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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Finally someone threatens the suits! Now we'll see action!
Hey man! You just try to enforce your laws, protect your own borders, use your military to perform the fundamental role of ANY nation's military -- and we will sue the pants off of you!
The sad part of it is that there are plenty of lawyers who will take the cases as well as plenty of publicity-hungry Clinton-era judicial appointees who will rule in their favor. They really could tie the whole thing up in knots this way.
It's too early in the week to get drunk, I am too old to cry, I think I am just going to pound my head against the wall for a while.
No, remember, things are getting done but we're just whining & lying.
What they could not win militarily they will take through sedition.
Freudian slip?
Not.
The American people have grown so apathetic that most have totally forgotten what the events of 9/11 told us. I am disappointed with my fellow Americans beyond words. They wouldn't do a thing.
We started taking orders from these people when, exactly?
This problem has existed for over 30 years. Let us not lay all the blame on Bush.
They would say "We're not talking about OUR immigration policies, we're talking about YOUR immigration policies. Don't try to change the subject."
This is going to get even more interesting when the angry mexicans elect Obrador in July.
"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."
Notice in that statement that the entire tenor of it is not the sanctity of the border, but that our actions might be an impediment to illegal crossings - as if, how dare we impede such noble activity.
This, this attidtude from Mexico, is every U.S. President's fault and Bush has been no help with it.
A failure is a failure.
Well I do not know that they will suceed in that effort but they sure are trying. Time for Americans to stand up and say in the words of roberto durante "MO MAS!"
But isn't that where a lot of this started? When burglars started being able to sue for damages if they got hurt while burgling a residence?
Well maybe I still have more faith remaining in my countrymen than you do.
Pinch me. Am I in a parallel universe?
Is this guy nuts?
This sounds like part of the plan. If our government does not back down and the Mexican government does then conservatives will feel like we accomplished something. And the rest of the new immigration law will sail through. Illegals will get amnesty.
Dear Mr. Derbez:
Nuts.
Sincerely,
The American People
Sounds like human rights violations to me. /sarc
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