truth is already written. And it is being written because everyone has refused to listen. From this point forward, any continued intimidation, retaliation, or harm directed at me will stand as confirmation that the threats were real and knowingly made. Silence will not erase what has already been documented.

There is not amount of money you can offer that could purchase me because I am not for sale, even when others can get it for free. For as long as I remain alive to witness Ramon Ontiveros Medina still free, I will remain speaking out loud, publicly, without permission, naming explicitly what Ramon Ontiveros Medina has done, and under the understanding that truth is an absolute defense to defamation.

I am not afraid to die. Getting murdered for living up to my principles is the highest achievement I could aspire to, taking into consideration that continue living to experience Ramon Ontiveros Medina's sustained campaign of retaliation, harassment, and interference, even after the illusion of breaking free from human trafficking and exploitation, isn't really living if Ramon Ontiveros Medina is still free.

This alone should be understood as your answer.


Sincerely,

Samuel Martínez Roque
Mexican immigrant and victim of human trafficking