Posted on 05/22/2005 7:08:57 AM PDT by nuconvert
Mexico outraged at U.S. as border gets tighter
Mexican President Vicente Fox was hoping that U.S. immigration policy would become more lenient. The opposite has occurred.
BY SUSANA HAYWARD
MEXICO CITY - When President Vicente Fox came into office in late 2000, he hoped his legacy would be U.S. immigration revisions that would allow Mexicans to cross the border into the United States and work legally.
Now, that vision is crumbling in the face of legislation President Bush signed earlier this month that authorizes the construction of more walls along the border and in effect invalidates Mexico-issued ID cards for Mexicans living in the United States.
Fox is pledging to continue his efforts for migrants until his term ends in December 2006. But officials are angry and disheartened at what they see as walls going up between the United States and Mexico instead of coming down.
Fox's government is planning to send a diplomatic protest over the law, the first the country has ever formally presented to the United States.
Fox expressed his anger in a recent speech: ``I respect the sovereignty of the United States and its freedom to take such decisions and measures, but frankly it's not the right approach between friends and neighbors.''
Much of the news coverage of his comments focused on the racial overtones of his defense of Mexican migrants' role in the U.S. economy -- he said Mexicans ''are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do.'' The Mexican government eventually apologized for offending African-Americans.
FRUSTRATION
But the comments underlined Fox's frustration and anxiety at the passage of the so-called Real ID Act, which was attached to an $82 billion spending bill to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The legislation requires that ID cards meet strict federal requirements in three years if they'll be used to request U.S. government services or board an airliner. It also allows the Homeland Security Department to construct a second wall and other barriers around the 150-foot metal wall that's along the border between Tijuana and San Diego.
It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. A rancher and former governor of Guanajuato state, Fox made immigration a top priority. During his campaigns, he promised to fight for an open border and for legalizing Mexicans in the United States. He expected Bush, also a former governor with a ranch, to be an ally.
Fox and Bush began a close relationship after they took office, Fox in December 2000 and Bush a month later. They vowed to enrich ties and work on legalizing or giving amnesty to at least 4 million Mexicans and other undocumented workers in the U.S.
But a chill followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Bush didn't push an immigration accord. Fox didn't support the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Last year, there was renewed optimism when Bush proposed a program to allow temporary workers, similar to guest programs of the past. But it's lingered in Congress.
Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced a bill earlier this month that would allow immigrants to seek legal status after living in the United States for three years, but its passage is considered an uphill battle.
Immigration is the one political constant in Mexico, ahead of next year's July presidential elections. Even Fox's worst political enemies agree with his criticism of the United States. Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-of-center Democratic Revolutionary Party, the favorite to succeed Fox, said the United States should help Mexico create jobs, not build walls.
UNITED PROTEST
Others agree, calling for a ``united, nonpartisan protest.''
''This is an anti-immigration campaign without precedent. It's Mexico against Republicans, [Calif. Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger, the Minutemen in Arizona, Bush's entire Cabinet,'' said Primitivo Rodriguez, a Mexican political scientist who specializes in immigration and is working to pass a bill here that would allow Mexicans abroad to vote in the 2006 elections.
The anger over the U.S. legislation is such that diplomatic protests are only one of the plans. Mexican community leaders have advocated going on strike to prove that U.S. employers couldn't survive without cheap Mexican labor.
''These measures are myopic, racist and xenophobic,'' said Amalia Garcia, the left-of-center governor of Zacatecas state, which has one of the country's highest emigration rates. ``Building walls and preventing migrants from getting a driver's license don't solve any security problems.''
I like my neighbors just fine, but I don't let them wander into my home at will.
Maybe Vicente ought to cross the border and start voting in our elections like all his countrymen do.
....good. We need a lot more of the same in order to truly secure our borders. These steps are a good start, but we must remain active in insisting that the borders be secure and the illegal immigration invasion halted, while supporting and promoting legal immigration. Othwerwise, if we do not remain active and insistant, these measures will be treated as a token response and business will continue as usual.
Anybody know of anything our government is doing to tighten border security? I smell an effort by Fox to get Bush off the hook for his part in this conspiracy to open our borders. Make it look as if something is really being done while instructing border patrol agents to look the other way.
Fences make good neighbors.
So does razorwire.
So do walls.
So does electrification of such.
So do moats.
So do trenches.
So do landmines.
Let the invader beware.
Good Fences make Good Neighbors.
Ph*ck Vicente Fox. What we ought to do is place armed soldiers at the border facing south...with orders to shoot to kill anyone caught coming across in other than approved crossing points. Period. End of issue. Let 'em squirm for a while and they'll catch on.
Keeping people OUT is NOT the moral equivalent of keeping people IN. Now read that last sentence and tell your friends...SSZ
Fox expressed his anger in a recent speech: ``I respect the sovereignty of the United States and its freedom to take such decisions and measures, but frankly it's not the right approach between friends and neighbors.''
old saying " Good fences make good neighbors "
I like my neighbors just fine, but I don't let them wander into my home at will.
Vincente, tell your son to get out of MY refridgerater,
and NO he may not borrow the car.
I guess that doesn't cover Secretary of State.
I still say annex the place.
I'm glad you understand.
Now sit down and color.
LVM
i was accepted to a university. i'm classified as out-of-state, but illegals get in-state.
there's something wrong about being a 2nd class citizen in your own country.
Coming down? Is it not enough that over one million Mexicans per year illegally cross the border into the U.S.? Is it not enough that around 30 million currently reside here illegally (around 1/10 of the entire population of the U.S.)?
'These measures are myopic, racist and xenophobic,'' said Amalia Garcia, the left-of-center governor of Zacatecas state, which has one of the country's highest emigration rates. "Building walls and preventing migrants from getting a driver's license don't solve any security problems.''
The race card -- consistently brought to you by people who should be taking a good long look in the mirror.
Although building walls certainly doesn't solve security problems, it can help considerably.
I hope this does happen and if the U.S. employers that employ illegals go out of business, then good riddance, there will always be someone to take their place. Maybe those that are here legally and will do the work that the illegals won't do.
How many times has Mexico been on the side of America?
NEVER.
If you must, call me a conspiracy nut and get out your tin foil hat; however, I'm firmly convinced that there is a core of people (both liberal and conservative) whose goal is to turn the USA into a third world country.
Payback time for screwing us over during the run up to Gulf War part 2. Bush has a long memory.
And they're succeeding brilliantly.
(Although the "conservatives" you mentioned are conservative in name only).
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