And our own Presidente Arbusto seems to agree with him.
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.
This issue is just one of a long list of complaints that Texas Republicans have.
We have way too many people in Austin who are old Democrats who now call themselves Republicans to get elected.
(Jane Nelson, Burt Solomons, Mary Denny, Myra, (Kay Baily in DC).
Their only Republican stance is to be pro military....and they seem to miss the boat on some of that.
The State House just passed a bill through their chamber that is a STATE INCOME TAX! They disguise it as a payroll tax.......BUT PAYROLL FOR A BUSINESS IS THE WORKERS INCOME!
And then their is the illegal alien issue.
WE NEED TO STOP FOX.....WE NEED TO STOP THE RINOS!
And our own Presidente Arbusto seems to agree with him.
I think it would be easy to lose ground if we try to blame this problem on folks over whom we have very limited influence.
I don't see our illegal immigration problem as a fight between the United States and Mexico. I don't see the problem as a dispute between the American and Mexican peoples. I think the struggle is a domestic struggle between, on the one hand, American taxpayers, American employees, and American employers who comply with our laws and, on the other hand, those American employers who violate our laws and thereby impose huge costs on the rest of us.
We really don't need any cooperation from the Mexican government or from the Mexican people. We just need our own government to faithfully execute our immigration and employment laws. When compliance with our laws becomes cheaper than violating our laws, the problem will solve itself.
Fox can serve only 1 term by mexican law, and it is up in 2006. Too bad sweety.
Is Vincente Fox allowed to reference the MinuteMan Project on this forum?
Fox wants to send the poorest of Mexicans here because he won't create jobs for them, or provide for their basic needs. He leaves that to us. If they stay in Mexico, there will be unrest, and Fox knows it.
What a bunch of cr@p! Why doesn't the Fox administraion support their own citizen's. Why do they have to creep illegally into the U.S. just to support their own families?
Vicente Fox ia a fool and loser. And Mexican's who allow their government to continue to cr@p on them are just as STUPID.
As I've told my friends for the past several years, this is why the Repubs and Dems won't even touch the illegal problem from Mexico. The US Congress has brought the US to brink of bankruptcy and we are so broke we need the influx of cash to buy us some time. Me thinks we are in much deaper $hit than we are being told by our esteemed leaders.
Sui
Yes, and I'm also watching EXTREMISTS like Judge Greer who is just as evil.
"The US Congress has brought the US to brink of bankruptcy and we are so broke we need the influx of cash to buy us some time. Me thinks we are in much deaper $hit than we are being told by our esteemed leaders."
I'm afraid you might be right. It's a scary thought isn't it? Also, if the US goes down, the world goes down with it. It would have a domino effect.
President Fox is getting desparate. Note that this is an Arizona Republic (Phoenix) article written by their reporter in Mexico City. President Fox is, in essence, rattling his saber for the benefit of his people and those of us loco gringos who don't know any better.
April is going to be one very interesting month along the border in Cochise County...I wouldn't miss this for the world.
Did you see the article posted on Fox's proposal for continental integration?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1365865/posts
He doesn't want anyone to thwart his plan.
The only integration he has in mind is to rid Mexico of all "mexicans" and make the country pure spanish, that includes the indians that haven't interbred.
And here I thought that old Vincente may be warning about extremists crossing the border from Mexico.
Oh, he was. He just ratted himself out.
Then what are you so hot and bothered about, Vicente? Let the gringos build their steenking fence.
I guess he gets off doing it because "somebody" tolerates it so well.
If that's what I've been seeing in several places, the players appear to be a bunch of leftists (Clinton-ites) who are trying to push an agenda in the public venue that they know will never become a reality by way of our current government.
I'm not saying it won't happen eventually, but I don't see the Bush Admin or the Republican Congress getting behind this proposal.
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