Posted on 10/18/2003 7:05:06 PM PDT by thefamous
Bush, Fox to discuss immigration reform
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.
America was shaped by LEGAL immigration, we're being destroyed by an ILLEGAL invasion. Somebody needs to go and get their screws tightened and it ain't the "newbie". Blackbird.
Translation: Banks are making it easier to launder an estimated $10 billion to $13 billion obtained illegally and passed over to foreign receivers.
If illegal aliens are only doing the work that "no one else would do"®, and if this work "no one else will do" isn't sufficient to even pay a "living wage", then where in Hell does this $10 billion to $13 billion that gets shipped out of the US economy come from?
Of course Fox and Bush want to keep this going, Fox wants to feed his socialist crime state, and Bush loves to pimp the American taxpayer to prop up every socialist totalitarian state around the world.
Historically speaking, that has been the only real solution. Everything else can be summed up by stating two words: Neville Chamberlain
Are you suggesting that this new immigration and the cultural changes it is expected to bring are more beneficial than the wave of change brought about by a flood of educated, moral and hard working immigrants several centuries earlier?
I really don't think that the European settlers came here to siphon off medical, educational and financial assets of the aboriginals. Instead, they brought civilization, education, medicine, technology, work ethic and even simple things like "the wheel" to a culture that spent most of their time wandering around aimlessly through the forest naked looking for food.
Isn't it interesting how Amnesties for Illegal Aliens are always referred to as "immigration reform" by this administration? And all this time I thought "immigration reform" meant reducing Illegal Immigration, lowering the staggering high levels of legal immigration and putting some teeth in our toothless immigration laws. Silly Me!
Now I know "reform" means to reward illegal aliens by giving them permanent residency in return for breaking our laws and to encourage more to Invade our Country.
Hmmm, maybe we don't need Immigration Reform....at least THIS kind of reform.
What's next? Tax Reform that ends up in higher taxes?
Now you sound like a German.
Please do not support amnesty for people who violated our laws to come here. Illegal immigrants have become a serious threat to our society and it is not true that they only take the jobs that Americans will not do.
Illegal immigrants from Mexico have reached such a level as to constitute an invasion. They have become a drain on our economy, bankrupting border hospitals that are forced to give them free care. Many have taken advantage of our welfare and social security programs. And most of them do not pay taxes.
By sheer numbers, they are threatening our culture, demanding that our schools teach bi-lingual classes in an English speaking country. They do not bother to assimilate, and are slowly changing our culture into the third world country from which they came.
The matricular ID cards are President Fox's back alley method of trying to force American to accept the illegal immigrants from Mexico. They serve no other purpose but to give illegal immigrants the blessing of Mexico's government. People who are here legally have no need of them.
Any individual, corporation, or institution that accepts these cards are violating our laws by aiding illegal immigrants. Anyone aiding such an enterprise should be fined and/or jailed.
I realize that homeland security is trying to re-organize the INS, and I hope this is a top priority. It is long past time that all illegal immigrants are deported, and our southern border more heavily guarded to prevent further encroachments. Currently, our southern border is an open invitation for terrorists and drug-runners.
Please do not consider giving amnesty to those who broke our laws and cut in line of the millions who are waiting their turn to come to the greatest country on Earth.
Aside from your tendancy to lean toward amnesty, and your refusal to veto the outrageous pork spending presented by Congress, I think you are doing a fantastic job, and I am proud that you are my President.
Respectfully,
We Irish didn't come here and work in banks.
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