Posted on 03/27/2006 9:44:07 AM PST by indcons
NOGALES, MEXICO – The proposed 700-mile barrier is to be a big issue at Thursday's North American summit.
Some envision a wall. Others, a fence - or even a "virtual" fence of cameras, lighting, and sensors along the US-Mexican border. Whatever form it will take, the US is discussing, planning, and, in some places, already building it - much to the fury and frustration of neighbors south of the border.
As Mexican President Vicente Fox prepares to meet Thursday with President Bush and Canada's new prime minister, Stephen Harper, in Cancún, the proposed 700-mile, $2.2 billion barrier is a major point of contention - not just for the US and Mexico, but for the US and the whole region.
Regional leaders - whose countries in 2004 received some $45 billion sent home from immigrants in the US - have met three times recently to discuss how best to oppose it.
"At a moment when relations between the US and Latin America are at their lowest point since the end of the cold war, this fence proposal is viewed as a terrible affront," says Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.
"It is hard to imagine any other symbol that more strongly reinforces the image of the "ugly American" and is more sharply at odds with the "good neighbor" concept."
It's not just the barrier, but other issues as well in proposed US immigration reform legislation that irk regional leaders and caused hundreds of thousands of people to protest in multiple US cities over the past few days.
The US Congress passed a tough immigration bill in December that would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to be in the US, impose new penalties on employers who hire them, and erect a fence along one-third of the border's total length.
At present, just over 80 miles of federally enforced barriers and fencing are erected at strategic points on the border, mainly in Texas and California.
This week, the Senate will debate a comprehensive bill that is expected to include guest-worker provisions and avenues for legal residency, while at the same time beefing up border security. So far, a draft of the bill calls only for expanding and reinforcing fencing in Arizona - the border state with the most illegal immigration traffic - and adding 200 miles of vehicle barriers there, but more extensive fencing elsewhere is still under discussion.
"No country that is proud of itself should build walls," Fox told reporters when he last met Bush one year ago, and a month after the House began talks on approving a fence. "[I]t doesn't make any sense."
Since then, as the debate has continued in the US over what kind of fence is needed and where, Fox has called the proposal everything from "stupid" and "discriminatory" to "shameful," and heralded illegal migrants as "heroes" who will in any event find ways to cross the border.
Last year 1.2 million illegal immigrants were apprehended by the border patrol as they tried to cross into the US, and it is frequently estimated that close to the same number make it. Last year was also a record year for deaths. In 2005, 473 would-be immigrants died en route, many victims of thirst, heatstroke, exhaustion, or exposure when they tried to cross less carefully guarded desert areas.
Currently, 11.5 million to 12 million illegal immigrants live in the US, according to estimates in a report released this month by the Pew Hispanic Center. Of these, an estimated 6.2 million, or 56 percent, are Mexicans. Another 2.5 million, or 22 percent of the total, come from other Latin American countries.
The money these people send home is vital to the region's economy. In 2005, legal and illegal immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean sent home $45 billion in remittances, double the total of a decade earlier, according to the Social Outlook 2005 report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), a UN regional body. Mexican workers alone sent home a record $17 billion.
So while Fox might be the regional leader most concerned with, and vocal about, US immigration policy - he is far from the only one.
Spearheaded by Mexico, and galvanized by the fence proposals, foreign ministers and other top officials from Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama as well as Colombia, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic met March 15 in Guatemala and vowed to coordinate their lobbying efforts against the US bill if it should pass in the Senate.
Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, in turn, called the bill "an affront to Latin America by a government that claims to be our partner, but which apparently only wants our money and our merchandise, and that sees our people as an epidemic."
This was the third time representatives from these 11 countries have gathered to discuss the US bill. In early January, they convened in Mexico City and put out a joint statement saying that "incomplete measures that only involve the stiffening of immigration policies do not represent an integral solution for dealing with the challenges posed by the phenomenon of migration."
In February, the group met again in Cartegena, Colombia, and devised a plan to identify key US senators to reach out to on the issue. Both the Mexican parliament and the five- nation Central American Parliament have condemned the proposed fence and are calling on the Senate to throw it out.
"Our message is that we are your neighbors, we are your friends. This is a common challenge," Carlos de Icaza, Mexico's ambassador to the US, told reporters in Washington last week. "And we are part of the solution, not only part of the problem."
Moot point if we lose our country first.
If scamnesty goes through, we can kiss our national sovereignty goodbye permanently. If we wait another election cycle to fix this problem it will be too late.
Pick a side. You're either a US citizen, and willing to stand side-by-side and fight for rule-of-law and national sovereignty, or you are batting for the wrong team.
Guess you missed the verses that call on us to "render unto Ceasar..."
Selective interpretation of the Bible is a dangerous path.
Biblically, you would not have to choose - if you actually understand the Book.
"For instance, HR 4437 should not be used to outlaw Christian charity."
This is false (a lie). HR 4437 only makes it illegal to use a Christian charity as a shield for illegal activity. The same as many Islamic charities now act as a fundraising arm for Al Qaeda.
"I believe you are underestimating the unintended consequences to the economy as well."
Not in my neck of the woods here in the NE.
We could ship off every illegal in construction / heating HVAC / Auto Body Repair / Landscaping and replace them with American kids graduating from tech high schools in 24 hours.
These kids are getting clobbered now in the job market.
The only difference would be that you'd have to put these Americans "on the books".....which of course would be a boon to us folks who run LEGIT businesses.
;)
Let me guess, plaintiff's attorney and criminal defense attorney?
Nope.
italians off?
"I stated that there are plenty of MORE IMPORTANT things to spend $2.2 billion on."
That $2.2 Billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the $9 billion dollars per year that illegal immigration currently costs taxpayers in California alone. That's a net gain to the taxpayers of $6.8 billion for ONE STATE.
The wall IS part of winning the war in Irag.
Well, I'm talking more about the TOTAL impact on the nation as a whole - if added costs in agriculture, service industries, etc. take down the economy of the entire left side of America, that is going to impact the NE sooner or later.
Do I need to draw you a world map to scale?
Then, why did Durbin have to pass an amendment to make that perfectly clear?
LOL - talk about selective interprestation - keep reading Romans 13 AFTER "render unto Ceasar" if you dare.
Or maybe an immigration attorney?
Seriously, you don't have a leg to stand on. Economically, until we have zero unemployed US Citizens I don't want to hear jack sh#T about the effect of kicking illegals out on the economy.
Fines and prison sentences for those who harbor illegals and those who employ them. Deportation and a big wall.
Require those on unemployment to work or get NO BENEFITS. (on a sliding scale) Force people off unemployment to do "these jobs that no Americans will do" (which, as someone else pointed out on another thread is highly offensive to the US citizens who actually perform these jobs daily) until people figure out that they don't have a right to sponge off our tax dollars because they can't find a job that they like as opposed to a job that is available.
Reduce unemployment to zero and then re-evaluate the immigration issue.
Speculative at best. Most countries being overrun by low-skill uneducated workers have their economies stagnated by increased social costs and negative impetus towards better workforce utilization.
The next "election cycle" is November 7, last time I checked.
I have been reading quite a bit in my local newspapers about the criminals' concern for the US economy. LOL...as if they care about the US economy; they don't even care about existing laws and are perfectly willing to flout it brazenly.
Let the criminals go back to Mexico and worry about the economy there. The American economy will take care of itself and for the first time, the American poor may actually be able to win an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Unfortunately, this won't happen while the pro-Reconquista, racist criminals are still around!!
Re: "3) Third generation immigrants (the grand kids) are completely assimilated...think the grandparents are a little nutty for their affinity for the old country."
While this maybe true of European immigrants - this is not true of the Mexican immagrants - legal or illegal. This is obvious by the numerous Mexican flags they flew at the protest rally Sat. ar L.A. Or - you can just talk to them and they will tell you of their fidelity to Mexico and La Rasa!
But - they are not the only ones who want to come here just for the benefits of being in America. A television anchor had a story about the mail-order brides from Russia and the Philippines who wanted to marry an American citizen or soldier just to get here to the states - forget the love thing!
"Well, I'm talking more about the TOTAL impact on the nation as a whole - if added costs in agriculture, service industries, etc. take down the economy of the entire left side of America, that is going to impact the NE sooner or later."
yea....sure...illegals COST the CA taxpayers over 10 BILLION in just one year.
If they vaporized in the next 30 seconds from this country......our (legal citizens) tax burden would be lessened by much more than any ill gotten profits Scumbag tax cheat employers who hire illegals might lose.
Your numbers don't add up.
Nice try though....
After all, we should all enjoy the supposed constitutional right to openly scoff the law for personal gain, right?
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