US-Mexico border wall would be 'disgraceful': Fox

Reuters ^ | December 14, 2005

[West Coast Conservative]

Mexican President Vicente Fox denounced as "disgraceful and shameful" on Wednesday a proposal to build a high-tech wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants.

Concerned about the huge numbers of illegal immigrants streaming across the border and worried it could be an entry point for terrorists, a U.S. lawmaker has proposed building two parallel steel and wire fences running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said a wall running the length of a border would cost too much.

Mexico has expressed indignation at the idea.

Fox, speaking in Tamaulipas state across the border from Texas, said such extreme security measures would violate immigrants' rights.

"The disgraceful and shameful construction of walls, the increasing enforcement of security systems and increasing violation of human rights and labor rights will not protect the economy of the United States," he said.

He again called for the easing of U.S. immigration laws to benefit millions of undocumented Mexican fruit pickers, waiters and janitors working north of the border, a complex bilateral issue that has at times strained relations with Washington.

"I hope that next year we finally get an immigration agreement," Fox told immigrants crossing the border back to Mexico to spend the holidays with their families.

President George W. Bush pledged recently to step up the use of unmanned flying drones, fences and technology to tighten border security. A 14-mile (23-km) fence south of San Diego has already slashed illegal crossings there, officials say.

Each year, more than 1 million undocumented migrants try to slip across the rivers and deserts on the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico border in search of work in the United States.

Many die en route in the searing desert heat.

[A. Pole]

Good fences make good neighbors!

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

A wall is better than carpet bombing your turd world country to dust, wouldn't you think Vincente?

[Wiz]

We've got a plan something that would be better than what Israel has, but sure the cost is what would be a headache for us.

[highlander_UW]

Does he mean disgraceful as in the Mexican government publishing a handbook to help people break the laws of the US?

[reagan_fanatic]

Dear Mr. Fox:

What the United States does on its own property is the business of the United States and the United States alone. We do not need nor do we desire your input on this matter.

If you had lived up to your own obligations and done your part to stem the flood of ILLEGAL immigration into my country, we would not have found ourselves at this point, now would we? So take some not so friendly advise and go mind your own damned business for a change and let the United States do the job you apparently are unable to.

- Reagan Fanatic

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Remember his expatriates line up every Friday at US payphones to wire back 17 Gazillion un-taxed dollars back to Mexico.

Seems like the mexican economy is based on the three legged stool of oil, corruption, and illegal immigration. Take away any of those three legs and the whole thing falls down. Seems that way to me, anyway.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

Remember his expatriates line up every Friday at US payphones to wire back 17 Gazillion un-taxed dollars back to Mexico.

From Fox's point of view, that is absolutely the issue. Without remissions from the US, the Mexican economy would collapse.

I mean, collapse even further.

[Paulus Invictus]

Message to Presidente Fox: Arriba con el muro y fuera los ilegales! Entendido?

[ichabod1]

I wish someone would get up in his face. He should not be allowed in this country.

[ichabod1]

Fences keep people out. Cameras and sensors record them when they're already in. Then someone has to go get them, process them, give them room and board, and probably end up turning them loose with a "notice to appear". A fence ends all that. Sometimes the low tech solution is better than the high tech solution.

We have a saying in the computer biz. Sometimes the best answer to bandwith is a van full of tapes barreling down the highway at 60 miles per hour. I'll explain that if need be.

[ichabod1]

It was hardly a war for all the space in history it's gotten. A seige and a skirmish. OK, maybe San Jacinto rose to the level of a battle. But it wasn't much of a war from either perspective.

[ichabod1]

I don't think Chertoff is good for much either. Bush hasn't gotten the best and the brightest for that position. I wish that department had never been formed. Pork barrel. Black hole of money.

[ncountylee]

When you toss a rock into a pack of dogs, the one hit yelps the loudest.

Right Fox?

[gubamyster]

ping

[upcountryhorseman]

What's "disgraceful" is the Mexican Government's refusal
to do anything about their citizens' exodus to the north.

[dennisw]

Goood one!

Fence for Mexico border

[hripka]

That's nothing, they love to meddle in our affairs, even giving away Mexican text books to our schools:

Then why did the LA school system let those books in?

[Dante3]

Fox is disgusting and dishonest.

[WatchingInAmazement]

All That's nothing, they love to meddle in our affairs, even giving away Mexican text books to our schools: Each of Mexico's 47 consulates in the United States has a mandate to introduce Mexican textbooks into schools with significant Hispanic populations. The Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles showered nearly 100,000 textbooks on 1,500 schools in the L.A. Unified School District this year alone... The Mexican sixth-grade history book celebrates the troops who fought the Americans during the Mexican-American War. But "all the sacrifices and heroism of the Mexican people were useless," recounts the chronicle. The "Mexican people saw the enemy flag wave at the National Palace." The war's consequences were "disastrous," notes the primer: "To end the occupation, Mexico was obligated to sign the treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo," by which the country lost half its territory to the United States. Study exercises that include discovering "what happened to your territory when the U.S. invaded" don't clarify things. The textbook concludes by celebrating Mexican patriotic symbols: the flag, the currency and the national anthem. newzjunkey

Thanks for posting this. I had heard about it and everyone should! Mexican consulate also gives these text books out in our prisons.