U.S., Mexican legislators discuss border vigilantes
Posted on 11/24/2002 2:06:29 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
U.S., Mexican legislators discuss border vigilantes
States may take action against groups that target migrants
11/24/2002
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - U.S. and Mexican lawmakers expressed concern Saturday about a growing number of American vigilante groups that capture and sometimes hurt or kill Mexican migrants who cross into the United States illegally.
The fringe groups have sprung up in several border towns in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, where residents frustrated by U.S. border agents' inability to stop illegal migration have taken matters into their own hands, said Arizona state Rep. Robert Cannell.
Mr. Cannell said Arizona legislators will likely take up the issue of vigilante groups during the state's next legislative session. The Democrat said he was "strongly opposed" to the groups.
Mr. Cannell was one of eight U.S. state legislators - three from New Mexico, two from California, two from Arizona, and one from Texas - who joined 38 lawmakers from the six Mexican border states at the third annual legislative border forum in Nuevo Laredo.
In separate Binational Commission meetings on Monday and Tuesday in Mexico City, high-ranking U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, will hold talks with their Mexican counterparts on what to do about the estimated 3 million Mexicans working illegally in the United States.
New Mexico state Sen. Mary Jane Garcia said vigilante groups appeal to undereducated young men who feel that state and federal governments haven't done enough to protect towns along the border. The Democrat said the issue also needed urgent attention in the New Mexico legislature.
Also on Saturday, Chihuahua state lawmaker Cesar Castro Lopez called on investigators from the FBI and Britain's Scotland Yard to help solve the brutal slayings of women in Ciudad Juarez.
More than 75 women have been raped and killed since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, the border's largest city. Dozens of suspects have been arrested, but bodies have continued to turn up in the desert.
Mr. Castro Lopez said that Mexican state and federal commissions assigned to investigate the crimes have failed to produce any concrete leads.
"It has become a financial issue of vital importance for those who do business on the border," he said, adding that violence in Juarez has begun to affect U.S. commercial interests, thus ensuring that the killings fall under U.S. jurisdiction.
The killings have "ruined the reputation of Ciudad Juarez in the eyes of the world," Mr. Castro Lopez said.
I didnt ask you a question. We are talking about the rule of law and I told you that it can be found in the constitution. Err and to how it protects our society.
Look up general welfare that should be an easy one for you.
We could take care of most of the illegal immigration problem we have now without guarding the border at all. If we said no to anymore handouts, went after employers and made a clear statement about no more amnesties, that alone would probably cut the numbers of illegals by more than half.
Which means absolutely nothing...Bozo. The Constitution could be written in German, Swahili, Spanish or Klingon and it wouldn't change a thing. The importance of that document lies in it's content not in the "immigrant" language that it was written in.
And very simply, that document, along with the Bill of Rights, DOES NOT establish an official language, religion, culture or even regional preference for the nation of origin of immigrants.
That document says that an elderly woman citizen of this nation, who happens to be of Vietnamese ancestory and who speaks only Vietnamese in the conduct of her life as an American citizen, is every bit an American as you are.
That document says that if a citizen of Spanish decent wishes to speak Spanish and observe cultural styles consistent with that practised by their ancestors, they are just as American as you are...no more and certainly no less.
As you say, when in Rome...well they haven't spoken Latin in Rome in many Centurys.
As for not being able to understand the Constitution unless you understand English...you answer that question with your own words. You don't seem to understand it at all.
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