Posted on 05/21/2006 10:47:45 PM PDT by Plutarch
Reformist Mexican President Vincente Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion that over a decade or two Nafta should evolve into something like the European Union, with open borders for not only goods and investment but also people. He can rest assured that there is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper.
Indeed, during the immigration debate of 1984 we suggested an ultimate goal to guide passing policies -- a constitutional amendment: "There shall be open borders."
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Today the GOP is led by George W. Bush, who told campaign audiences "family values do not stop at the Rio Grande." The employer sanctions in the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli bill are now recognized as windmill tilting.
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Another amnesty for undocumented aliens is already in the air; every decade or so Congress somehow or another faces this reality. Even opening Nafta borders completely, I would dare to suggest, might not unleash a new flood of immigrants. There is a limit to the number who actually want to come, and experience suggests that many of those who do already can find a way. And after all, we did have a long history of unlimited quotas for Western Hemisphere immigrants, ending only in 1965.
President Fox is nothing if not a visionary. Many scoffed at his ambition to unseat the machine that had run Mexico for generations; now they scoff at his proposals on immigration. But over the decade or two he mentioned, a Nafta with open borders may yet prove not so wild a dream.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
They should have an idiot alert with that thinking in a 9/11 world.
I believe in open borders ... but they must be open BOTH ways. Mexico cannot expect to export it's people to the USA with impunity without allowing the reverse.
US citizens should DEMAND to be able to move into Mexico anytime and work, buy property, own businesses, etc.
Yeah, sure, but in the meantime we should control who we allow in.
They should have an idiot alert for posting a 5 year old article.
If it is true that they have the same thinking today, YES!
wow, thanks for the post. I knew they were nuts on this issue, now I know it goes back to completely open borders, which is plain ludicrous.
The EU has strict guidelines on who can join the EU. Open borders are for countries that are roughly similar. Regarding the US, compatible open border countries would be australia, singapore, taiwan, japan, south korea, britain, ireland, norway, denmark, italy, france, scandinavia, etc.
Mexico is not ready to be on the list. The world is not perfect and we need a southern barrier for an imperfect world.
If they have the same thinking today, just post an article from today.
I thought you might like the sentiments expressed in the piece, staytrue!
Ever since illegal aliens destroyed the building next door to the WSJ, they have been less candid about their views. Thus the necessity of unearthing the 2001 article.
I'm a carpenter that's been in the same line of work for 20 yrs.. Emigrants from a 3rd world country, unwilling to assimilate, demanding undeserved rights will deflate the wage of a job that was considered a trade not too long ago.
I agree. Give all U.S. and Mexican residents dual citizenship in both countries. This would reverse, or equalize the migration. North American commercial and industrial interests would flock to Mexico with factories, retail chains and real estate development. It would be the new California. In time, the deplorable conditions that force poor Mexicans to migrate into the U.S. would be mitigated. I think eventually you would see millions of retirees settling down there.
Oh really?
The 1965 Immigration Act: Anatomy of a Disaster
"Born of liberal ideology, the 1965 bill abolished the national origins quota system that had regulated the ethnic composition of immigration in fair proportion to each group's existing presence in the population. In a misguided application spirit of the civil rights era, the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations saw these ethnic quotas as an archaic form of chauvinism. Moreover, as Cold Warriors facing charges of "racism" and "imperialism," they found the system rhetorically embarrassing."
"Senate floor manager and Camelot knight-errant Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, assured jittery senators that "our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually." Time has proven otherwise. Average immigration levels before the 1965 amendments took effect hovered around 300,000 per annum. Yet 1,045,000 legal immigrants flooded our cities in 1996 alone."
"America's current mass immigration mess is the result of a change in the laws in 1965. Prior to 1965, despite some changes in the 50's, America was a low-immigration country basically living under immigration laws written in 1924. Thanks to low immigration, the swamp of cheap labor was largely drained during this period, America became a fundamentally middle-class society, and our many European ethnic groups were brought together into a common national culture."
"In some ways, this achievement was so complete that we started to take for granted what we had achieved and forgot why it happened. So in a spasm of sentimentality on the Right and lies on the Left, we opened the borders."
To many, that is the ultimate goal.
Although the WSJ has a conservative editorial page, it must be rembered that it's a "business and money" first paper. It represents those business interests that LOVE the illegal cheap labor.
There are many "conservative" publications that fall into the same category -- for example, The Weekly Standard. Fred "no borders" Barnes and his boss Bill "come all!" Kristol are in the same league.
Look -- this is one reason Republicans (but NOT conservatives) are divided. There is that faction of business interest groups that love the low illegal wages, and there is the group of cynical, idiotic politicians that are selling the country out in the vain hope getting a chunk of the Hispanic vote.
They don't give a damn about the social, economic, and national security problems our disastrous, unsecured border policy is bringing us -- they only care about the $profit$ they can rip out of a chaotic catastrophe.
Precisely
Nailed it.
I think that one day, The North American continent will be a gigantic economic and political powerhouse similar to Europe but I think that a lot depends on Mexico. They need to restructure their economy where to utilizes is natural resources in effecient manner. Mexico is a member of OPEC but does not use the oil revenue money to uplift Mexico's poor. Instead, oil revenue is in the pockets of the elite class. Also the Mexican Government needs to eliminate the corruption in all levels of government including law enforcement. They also need to give more money to educating its citizens where they can fully access the benefits of a middle class system. Mexico currently spends only 4 percent of their adjusted Gross Domestic Product on educating its citizens. To have a vibrant economy you need an educated class. Also, Mexico is the stopping point for drugs entering the United States. They have not done enough to stop the drug barons along the border. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the members of the Mexican Army is aiding the drug barons. The Mexican Government has a long way to go before they can with a straight face convince the American people to erase the border lines. It is however a tantalizing and intriguing idea and could give the European Union a run for its money.
Witnessing the death of the U.S ?
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