Posted on 05/13/2005 2:29:12 PM PDT by seastay
Mexico has reacted furiously to a bill signed into law by the US this week that would fund a border wall and prevent illegal Mexican migrants from obtaining US driving licences.
President Vicente Fox said he would lodge a diplomatic complaint, and was considering complaints to multilateral bodies if Mexico could not unable to resolve the problem bilaterally.
In the US, leaders of the Mexican community threatened to strike to send a message to US employers that they could not survive without cheap Mexican labour.
Santiago Creel, Mexico's interior secretary, said the “Real ID” law was “negative, inconvenient, and obstructionist”.
“Building walls doesn't help anyone build a good neighbourhood,” he said. “Taking away the possibility of obtaining driving licences for people who are working in legal jobs, who pay their taxes there, who send remittances home here, seems to us to be an extreme measure, particularly given the new understanding that we thought we had after the re-election of President Bush.”
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, mayor of Mexico City, supported Mr Fox's stance. He said the problem of growing immigration could be “resolved by encouraging development in Mexico and Central America, not by building walls and using the border control”.
Since 2002, Mexico has adopted a popular policy of issuing undocumented labourers with consular identity cards, which are accepted as proof of identity by many US states for issuing driving licences, and for opening bank accounts. Under the new law, this would no longer be possible. The immigration provisions approved by Congress were attached by House Republicans to a bill that will provide more than $80bn for the war in Iraq this year, giving lawmakers little choice but to support it.
The White House, which at first opposed the new restrictions, supported them when it became clear they would pass Congress in spite of administration opposition.
President George W. Bush has said he wants to deal with illegal immigration by creating a temporary guest worker programme. But many Republicans are using the anxiety about terrorism to push for a crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Some how, by your reply, I knew that you are an ex GI.
They would go completely insane if you were to hold up an umbrella.
How about the idiot keep his sheep at home....
Sounds good to me, as long as there no added benfits such a free this or that.
I was thinking machine gun nests and motion detectors.
Please, please, Vincente, break diplomatic relations with the US and close the border.
Good. Whenever I hear that the corrupt Mexican government is furious at the United States for any reason, it really makes my day. Mexico is not our friend.
F*** em.
Fox, today, is like the hustler in the Bronx standing beside the trailor truck of VCRs that someone else has broken in to. The hustler is telling everyone to help themselves and demanding $10 from everyone who does.
The Mexicans who escape Mexico in their flight to the US are a terrible indictment of Fox and his miserable government. That is why he has to make a big deal out ofeverything that the US FINALLY is doing to defend itself. Just think how the Bronx hustler feels when the cops lock up the truck and he is stuck with a line of guys with $10 bills and another line of guys with VCRs who want their tens back.
The American people had an understanding too when the President was sworn in for a second term. Something to the effect of protecting the people of the United States if I remember correctly.
Many pings today bttt.
I think the bill I've read about on FR goes even farther than just taking care of prescription needs for illegals.
It's a bill that takes care of ALL the medical care for illegals.
And that Medicaid bill was one of the worst bills I've ever seen in my lifetime, I'm sorry to say.
It pays companies to live up to their contractual obligations to cover retirees. Bribery. But the bean counters in those companies have run the numbers and decided that even being paid by taxpayers to live up to their contractual obligations, it's cheaper to drop retiree prescription drug coverage and let the feds (taxpayers) take care of it.
We live in a town that has a huge retirement population and I can't tell you how many dozens of people got letters this year from their providers telling them that as of 1/1/06, their prescription drug coverage goes away.
And the new Medicaid policy costs more, in every case, than what they were currently paying.
I never supported that bill and spoke out against it a few times and was flamed so I just stopped. But wait until people see how much it's going to cost us. It's unsustainable.
THat would work for me. I like it.
The next El Presidente of Mexico will be the communist mayor of Mexico City. Of course, at that point all Mexican illegals will become political refugees entitled to asylum. I see nothing but more and more trouble ahead with Mexico. My only hope is that they find another Santa Anna to invade the U.S. giving us an excuse to whip their axx and then as a war settlement require them to build a 20 foot electrified fence from Brownsville to the Pacific.
I would say "tough titty" if not for the fact that our leaders will kiss his backside up one wall and down the other side.
I can see a surge in the production of catapults, if the wall is built.
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