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.
Gads. Memo to V. Fox: America. Spell it with us. A.M.E.R.I.C.A. Not M.E.X.I.C.O. You want your people to eat/work? Put them to work and feed them. Educate them. Quit pawning your problems off on us while drawing a gigantic salary that could feed 10000 of them.
LOL
Fox can complain all he wants from _HIS_ side of the fence.
Yeah he should. Who would file such a suit???
A guess the Germans were also "furious" at the French putting up a token fight in WWII.
The REAL ID act is nothing but trouble for us anyway. All Mexicans need to do in all 50 states is simply show their Matricular card or Mexican driver's license.They have no need to obtain a US driver's license. 14,000,000 drive every day without one.
Dear Vinnie....
Have a Coke and a Smile and STFU!
bump
President Bush, we're waiting...waiting...waiting for a comment from you regarding Vicente Fox and his ignorant comments. President Bush, are you there???
Well, as the skeet shooters say:
Mexico's mad?
Damn, jeez louise, I'm gonna lose alot of sleep over this!
Has somebody been giving them talking points but they don't quite understand what they mean? Methinks there are some meskin power brokers that are used to getting their way that are suddenly not getting their phone calls returned. That's what methinks.
Maybe they don't understand that we the people have a little something to say about the matter to. And W? He's a frickin' lame duck. Doesn't really matter what he wants now.
“negative, inconvenient, and obstructionist”.
I certainly hope so.
President GWBush has convienently forgotten that part of his oath... amnesia maybe?
I'm buying stock as we speak...
And, I'm buying lumber. ;-)
We'll be rich!!
Tougho shito!!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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