Posted on 05/16/2006 2:15:57 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -
Mexico said Tuesday that it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops on the border become directly involved in detaining migrants.
Mexican border officials also said they worried that sending troops to heavily trafficked regions would push illegal migrants into more perilous areas of the U.S.-Mexican border to avoid detection.
President Bush announced Monday that he would send 6,000 National Guard troops to the 2,000-mile border, but they would provide intelligence and surveillance support to Border Patrol agents, not catch and detain illegal immigrants.
"If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people ... we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates," Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.
Mexican officials worry the crackdown will lead to more deaths. Since Washington toughened security in Texas and California in 1994, migrants have flooded Arizona's hard-to-patrol desert and deaths have spiked. Migrant groups estimate 500 people died trying to cross the border in 2005. The Border Patrol reported 473 deaths in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
In Ciudad Juarez, Julieta Nunez Gonzalez, local representative of the Mexican government's National Immigration Institute, said Tuesday she will ask the government to send its migrant protection force, known as Grupo Beta, to more remote sections of the border.
Sending the National Guard "will not stop the flow of migrants, to the contrary, it will probably go up," as people try to get into the U.S. in the hope that they could benefit from a possible amnesty program, Nunez said.
Juan Canche, 36, traveled more than 1,200 miles to the border from the southern town of Izamal and said nothing would stop him from trying to cross.
"Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle," said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. "My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it."
Some Mexican newspapers criticized President Vicente Fox for not taking a stronger stand against the measure, even though Fox called Bush to express his concerns.
A political cartoon in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma depicted Bush as a gorilla carrying a club with a flattened Fox stuck to it.
Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday that Mexico accepted Bush's statement that the sending in the National Guard didn't mean militarizing the area. He also said Mexico remained "optimistic" that the U.S. Senate would approve an immigration reform "in the interests of both countries."
Aguilar noted that Bush expressed support for the legalization of some immigrants and implementation of a guest worker program.
"This is definitely not a militarization," said Aguilar, who also dismissed as "absolutely false" rumors that Mexico would send its own troops to the border in response.
Bush has said sending the National Guard is intended as a stopgap measure while the Border Patrol builds up resources to more effectively secure the border.
In Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, Honduran Antonio Auriel said he would make it into the U.S.
"Soldiers on the border? That won't stop me," he said. "I'll swim the river and jump the wall. I'm going to arrive in the United States."
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Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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Maybe this would be a solution.
I still don't understand what they plan to sue over.
They are out of there effin mind.
I have some mescal...
They will sue us based on the idea that we cannot operate our military inside our borders especially in policing actions.
That would be "Sharks with laser beams on thier frickin' heads" in the Rio Grande. LOL
-A political cartoon in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma depicted Bush as a gorilla carrying a club with a flattened Fox stuck to it.-
Were it only true. Bush can battle Al Qaeda just fine, but when it comes to Vicente Fox he gets all mooshy. I simply don't get it. Somebody tell me it's an oil thing so I'll feel better.
What's good for Mexico is good for America!
Unless, of course, it was done to give Bush the opportunity to come out and slam Fox in public in order to up his credibility on the border issue. Guess we'll have to see what comes out of the oval office in the next few days.
I thought Posse Comitatus does not apply to the national guard, in fact the National Guard has excersised police powers before.
I say we sue the oligarch bastards in Mexico for letting their country go to hell and encouraging their rabble to come up here, thereby exacerbating the illegal alien invasion. Two can play at this game!
I knew you were quoting GWB sarcastically--Sorry if you thought otherwise!
Maybe we could stuff their pleading paper down the barrel of a cannon and shoot it back over the border.
Well what they think they can do and what they can actually do are two very different things.
Do not forget that the UN called the USA "mean" for attempting to deny any kind of migration.
Human rights will be another angle.
Please understand that their goal is not to win in any court. Their goal is to tie up the courts with suits. Cost the taxpayers money to the point that it is too expensive to fight. You know, kind of like capitol punishment is today!!!!!
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