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."
---
Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
--
This is so nuts that even DUmmies are laughing at it:
Only in America can you threaten to file lawsuits for something like breaking the law. WTF?U-S-A -- the S stands for "sucker"
Mexico has the wrong bird on its flag. I suggest replacing the eagle with a cuckoo, a lovely little songbird that gets by in life by laying its eggs in other birds' nests. This practice relieves the cuckoo of the burden of caring for its own. As a symbol, the cuckoo fits the Mexican ruling class to a T.LETS SUE MEXICO !! CITIZENS of US
sue the government and FOX for allowing their criminals and lower class peoples cross into our country and use our tax payers money to suck off our school health and many social programs.
these people are illegals and WE demand they LEAVE
Any lawyers have the BALLS to take this lawsuit??????You'd think that LARGE numbers of people trying desperatly to leave a country might suggest to its leaders that they need to FIX IT!
Ol Fox needs to focus on some of his domestic 'issues' first.
now here is a frivilous lawsuit, since when can a sovereign nation not protect its own border?
Crocodiles with fricking laser beams strapped to their heads !
If these lawsuits go forward and are successful, we can use the as precedent for a class action suit against Canada for damages in having to clean up all the goose sh_t they encourage into this country each year.
LOL!!!! Hell we should be able to get the EPA to do something today!
"F'em", and send em all home!
Ops4
Americans, who have been harmed by illegals from Mexico, should file suit against Mexico.
You're the one who called us "bigots"--and you think I'm making conservatives look bad???
That's hilarious. LOLOL!! :)
Only if Mexico declares war. Why would they Washington surrendered a long time ago.
Depends on the indoctrination syllabus ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.