Posted on 03/20/2005 8:13:49 AM PST by hophead
MEXICO CITY - Anti-immigrant sentiment appears to be growing in the United States, Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday, and he urged U.S. officials to act quickly to control movements such as the 950-member-strong Minuteman Project on the Mexico-Arizona border.
Fox said he plans to push for U.S. immigration reform during a meeting with President Bush in Texas next week. He also said the two leaders, along with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, likely will announce a plan to expand the scope of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission recently issued a warning about several new grass-roots movements inspired by Arizona's Proposition 200. Other Mexican officials have cited the Minuteman Project, a plan by activists to patrol the border during April, as a sign of rising extremism. advertisement
"There are signs of these kinds of problems present today, and (they are) progressing," Fox said during a news conference for foreign reporters. "We have to act quickly and on time to prevent these kinds of actions."
He said Mexico is watching the Minuteman Project carefully and will take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any of the activists break the law.
Patrols start in April
"We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups," Fox said. "We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups, which are a minority . . . will not have any opportunity to progress."
Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they have signed up more than 950 volunteers, including 30 pilots with aircraft, to patrol the border for 30 days beginning April 1. The activists say they will notify the Border Patrol if they see border crossers and will not confront them directly.
Minuteman co-organizer Chris Simcox said participants are exercising their constitutional rights.
"Vicente Fox can rant and rave all he wants, but he obviously doesn't understand what a democracy means," Simcox said. "We have been working within the law."
'Walls don't work'
Fox also harshly criticized the construction of walls along the border, including a new "triple fence" planned for the San Diego area.
"We are convinced that walls don't work. They should be torn down," he said. "No country that is proud of itself should build walls. No one can isolate himself these days."
Fox said he understood Americans' concern about protecting their southern border. But he dismissed fears that terrorists have sneaked into the United States through Mexico. "We have absolutely no evidence of that," he said.
Fox will meet with Bush and Martin next Wednesday at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and at Bush's ranch in nearby Crawford. It's an effort to get North American cooperation back on track after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Plan on Social Security
Fox said he will push for action on a "guest worker" program in the United States. He said that the U.S. population is aging and will need Mexican labor in the future and that turning millions of undocumented Mexicans into legal, taxpaying workers could help keep the Social Security system afloat.
The three leaders likely will announce a plan aimed at further integrating their countries' economies to compete against other trade blocs, Fox said. He called it a "new vision" that will not change the existing treaty.
It will include new border-security measures, ways to share customs duties, and a continentwide energy policy, he said. Other sections will focus on education, technology and the financial sectors, he said.
NAFTA's critics say the 1994 trade pact has cost American manufacturing jobs while hurting Mexican farmers. But Fox said the average Mexican income has more than doubled, to $6,505 a year.
Fox said the boom of assembly plants along the border has actually helped stop illegal border crossing by providing jobs for people who would have gone to the United States.
"That's also part of security on the border, to have this cushion where people can find a job on the Mexican side," he said.
Reach the reporter at chris.hawley@arizonarepublic.com.
UN.........FREAKIN'..........BELIEVABLE!
""Does this clown have any idea how his constant crappy edicts come off to those of us that pay attention to his belching?""
The more he talks, the more attention he gets, the more we realize he has too much to say about what goes on in America. If he was truly concerned for his poorer citizens, he would be doing more to help the economy and less to send his people over here so they can send money back there. It's an oil rich country, no reason to be poor other than dirty politics.
Congratulations on your American citizenship! Your patience and perserverance has paid off.
I tried to download your song, the first time it played for about 10 seconds (beautiful voice, who's singing??), the second time it only played about two seconds then the message came up saying that it couldn't be played. I looked up the reason and it basically just said it couldn't be played. Sorry but wanted to let you know.
Great cover. Congrats on finishing!
I enjoyed http://unitedstates.fm/thankyouamericavideo.htm quite a bit.
i'm starting to get irritated with this fox guy
Vietnamese-Americans Against Illegal Immigration
http://www.fairimmigration.com/id3.html
Vietnamese will be treated fairly and no longer be discriminated against by the U.S. Government if it does the following:
1. Enforce all immigration laws. At a minimum these enforcement measures should include:
A) Businesses should be required to check the validity of new employees Social Security or work permit numbers.
B) Local and state law enforcement officers should verify the citizenship and immigration status of everyone they apprehend. Every illegal alien they apprehend should be detained and transferred to the Homeland Security Departments ICE division for deportation.
2. Children born to illegal aliens and guest workers in the U.S. should not be given U.S. citizenship. The U.S. is totally out of step with the rest of the world in this regard.
3. Any long term guest worker program (1 year or more) should only include foreigners outside the United States, not illegal aliens inside the U.S. To protect the wages of Vietnamese-Americans, the guest worker recommendations of the Jordan Commission should be followed.
4. We support U.S. investment in high immigrant sending countries to create more opportunities there. For example, we support the proposal where the U.S. would match any new funds Mexico spend on infrastructure, education, and law-enforcement improvements if they also institute free-market and anti-corruption reforms. Since a dollar goes much further in these countries, many times more people could be helped this way instead of helping only a relatively few by letting them into the U.S.
5. The U.S. should not allow legalized illegal aliens nor anyone they sponsored to sponsor their relatives for family preference immigration. This would eliminate the increased waiting times past legalizations of illegal aliens has created...temporary category could be set up as was done...
http://www.fairimmigration.com/id3.html
a girl I knew in college was a "servant" for some border guards for a few months after she was caught with some drugs on the wrong side of the border.
They told her she would have to "work" for a week....that or jail." She figured the same thing would happen to her in a mexican jail.
Mexican justice is what will happen in the US if the liberals rule matters.
I will for sure see it now! Thanks!
Well, I'll wait and see what happens.
From Day One of the Spanish conquest, it's been run by oligarchs. The English brought a respect for the rule of law, the Spanish brought all-powerful feudal land barons.
interesting.
I'm going to have to study up on Mexico's history.
My knowlege of Mexico's history is pretty poor.
Not just Mexico, everywhere colonized by Spain.
He gets regular e-mails from this house, and the RNC gets them too. There's also www.numbersusa.com for free faxes on all matters regarding illegal immigration.
Thanks!
Ranya's situation looks pretty interesting by chapter two, although I think you could emphasize culture as the central problem over race with a few subtle changes that wouldn't undermine the core message. The family moving to Idaho might be blacks who've had enough of the encroachment of uncivilized, non-English culture in their area, for example.
You're holding back her motivations (which probably go beyond her son) with a conventional sort of time slicing. You could add more memories or foreshadows, kind of like the pocket watch music in "For a Few Dollars More."
Things are so much worse in this alternate world (than they seem like they are getting now) that it has an intriguing sort of futurism to it, almost a science fiction feel. You could go into greater detail about the technology advances (lo/cheap/micro tech).
I think there were a lot of traditional values in the adventure/SF piece Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It could be an undiscovered genre, and your work could be part of it.
I read this story this morning and came to FR to see what folks had to say about it. While I agree with many of the posts I've seen here, the thing I haven't seen is anyone ask the question: "If Fox/Mexico sues the Minutemen in a US court, who will the federal judges side with?"
IMO, this is a very real threat and citizens should be concerned. I believe the vast majority of federal judges will find in favor of a foreign nation rather than US citizens who might be "extreme" or "vigilantes." We already know the majority of the SCOTUS will bow to foreign law rather than the US Constitution.
Fox's threat of a court action ought to be taken seriously.
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