AZ Alert: Lawmaker: Aid to Mexican States is Cheaper Than Border Security

Santa Fe New Mexican ^ | 01/10/2003 | Associated Press

[hsmomx3]

TUCSON, Ariz. - Economic aid targeted to 50 regions in just six Mexican states could cut illegal immigration to the United States in half, a Mexican congressman said Thursday.

Eduardo Arnal Palomera, one of four lawmakers from Mexico on a three-day trip to Tucson to meet with local, state, federal and Indian officials, said American contribution toward Mexico's economic development would be mutually beneficial in helping solve his country's illegal immigration.

Lack of jobs and economic desperation is what drives hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to cross the border illegally every year seeking jobs here, according to Arnal Palomera.

He said the situation is most difficult in the states of Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Puebla, Guanajuato, Guerrero and Chiapas.

"It's cheapest for the United States to help Mexico to grow" by stimulating jobs and industry there than to continue to pay for "security, helicopters, Border Patrol, fences, walls," Arnal Palomera said.

He said he planned to deliver the same message during a scheduled meeting Friday with southern Arizona Reps. Jim Kolbe and Raul Grijalva.

The delegation met with Gov. Janet Napolitano for nearly a half-hour behind closed doors to discuss illegal immigration-related issues, including efforts of private groups patrolling the Arizona border.

Congressman Tarcisio Navarrette Montes de Oca, who headed the delegation, said the group proposed creating a binational working group of state, local and federal officials "to study, analyze and propose an urgent solution" to soaring deaths of Mexican migrants trying to cross the Arizona desert.

A record 145 illegal immigrants died during the past fiscal year, including 83 of heat exposure.

Arnal Palomera said he and his colleagues were concerned that ranchers and groups organizing patrols along the Arizona border have weapons and could cause a confrontation with illegal immigrants leading to violence.

Navarrette Montes said he hopes "to find a win-win solution for both countries and promote protection for human rights and we are open to promote commercial and economic exchange."

The group also met with Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup and the Tucson-Mexico Trade Office to develop new ways for improving trade activities - including improved rail connections.

©Santa Fe New Mexican 2003

[discostu]

But you just said you don't disagree, that indeed you aknowledge 100% cannot be caught. How about we put this where we both actually stand? What should be done is:
Catch and deport as many illegals as possible without turning us into a "your papers please" society.
Improve the border security to the point that it is an actual border not a line on a map.

Then, understanding that neither of these things can be 100% effective, we must look for additional methods. None of what I'm suggesting is "instead" of the law, it's all "in addition to".

[FITZ]

“un campo sin campesinos, el sueño salinista cumplido, por principio de cuentas en nuestro estado”.

And I think everyone know who Salinas is and the billions of dollars he and his family have stolen from Mexico. Obviously not a man who cares a thing about his country so his plan for the campesinos didn't intend good things for the majority of people --- that was never his goal.

[discostu]

When I see people ranting about "they're invading", especially when they go so far as to accuse me of supporting it (read the post I was replying to) I'll rise to the challenge.

[discostu]

I think it spins off from their "Indian problem", there's been a semi-revolution going on in Southern Mexico for as long as I can remember, mostly driven by their native Indian population (whom Mexico has a long tradition of treating like crap, and of our Indians that think we don't treat them well need to review the history of southern Mexico). Also I think it's just endemic to liberalism (remember they've been a largely socialist country for a long time), look at how our own leftists talk about "fly over country". Something about city liberalism just makes people hate the providors of their food. Makes no sense to me, but then neither do most other aspects of liberalism so why should this be any different.

[FITZ]

Catch and deport as many illegals as possible without turning us into a "your papers please" society.

Illegals aren't the only problem ---the whole immigration system needs reforming because here we see all kinds of indigents being brought in by family reunification and immediately put on SSI and Medicaid ---and they aren't coming illegally but through sponsors. Since a sponsor only needs to be 125% over the federal poverty level themselves, a family with many wealthy members can still usually find a lower earning relative who can bring dear old mom over and that person's income can be used to qualify her for government programs. People can come legally on a visitors' visa and have a baby at taxpayer expense while here legally and then they never have to leave and can collect all kinds of welfare using the baby. Illegals not accessing social programs and working for every dime they get aren't as bad as many legals.

I don't like the roadblocks we already have and I would definitely be against door-to-door searches which is what it would take to get out every single illegal ---but that isn't what needs to be done. So what if a handful of illegals never gets caught because they've managed to assimilate fairly well and don't commit any crimes to get themselves caught ---that doesn't stop us from deporting all those committing document fraud, DWI's, or otherwise mooching off the taxpayers.

[holyscroller]

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[dark_lord]

... sensor array are NOT cheap, and the array has to be able to track the bad guys until they're caught, depending on how you've got your agents clustered that's a range of at least 2 preferably 5 miles deep. That means setting up and maintaining a 4 to 10 thousand square mile sensor array. That is a GIGANTIC piece of change. I'm glad you brought up the DMZ, because it doesn't work. The DMZ is probably the most secure chunk of realestate on the planet and the bad guys still manage to sneak across periodically. It also costs us an AMAZING amount of money to maintain, and is about 1/100th the size of our border with Mexico (generally speaking complexity of securing a region increases exponentially to size, so securing a region 100 times the size will be 10,000 times the complexity).

???

Really? Actually, the Korean DMZ is about 155 miles long and 2.5 miles "deep". 100 x 156 = 15,600 miles. I think our border with Mexico is rather shorter than that.

It doesn't work? Because there is the occasional infiltrator? Big difference between a few guys that sneak through, backed by the resources of a whole nation (even one a whacked as N. Korea) and the millions of illegals that flow across our border like being sprayed from a fire hose.

Expensive? Depends on what you mean by cost. How many billions do we spend now on health care for illegals, and prisons for illegals? Several.

[F.J. Mitchell]

The least expensive and most humane way to deal with this problem, is to invade and conquor Mexico and kill every crooked sonovabitching corrupt power broker in the the country and annex it as the southern states of the USA-enforce the law of the land and watch capitalism's healing influence do it's job.

If we must provide the essentials of life to Mexicans exploited by their own crooked government, we may as well become their country and manage it's natural recources in a way that is benefical to us all, and feed the Mexican Mafia to the coyotes.

As things now stand the corrupt bastards in Mexico are screwing us by proxy even as they screw their citizens-it is time to de-horn those who have grown filthy rich and power corrupted through graft.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Mexico has become Moocherco and we are being invaded by Moochercans. Time to turn off the faucet of foolishness and make them Moochercan'ts.

[ET(end tyranny)]

This is no different than what the North Koreans are trying to pull: international blackmail.

I'd rather spend extra money militarizing the southern border and maintaining what little sense of soveriegnty we have left.

First thing that came to my mind. BLACKMAIL!

[ET(end tyranny)]

We wouldn't need to round up any illegal aliens if we simply enforced existing laws against American employers who hire illegal aliens, plus cut off ALL social services to illegal aliens. No jobs, no welfare, no food stamps, no free medical care, and no free schooling = no attraction for illegal aliens to come here or continue to stay here.

Bingo! We have a winner!!

[ET(end tyranny)]

I have a good solution that will work. Deduct all our expenses spent dealing with Mexican illegals from our foreign aid to Mexico.

I guarantee Mexico will snap the border closed in a heartbeat.

hmmm Not bad. The only problem I see is that I doubt those in charge would actually consider this option. But, it sounds good to me.

[boris]

"We aren't being invaded, the American southwest is NOT being turned into anything, I do live here, that's how I know that paranoid racist crap is just that- CRAP."

You are either insane, a liar, or delusional. Possibly all three. Precisely where in the Americn Southwest do you live? It must be a remarkable place--quite isolated--for you to be unaware of what is transpiring. A mental institution of some sort? A university?...But I repeat myself.

--Boris

[boris]

"Really? Actually, the Korean DMZ is about 155 miles long and 2.5 miles "deep". 100 x 156 = 15,600 miles."

Please don't confuse square miles with linear miles.

It makes engineers like me uncomfortable.

Feet vs meters sent a JPL spacecraft to nowhere.

--Boris

[Kenny Bunk]

As much as I would love to help out the Mexicans with more developmental aid, I have to agree with you. This, even though I have lived and worked (as much as is possible) in the country and have great respect, admiration, and affection for the people.

There is simply are not many structures into which money could be placed to efficiently help Mexico. Underneath what is an often very pleasant façade for visitors, the place is a hopeless, largely lawless (I mean technically ... the place is only manageably dangerous in the larger centers) quagmire of feudalism, communalism, socialism, and complex multi-layered corruption. Nothing gets done, and often, nothing can be done because the ways are absent. It would be stupid to try and make that up with our means. It was settled by Europeans 150 years longer than anywhere in the US, and still has no infrastructure beyond the mininmal standard of the Third World. It has tremendous resources and in the right hands, would have tremendous potential.

The Mexicans, for reasons far beyond me, simply have never developed a governmental or legal system that can permit sustained effort for development. My solution: pretend it's a movie and give it back to Spain for "TAKE TWO."

By the way, it is absolutely mandatory that we refuse to permit a cynical and corrupt way of life and its "government" to dictate our immigration policy. We would actually help Mexico more by forcing them to change at home, rather than providing them with a "Safety Valve" that does nothing to develop Mexico

Close the border and regulate it properly to only admit Mexicans legally. There is very little law and order in Mexico. Obeying our laws might just be the first developmental step out of the quagmire they have created within their own country.

[discostu]

OK my math was bad, doesn't change the FACT that the border with Mexico is SIGNIFICANTLY longer than the border with Korea, and the DMZ is still not 100% secure. I didn't say it "doesn't work", the matter at hand is people insisting we can "seal" the border with Mexico, if we can't "seal" (achieve 100% security, no penetration) the border with Korea how can we possibly seal the border with Mexico? Answer: we can't.

[discostu]

What's the matter Boris, don't know how to click on somebody's name and see their info page? I live in Tucson Arizona, I've lived in Tucson Arizona (except for a short stint in Alamogordo New Mexico) since the Ford administration. And this is why I KNOW as ABSOLUTE FACT that La Reconquista is a bunch of BS made up by some moronic college radicals and only believed in by paranoid dipsticks desperately in need of a boogie man.

California where you live (see I know how to click on a person's name and look at their info page) is giving away the key to the state to every illegal alien, they've put a big giant sign on the Mexican border saying "please come to California, we're a communist nation and we'll gladly pay for everything you ever need", subsequently you get more illegals than we do. But if you'd take down the engraved invitation you'd wind up in the same situation the rest of the border states are in, which is no big deal. There is no great invasion, the Mexicans that are here DO NOT want it to become Mexico. America isn't California, thank God for small favors, your states self manufactured problems are not the problems ANY OTHER PART of the country is facing. Don't blame Mexican for California's socialism.

[boris]

I've been to Tuscon--an outer circle of Hell. Eventually, I understand, the heat affects the brain.

It is all around you. None so blind as he who will not see.

[dark_lord]

No. We can't "seal" the border. Nor do I think machine guns are the answer. But we can by due diligence and a reallocation of resources reduce the flood of millions of illegals down to a few hundred, or even a few thousand, per year. Heck, if we could just shut the flow down so that only 10,000 per year could get across, that would mean only 100,000 in 10 years. Pretty darn good compared to where we are today.

[discostu]

Oh your so CUTE. At least in Tucson we still have the right to bear arms, beats the hell out of CA any way you slice it.

Noe so stupid as those that need boogiemen.