Posted on 10/16/2003 8:23:13 PM PDT by FairOpinion
MEXICO CITY - The venue is an Asian trade meeting, but when Mexican President Vicente Fox and President Bush meet on Monday in Bangkok, Thailand, the issue will be immigration reform.
On the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Fox once again will press Bush for steps to make life easier for the millions of Mexicans who live in the United States illegally. But with the U.S. presidential election campaign in full swing, Bush is likely to be a tough sell in the wake of a California recall election that suggests that even many Hispanic voters took a dim view of deposed Gov. Gray Davis' efforts on behalf of undocumented residents.
An exit poll showed 52 percent of Hispanic voters opposed Davis' September decision to allow undocumented Mexicans to get a California driver's license. Winning candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigned against the measure.
"You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not see that immigration issues decided that election," said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank in favor of tighter immigration controls. He added, "The Hispanic vote is not monolithic. I think the California experience has changed the landscape."
While Bush is likely to hear out Fox on immigration reform, his campaign advisers will remind him that Davis signed the licensing legislation thinking he would win over Mexican-American voters.
"Typically they have been identified as being Democratic voters, but that really isn't the case in California," said Roderick Ai Camp, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., and the author of numerous books on Mexican politics and culture. "Once they are here a certain amount of time, those values are transformed into something more like non-Hispanic voters. It is very much like the independent California voter."
In 2000, candidate Bush fought hard in California for the Hispanic vote and took office promising close relations with Mexico, but his agenda was redefined by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and the Washington area. Fox now would like to persuade Bush to begin discussing immigration reform again.
"We have to pick up the pace," Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez, undersecretary for North American affairs at Mexico's foreign ministry, said in an interview.
Gutierrez said Mexico has "moderated its expectations." Mexico, which has 45 consulates throughout the United States to attend to the needs of its citizens, is lobbying state governments to officially recognize an identity card issued by Mexican consulates.
The federal government is divided. The Department of Homeland Security frowns on the cards, fearing theft and falsification, while the Department of the Treasury has endorsed the idea so banks can make it easier for Mexicans in the United States to send an estimated $10 billion to $13 billion to relatives in Mexico.
Creation of the Department of Homeland Security also has complicated relations with Mexico. What had been the U.S. Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other agencies have been subsumed into the new department, leaving Mexico unsure of whom it should deal with.
A U.S. official involved in Mexico affairs conceded, on the condition of anonymity, that the new department still hasn't resolved issues such as the hours for returning illegal immigrants to Mexico and coordination with Mexican consulates. But the official said those issues should be close to resolution before a meeting of cabinet ministers from both countries scheduled for Nov. 12 in Washington.
Mexico also is upset about a recent pilot program to repatriate Mexicans captured in Arizona through border crossings in Texas hundreds of miles away. The United States began the pilot program with just 15 days advance notice to Mexico.
More than 6,000 Mexicans were returned under the program before it ended on Sept. 30. The Bush administration has not said whether it would be resumed, but an internal document, obtained by Knight Ridder, suggested the pilot program was a success, in part because heat-related deaths of Mexican immigrants in the scorching Arizona desert fell from 10 in September 2002 to one last month.
I really don't understand Fox's position. Why does he want the people of his own country to leave?
Also note the successful repatriation program. We need to expand it: strengthen the borders and return illegals caught inside the US.
The "leaders" of Mexico are extremely racist individuals, who view the people who emigrate to the US as "sub-humans". They have zero concern for their well-being, and instead laugh up their sleeves at us "gringos" who provide them with health care, education, food stamps, housing and tons of other social programs.
One day the U.S. will FINALLY decide to enforce our immigration laws, preferably by prosecuting those who hire illegals and then throwing them so far back in jail they'll need air piped in under pressure. This will be when the "lower-caste" members of Mexico will finally figure out that the gravy train in "El Norte" has finally run out of steam, and on that day the next Mexican revolution will begin.
On that happy day "El Presidente" Fox (or whatever the next worthless, useless, racist, evil, rotten, corrupt, baby eating SOB who is running that miserable $#ithole happens to be at the time) will face the full wrath of the people they have been ignoring and exploiting for so very long.
When was the repatriation program begun, and who was behind it? Sounds like it has been a success and should be continued.
Now to go to work on pulling up the rest of illegals by their "roots" and deporting them. And while we're at it, jail and/or fine anyone who hires illegals.
Or.. is it strictly "cheap labor" and / or following co-President Fox's wishes?
Mexico, which has 45 consulates throughout the United States to attend to the needs of its citizens, is lobbying state governments to officially recognize an identity card issued by Mexican consulates.
I am outraged at the meddling in our internal affairs! If President Bush bows to Mexico I WILL NOT VOTE FOR A PRESIDENT IN 2004. Yes, it will be worse with a traitor to our sovereignty Democrat president. Good! The sooner the civil war will start. Let's get it over with.
I see the exact same thing here --- Bush won't win the hispanic vote by pandering to Senor Vicente Fox on this issue. Some hispanics absolutely despise Vicente Fox because of his total inaction on the murders of women and girls in Juarez. He's a disgusting piece of nothing when it comes to doing anything positive for Mexico. The elections this past July show how much he's liked in Mexico ---- not much. Bush ought to look at the career of Silvestre Reyes --- how he got elected from an almost completely hispanic district --- because he was seen as someone who would do something about closing the porous border.
And this should have come as no surprise what-so-ever. Republicans especially have it all wrong when they think there is a "hispanic" vote that is going to really come together for them if they just hand out enough amnesties and cow-tow to Vicente Fox.
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If you look at a map only about 25% of Mexico is inhabitable to serious extent. Mexico has a high birth rate, is overcrowded, and has no economy. To avoid being choked by the number of Mexicans Fox needs to export 2,500,000 a year to the United States just to break even with population growth. In order for Mexico to have any economy, it must annex the economies of several American states. In brief, Fox needs to annex California, Arizona, and several other states through overwhelming those states with immigrants and taking control of them. Bush will help him do it.
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