Posted on 09/08/2001 5:20:57 AM PDT by sarcasm
icking off a package of reports that would take up more than a third of its half-hour newscast, the Spanish-language television network Telemundo began its coverage of President Vicente Fox's state visit to Washington on Thursday with a correspondent's giddy account of attending the formal White House dinner on Wednesday night.
"How beautiful to hear the sound of Spanish being spoken in the center of world power," gushed the principal correspondent and anchor, Pedro Sevcec.
Although other reports by Spanish-language media in the United States were considerably less effusive, Mr. Fox's visit provoked an outpouring of Hispanic pride. The Mexican president was portrayed, at least for the few days of this state visit, as the equal of his American counterpart in world politics.
Mr. Fox's activities in Washington and Toledo, Ohio, were generally presented in positive terms, with just a few briefly mentioning a rally outside the Mexican consulate in New York by protesters who said Mr. Fox was not pushing hard enough for immigration amnesty.
Far more often, Mr. Fox appeared as aggressive and in control. The front page of Hoy, a newspaper in New York, had a photograph of Mr. Fox's addressing Congress with the headline, "Strong and Clear."
Many of the print and television reports made much of Mr. Fox's challenge to President Bush to reach an agreement on immigration by the end of the year. It was portrayed as an electric proposal that sent ripples through Washington, even though administration officials said they knew beforehand what Mr. Fox would say and were not surprised.
"Fox Proposal Jolts the Congress," was the headline in Noticias del Mundo, a daily in New York sponsored by a branch of the Unification Church. The newspaper later described as unsettling or pushy Mr. Fox's other proposals on immigration and ending the yearly certification of Mexico's drug-fighting efforts.
Some of the Hispanic news media criticized reports in European and American papers that suggested that Mr. Fox's assertive comments sounded more as if they came from a corporate executive than a world leader and added unwanted tension to United States-Mexico relations. La Opinión in Los Angeles, the oldest and one of the most influential Spanish- language newspapers in the country, said Mr. Fox addressed a Congress that was "friendly and impressed by the prowess of the former Coca-Cola executive."
Mr. Fox was chief executive of Coca-Cola operations in Mexico from 1975 to 1979.
La Opinión took a generally supportive view of Mr. Fox's trip, playing down the absence of concrete accords with Mr. Bush and generally glossing over Mr. Fox's mediocre record of achievements in his 10 months in office. The editor of La Opinión, Gerardo López, said he thought that it was more important to focus on the historic nature of the meeting than on Mr. Fox's domestic troubles. "Our readers already know about the difficulties that Fox has in Mexico," Mr. López said.
Much of the coverage in Spanish reflects the degree to which Mr. Fox directed his message not to the people at home, but to the millions of Mexicans who live legally and illegally in the United States, a large group that previous Mexican presidents have all but ignored.
On the brief tour of Toledo, which has a growing Hispanic population, Mr. Fox spoke directly to those immigrants, calling them "beloved countrymen." Little attention was paid in the Hispanic news media to the hundreds of disappointed Mexican farm workers in Toledo who had expected to hear the presidents announce an agreement on an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Univision, a Spanish-language network that broadcasts across the United States and into Spanish-speaking countries, included a brief interview with a disgruntled farm worker, Hermelindo Rodríguez, who said that Mr. Fox "had a lot of time to do things, but so far he hasn't done anything."
A Univision anchor, Jorge Ramos, said in an interview that Mr. Fox's visit was one of the biggest stories that the network had covered this year, because "for the first time in recent history Mexico is imposing its agenda on the United States, not the other way around."
Even though its viewership in the United States is made up of Spanish-speaking people from many countries in addition to Mexico, Univision has extensively covered Mr. Fox's visit, broadcasting live from Mexico and Washington and committing a full team of reporters to covering every aspect, including the first ladies' visit to an art exhibition in Chicago.
Before leaving Mexico on Tuesday, Mr. Fox took part in a conversation in the Univision Internet chat room that Mr. Ramos, a Mexican- American, moderated. He said he could not imagine previous Mexican presidents' being willing to answer questions publicly from people they did not know.
In general, Mr. Ramos said, "the questions that came from the United States were more sympathetic than those coming from Mexico.
"In Mexico," he added, "they can't understand why Fox is so popular here. He hasn't accomplished peace in Chiapas. Mexico has lost 250,000 jobs in the last six months. He hasn't gotten the tax reform he wanted. In other words, the promises he made in the campaign have not been materialized."
But for Mexicans in the United States, Mr. Ramos said, "Fox is a great president, because he's promised and tried to legalize the status of all Mexicans."
BINGO!
He'd better come up with about $12 billion fast, because that's what it's gonna cost to process six million "regularization" applications (using the conservative figure of $2,000 per application).
Maybe Fox ought to spend some time in Mexico and get to work fixing that place up. If Mexico was headed in the right direction, all these millions of people wouldn't need "legalization" done for them in other countries, they would be happy at home building up and working for their beloved homeland. I think it's one thing for him to ask Bush for help with pushing for some changes to capitalism in Mexico but he's taking the wrong approach.
$30 billion for welfare and assorted bennies; the (strangely undiscussed) $12 billion for INS "regularization" applications; and the bizarre silence regarding the complete and total inability of the INS to process six million applications using its current methods and broken/nonfunctional/kludgey computer systems.
The GAO issued a report in March, 2001 stating that:
"INS does not know how long it takes to process aliens’ applications because its available servicewide automated systems contain unreliable data and its districts do not have automated systems for tracking many types of applications. A recent physical inventory of pending applications revealed that about 767,000 out of almost 3 million applicants with applications pending as of September 30, 2000, had been waiting at least 21 months for INS to process their naturalization, legal permanent residence, and other immigration-related applications.
Make note of that statement, "767,000 out of almost 3 million applicants with applications pending." That means the INS currently has only 3 million immigrant applications of all kinds in its system, and Bush, et al are proposing to add another six million in one fell swoop (no one on their right mind believes the "official" figure of 3 million, which apparently changes according to the weather in Washington).
It is inevitable that given the terrible and chaotic situation at INS, and the intention to swamp it with a 200 percent increase in caseload, that INS border enforcement will go completely down the drain; that the opportunities for immigration fraud will be limitless among these illegal Mexican aliens who have already demonstrated total contempt for U.S. laws; and, because INS will be so hopelessly paralyzed both nationally and at our borders, that the already rampant alien and drug smuggling businesses (which go hand-in-hand) will run with complete impunity.
The "unintended consequences" of "regularization" will be national security and law enforcement nightmares the likes of which we have never seen.
The ensuing chaos at INS will permit any Mexican or Central/South American with half a brain and some bribery $$$ to obtain a completely new, official U.S. identity. Hop the border with some bogus "official" Mexican documentation, bribe a friendly business owner to validate your purported U.S. employment, and - amazing! - a new U.S. identity. The INS as it currently exists will find it impossible to validate the legitimacy (or not) of six million applications.
Call "regularization" a permanent amnesty for every criminal south of Texas/Arizon/San Diego (drug smugglers in particular).
Just a bunch of stupid questions that no liberal will answer.
I better stop here, however, I was just getting warmed up.
When those people fled into the interior, the Spaniards brought Africans to take their place.
When the pearl beds were depleted, the Africans were abandoned on the islands of the Caribean.
This was well before the developement of agriculture in the southern states.
I had no idea....
You better start saving 'cause the interest alone.......
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