Posted on 05/19/2006 10:02:14 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
TIJUANA – They were just miles away but worlds apart, two presidents grappling with the thorny issue of illegal immigration from opposite sides of the fence.
As President Bush swung through southern Arizona yesterday, Mexican President Vicente Fox traveled to his country's northern border, speaking out against U.S. proposals for strict immigration enforcement.
“Walls are not the solution,” Fox said after sharing lunch with a group of factory workers in Tijuana. “And neither is the National Guard.”
Fox took advantage of his visit to two of Mexico's largest border cities – Tijuana and Mexicali – to signal his opposition to President Bush's plans to send 6,000 U.S. National Guard troops to help secure the border with Mexico. In his strongest criticism yet, Fox denounced a proposal for double-and triple-layered fencing along 370 miles of the border, which was approved Wednesday by the U.S. Senate.
In recent days, Fox has been harshly criticized in Mexico for not speaking out about the plan to send the National Guard to the border, a move that Bush proposed Monday. Mexican media have portrayed Fox's efforts to influence U.S. immigration reform as a failure, and Mexico's leftist candidate for president on Wednesday accused Fox of a tepid response to the military deployment.
“He has not the slightest intention of making an energetic protest,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a campaign stop in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. “He is acting like a puppet, a plaything of foreign governments.”
Fox and his foreign minister agreed late Wednesday to send a diplomatic note expressing the Mexican government's concern about a deployment of the National Guard.
As his office prepared to message Washington, D.C., yesterday, Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbéz insisted “there is no chilling nor heating up” of the relationship between Mexico and the United States. The Fox government simply wants to make it “very clear that the National Guard should not be used for matters of apprehension or detention, not only of our countrymen but of any nationality that is crossing the border,” he said.
The Mexican president broached the topic of U.S. immigration policy at least twice during his visit to Baja California. His first stop of the day was Mexicali, just 50 miles west of Yuma, Ariz., where President Bush toured the border and expressed his support for additional fencing to slow the rising tide of illegal immigration.
Fox voiced his objections about the border fence during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of a truck plant, Kenworth de Mexico.
He praised the region's thriving commerce, and said fences were counterproductive to the interests of both countries.
“The construction of barriers at the border does not offer an effective response for a relationship between friends, neighbors and partners,” Fox said.
Later, in Tijuana, when he met with workers at the electronics maquiladora Plamex, Fox spoke directly – and sternly – to the American public.
“To those in front – I am referring to the United States – I want to tell you to be very respectful of Mexico, to be very respectful of the dignity of Mexicans, to not see them as lesser, and to not discriminate against nor violate the human rights of our dear countrymen in the United States,” he said.
Fox has consistently pushed for a guest worker program, and has urged the United States to consider amnesty for most of the estimated 11 million to 12 million immigrants living illegally in the country.
The legislation being considered by the Senate includes a measure to heighten control over the borders, but also creates a guest worker program and offers a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.
Senate leaders say they hope for passage of the controversial legislation before the Memorial Day weekend. It then would have to be reconciled with an enforcement-heavy bill that the House of Representatives approved in December.
As the Senate prepares to vote, Fox plans to travel to California, Washington state and Utah.
Fox is scheduled to speak to a joint session of the state Legislature on Thursday in Sacramento, before attending a reception and dinner hosted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Mexican president will then fly to Los Angeles on May 26 for a private meeting with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa before returning to Mexico.
Schwarzenegger's office said his meeting with Fox would focus on shared economic goals such as increasing tourism and trade. California is Mexico's second-largest trading partner after Texas, with California exports to Mexico totaling $18 billion last year.
“I think the key thing is not to make the immigration issue overshadow everything else. There are other serious issues that we have to talk about,” Gov. Schwarzenegger said Wednesday in Sacramento. “We can all benefit by the more we work together.”
"Fox in Tijuana: 'Walls are not the solution'"
We ought to listen to this guy. He knows what he's talking about. He has machine gun towers on HIS southern border.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!
Of course not.
Walls + trenches + concertina wire + dogs + sensors + IR detectors + UAVs + ... = solution.
Sure that's not macho grande?
Oh hell yeah.
And twice on Sunday. With an Industrial Strength Stuner.
(squinting)
What's that I see on Mexico's border?
Huge mountains and (gasp)some fences?
Hey, buddy. Why don't you remove all that?
Bulldoze the mountains so those poor folks from central America will have an easier time coming in and make a better life in Mexico for themselves!
No?
Then STFU!
I don't know, but stop calling me Shirley.
I picked the wrong day to quit amphetamines.
LASER Turrets
Ending electronic wire tranfers of cah to Mexico is the solution. 45 billion dollars will get Vicente's attention!
How can we respond to such blatant and incorrigible chutzpah? Your fetid kleptocracy continues to sabotage US-Mexican relations with an obvious conspiracy to overwhelm the border states by dumping your poor and uneducated unemployed upon us, and then reap the benefits of the renumeration they send back home. This eliminates the need to reform your economy, society, and government, and perpetuates one of the most corrupt regimes in the Western World.
And since our weak and spineless politicians kowtow to this insanity, you are emboldened to continue to brazenly interfere with our internal affairs, and undermine the United States' national security. All for your corrupt and cynical convenience. What else have you got? I'll bet our Senate will swallow it whole without question. Saves us the task of deciding who to reelect. In November, I propose we all vote "NO"!
So, did I leave out any derogative adjectives?
El Jefe Vicente can go kiss my Dixie tailpipe!
A wall IS a solution to the problem, along with sending in the National Guard as reinforcements, and beefing up the U.S. Border Patrol. IMO, I think shutting off Vincente Fox's social safety valve is realy beginning to make him nervous. I wonder if his rhetoric has anything to do with the upcoming election down there this July?
Sorry Fox, we're a nation of law. We the people, at least
enough of us, are going to keep it that way. Those that break the law to come hear get sent back or incarcerated.
To quote Custer's character in "Little Big Man": "This man is a perfect reverse barometer."
In other words, we should just do the opposite of whatever he says.
Mrs. Liberty to Fox: STFU.
He's right- remove all economic hurdles to business in Mexico, and we'll have people wanting to go south....Including all those who came here "for a better life".
America must be doing something right when 12 million Mexican citizens risk their lives to come here while not even speaking the language of their new (illegal) home.
Fox could follow Dagny Taggert's advice to Mr. Thompson (Atlas Shrugged): GET OUT OF THE WAY!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.