UCLA International Institute

Since the 1990s, stories have spread through Mexico of the ‘coyote saint’ helping migrants cross the U.S. border illegally. In one version, three migrants lost in the desert are saved by a man who offers them a ride in his pickup truck. When the migrants later visit his home village of Santa Ana in the state of Jalisco to thank him, they see his photograph and realize their rescuer was Saint Toribio Romo, who died in 1928. More than 5000 pilgrims now clog the village on a typical weekend.