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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You forget how some of
our Judges are ruling of
late.
I agree,....totally nuts!
...and the Bush adminstration says NOTHING as they high five each other over last nights SUPPOSED great speech and then put their heads in the sand!
Bring it on! Sue us ya termites! This will clarify to the US public exactly what we are dealing with. The hostile pissant nation of Mexico
Un-freakin'-believable. I sometimes feel like throwing my hands up and giving up. This is outrageous!
These are the words of a HOSTILE foreign power.... they can't wave a saber against the USA so they threaten to tie up our officials in our own courts. Gee, they sound like they've studied the ACLU leftist moonbat playbook.
Mexico says they'll sue us if we enforce our laws. The ACLU will probably take the case for them and our country will pay the attorney fees. Grrrrrrrrrrrr!
How about Mexico get their rag tag Army up here and try to stop us from doing whatever we want to do within our own borders. Bring it on.
When was the last time that the U.S. sued the Mexican government for deploying their troops along our border to aid and abet human traffickers and drug smugglers?
"Someone talk me out of this despondency"
Would if I could, but seriously, is there any hope? It sounds so "DU" to talk about looking for greener pastures, but really, can this country be saved from the illegal invasion?
I would like to know what LAW the U.S. government broke?
South Taxes Ping!
Mexico has been violating several treaties for years. Their first act of war was committed long ago. This latest is from a long series of such acts.
Ggrrrrrr..ping!
They won't even send their Army to Neuvo Laredo to stop the Gang Wars and violence just across our Borders...
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