Posted on 11/17/2001 5:40:18 PM PST by t-shirt
WIRE: 11/17/2001 8:49 pm ET
In Mexico, Daschle, Gephardt give strongest support yet to more open borders, immigration reform
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt said Saturday that they would forge ahead with immigration reform early next year, including some kind of legal residency for Mexican migrants already living in the United States. Such reforms "are very consistent with fighting against terrorism," Gephardt, D-Mo., told a news conference after meeting with President Vicente Fox during the congressmen's three-day trip to Mexico.
"If you are regularizing status, you are also understanding the people you are dealing with are not terrorists," Gephardt said, noting that those who would benefit are "people who have been in the United States for a long time, paid taxes, obeyed the laws and been very good citizens."
Daschle said discussion on the reforms could be held during the next congressional session early next year. He said legalization would not be equivalent to a broad amnesty, and would require a background check and investigation.
"The opportunity for us to investigate and expel those who ought not be there is something we want to deal with, too," he added.
The two lawmakers also said they were interested in a European Union-style program of public investments and a more open border.
"I think that it ought to be our goal that we have a free pass border at some point in the future," Daschle said.
Daschle's office later said he was not endorsing any particular program, but rather supported having the same freedoms on the Mexican border as those that exist on the Canadian border. Canadians do not need visas to enter the United States, but Mexicans do.
"I think it's unlikely that we will obtain that goal anytime in the short term," Daschle said. "(But) if the United States and Canada have a border like that, we ought to have the opportunity to have that kind of border with Mexico as well."
Fox, facing trouble at home on both economic and political fronts, desperately needs to make some headway on gaining better treatment for Mexican migrants to the United States, a central policy goal of his administration.
Daschle and Gephardt said Mexico's concerns hadn't fallen from the U.S. agenda in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Our commitment (to bilateral issues) is every bit as strong as what it was on Sept. 10," Daschle said, noting that Congress is expected to vote in the next few days to suspend "for at least one year" an anti-drug certification program that has angered Mexicans.
The certification procedure required the State Department to judge other countries' anti-drug efforts and threatened the loss of financial aid for nations that failed the test.
Mexicans, and many other Latin Americans, considered that an affront to their sovereignty.
and, that the american birthrate fell below replacement in the 1970s.
thus, the defacto american policy is illegal immigration. it's supported by both american political parties, democrat and republican.
it's reality. that's the way the things are.
They already got it. They just don't give a damn. Getting more illegal votes is more important to them than National Security. Power is the thing at any cost.
Friggin traitors.
get a life.
i've seen people from 90 countries in california.
don't just speak to the mexicans. or, it looks like you are a racist.
We'll chance it. I've seen the replacements that Mexico has illegally sent to California already. Again, let them apply legally.
white americans did not breed in the 1960s, and 70s.
why blame other people for what we americans did--not do?
look at japan. they are not breeding or allowing immigration. and look at their economy--down the tubes. look at italy, same thing.
These politicians are our Taliban. We wonder why the muslims don't speak out against Islam - yet we are letting the same thing happen to us.
They will sell their souls for a vote and put our souls in peril - if we let them.
believe me, you would not like your economic circumstances if there were no immigration.
who would work in and manage the many fast food restaurants?
look at japan's economy, and many of the economies in europe. they disallow immigration and their birth rates are low. the japanese economy is down the tubes, and has been for 10 years.
gov wilson and prop 187 drove the immigrants into the dems' hands.
asians are natural entreprenuers and republicans.
mexicans are naturally conservative and family oriented.
why use free republic to scare potential conservatives away?
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