Mexico: No, Donald Trump, we won't pay for a border wall

CBS News ^ | Aug. 13, 2015 | Jake Miller

[Rennes Templar]

Turns out the Mexican government isn't so keen on Donald Trump's assertion that he will make Mexico pay for a wall along America's southern border.

"Of course it's false," a spokesman for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said of Trump's claim in a Bloomberg interview published Wednesday. "It reflects an enormous ignorance for what Mexico represents, and also the After firestorm over his comments about illegal immigrants, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump travels to the U.S.-Mexico border. CBS News C... Trump, a billionaire businessman who's seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has said repeatedly that the U.S. must build a wall to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

But America won't pay for this wall, according to Trump -Mexico will.

"We're gonna get the wall built...and Mexico's gonna pay for the wall," Trump said Tuesday at a news conference. "And they're gonna be happy about it...because the cost of the wall is peanuts compared to the kind of money they're making. Mexico is becoming the new China."

Trump, who holds a big lead in early polls of the Republican primary field, has made immigration one of the chief focuses of his campaign, inciting controversy with his inflammatory remarks on the subject.

[aquila48]

Let’s see... who’s got the most leverage, us or them?

[Resettozero]

DO you think Trump is more Conservative than Cruz or Walker?

Why do you ask?

[DoodleDawg]

Heck, I’m sure that there must be some amount of “foreign aid” that is going to Mexico that has been budgeted by the Congress. Couldn’t they just withhold whatever the costs of a wall are from that, for however many years that it may take?

Then that would mean that we're paying for it and not Mexico.

[MeganC]

If Obama can do things as he sees fit then so can Trump.

[alloysteel]

One way or another, Mexico is going to end up paying, and paying dearly, for their failure to control their population within their borders.

Mexico may wind up WANTING and BEGGING for the wall before the dust settles.

You see, a secure border is also some sort of protection against cross-border raids, so it may very well be in Mexico’s interests to keep that border as secure as possible.

Because the Current Occupant now squatting in the White, er, “Rainbow” Hut, won’t always be there.

[Electric Graffiti]

Whoa.......Back off Beaner

[DannyTN]

Donald is right. He can impose a tariff, and they will be more than happy to pay for the wall to get the tariff to come down. In fact, they’d probably build it on their side and monitor it for us.

Donald “Mexico doesn’t care about the border. They care about the trade”

[Rennes Templar]

Let’s see... who’s got the most leverage, us or them?

With Obama, they do. With trump, we do.

[blackdog]

The main draw to come to the US is the welfare state. Use the welfare state to pay for the wall. 5% of all monies being sent to Mexico by Western Union and the 50 or so other wire transfer companies(including Wells Fargo)should be levied to pay for the wall.

Hold a Pink Floyd's "The Wall" press event.

[MaxMax]

Why do you refuse?

[LS]

Oh jes you weeel.

[Cowboy Bob]

All the Liberals are squealing with glee about this. They all think that Trump got put in his place by the Mexican president.

Well, I got news for El Presidente...Mexico will pay. Either through the cancellation of foreign aid, the rejection/blockade of goods coming over the border, or having “migrants” rounded up and put into work gangs building the wall. Oh, and if these work gangs want to eat, the Mexican government, or these “migrant’s” families better start sending some food packages.

[DeakonSmith]

Just give our prison inmates who are serving life without possibility of parole the option to renounce their U.S. citizenship, being driven across the border into Mexico and released. A few thousand a month.

[LS]

Nonsense. Put 1000 non-welfare Americans down there and in five years you have a thriving country.

Heck, we did it once. It's called Texas.

[prisoner6]

Oh you’llpay Mexico. One way or another, you WILL PAY!

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The corrupt government of Mexico policy for decades has been to control us and make us pay. I think that this little bit of history is well known to Mr. Trump and I hope he shouts it and more coast to coast.

It's taken a couple of decades.. but almost there. The corrupt Mexican government wants to establish its control over its "citizens living abroad" (even if born in the U.S.) and no doubt likes the controversy described in the article as it creates "victims" of the U.S.

prior to the 1980s

There were Mexican government efforts to

• attract and remind permanent U.S. residents of their Mexican heritage
• along with programs providing temporary workers for the U.S.

But nothing in the former like today.

1980s Legal immigration

Under President Salinas

• Mexican political parties undertook to bond with U.S. citizens of Mexican descent and
• Mexico re-established Mexican citizenship for the Americans;
• Mexico's dual citizenship advocates sought to augment votes.

Mexico's

• web of multitudinous consulates and
• Mexico's new program for Mexican communities abroad (Program for Mexican Communities Abroad, PCME)

became very active in the U.S.

By 1990 Mexican policy had

• accepted their citizens' permanent settlement in the U.S.,
• sought to reinforce its emigrants' homeland ties and,
• encourage their organizational development in the U.S.

1996 LA Times article

1990s legal immigration

Mexico wanted Mexican-Americans to

• help defend Mexican interests in the United States;

President Ernesto Zedillo (1990s) spoke to Mexican-American politicians telling them

• "You're Mexicans -- Mexicans who live north of the border" and
• urged them to help create an ethnic lobby with political influence similar to that of American Jews;
• as Mexican-Americans become more powerful they were to defend and
• advocate Mexican interests in the United States.

1995 NY Times article

1980s and Beyond Illegal immigration

The Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) in 1986

• gave amnesty to almost three million mostly Mexican undocumented aliens;
• these millions became the "basis for a new era in Mexico’s relations with its diaspora"
• including a network of Mexican activist organizations in the United States.

Mexican Policy & Émigré Communities in the U.S.

And then there is the emergence of hometown philanthropic clubs that send multi-billions of dollars to Mexican communities saving all levels of the corrupt Mexican government from having to depart with a peso to help its citizens. A better term is

• "hometown associations";
• HTAs have been around a long time;
• some of the most famous HTAs were the German Nazi HTAs.

Meanwhile if that money remained in the hands of the ILLEGAL aliens (undocumented workers) would they need taxpayer support for food, housing, healthcare, education, and all other transfer payments that states and communities provide them?

IMO it's the way the corrupt government of Mexico "taxes" its citizens in its "Nation without borders."

So yes, undocumented workers do pay taxes.

More at these FR threads: Federations give Mexicans voices and Immigrant Mexican philanthropic groups turn toward politics

On to Prop 187 and today..

1994, Prop. 187 Approved in California [before the courts destroyed it with a lot of help from the Democrat Gov. Gray Davis]

Today's anti-U.S., anti-Trump rancor is exactly like the National Republican-Democrat coalition against California Prop 187 voters.

• Prop 187 passed 59 - 41 percent;
• the courts went to work for the National Republican-Democrat coalition and
• cancelled the 59-percent;
• Democrat Gov. Gray Davis killed off the 59-percent by refusing to pursue his -- as I understand it -- obligation of doing "for the people."

More from the study..

The Mexican government weighed in during the campaign for Prop 187 with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari asserting that

• "Mexico affirms rejection of this xenophobic campaign, and
• will continue to act in defense of the labor and human rights of our migrant workers."

(Salinas knew that Mexico did not have the means to use economic sanctions against the US or California to protest the approval of Prop. 187.)

Ernesto Zedillo, who followed Salinas as Mexico's President eagerly weighed in and

• asserted during his November trip to Washington, DC that
• Mexico 'cannot object to legitimate enforcement of US laws,' but
• Mexico objects to 'enforcement [that] might lead to deprivation or violation of basic human rights.... [including] education and health care;'
• the Mexican government promised to contribute attorneys and funds to fight Proposition 187 in US courts.

Before leaving office President Salinas suggested a guestworker program and Governor Wilson announced his support for a program to import Mexican guestworkers.

But the incoming Zedillo Administration knew that

• Mexico could not afford to close the wide open "safety valve" on which several million of its citizens depend;
• Mexico [saw] no significant lessening of emigration pressures during the 1990s
• [IOW: Mexico needed to continue unloading millions of its citizens onto the U.S.]

The return of a guestworker program had little chance.

The 1994 Prop 187 passage got immediate action..

Leaders of several Central American countries [told] President Clinton that their economies must grow faster in order to stem the flow of illegal immigrants to the north. Central American leaders [began] an intensive lobbying effort to prevent the return of their citizens after the passage of Prop. 187 and the threat of not renewing temporary protected status for El Salvadorans.

Passage of Prop 187 was met with instant appeals. But it took years to get the initial federal court to act on the appeals.

In Nov. 1997: "Proposition 187, as drafted, is not constitutional on its face," Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer declared.

A year later Gray Davis was elected and IIRC one of his first acts was to fly off to Mexico City and later let it be clear that he would NOT appeal Pfaelzer's decision. Gov. Wilson was committed to appeal all the way to SCOTUS. Is that why Pfaelzer took so long. IIRC the Wilson administration pressured her to act and filed an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Governor Davis worked out some kind of deal that killed Prop 187 and dropped the court actions.

So the Administration, the courts, the legislative branch saying "F-you Americans!" is nothing new..

the autoimmune disease of the body politic appeared decades ago.. it's just been found to be caused by unstable radicals occupying buildings on the Beltway campus and something called crony capitalism. Now on the cure to save the life of the United States of America.

[tumblindice]

They’re used to dealing with the pussy in the WH now.

[Resettozero]

No, failed political promises and lies have spoiled me to doubletalk. And the Donald isn't a Conservative. He will allow illegals to gain citizenship. All we have to do is look into his past for clues.

You could have checked my posting history to understand my opinion about Trump. But, here we gooooo:

I financially support Ted Cruz 100% and appreciate DT taking the flak of the media vultures so that Cruz (and an as yet unnamed possible Presidential candidate) can work on getting the on-the-ground State organizations rolling.

[ConservativeInPA]

The minimum that Trump is doing here is creating a discussion with an attitude that we can solve this problem. I know it can be solved. You know it. Most Americans know it. And others fear it will be solved. The GOP-e is unwilling to do anything and are willing to accept failure.

[pgkdan]

He said it several times and he said it at his announcement. Trump doesn’t make idle threats he has a plan and one way or another if he’s elected Mexico will pay. I’m liking The Donald more every day.