Free Republic

Since the 1910 Mexican Revolution, our neighbor to the south has chosen exactly one leader in a fair election, current President Vicente Fox. He presides over a nation where disparities of wealth between the working poor and the politically connected corrupt are as disheartening as the 40 percent of citizens living below the poverty line a figure that excludes those millions of poor Mexicans who immigrated to the United States seeking a better life. The U.S. dollars earned by expatriate Mexicans and sent home as remittances keep hungry families from starving and a dysfunctional country from collapse. It is thus...

NUEVO LAREDO - At the international line dividing Mexico and the United States, a handful of Mexican nationals and officials representing two Mexican political parties protested Tuesday against a proposal to build a fence between the two countries. The protesters blasted President Bush and members of Congress for supporting the proposal, which was approved by the U.S. House last month and now awaits action in the Senate. Six of the protesters at International Bridge I used a bullhorn to shout their messages to pedestrians and vehicle traffic crossing the bridge at about noon. They referred to the U.S. Customs and...

I received an email recently from a 55-year-old, unemployed American who had been to 14 States looking for work. He couldn’t find any, he said, because "I am not a Mexican." Despite a desire to work, he could not compete with the cheap wages Mexican illegals will take. They do so because wages in Mexico continue to leave a vast portion of that nation’s population in poverty, forced to live on $3 to $4 dollars per person a day. According to data from the CIA, 40% of the Mexican population lives below the poverty line. The current population is estimated...

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Vicente Fox stepped up his attacks on the U.S. plan to build a fence along its southern border on Sunday, saying it was a ''shameful'' initiative for a democracy. Fox said barriers between nations belonged to the last century and had been torn down by popular uprisings, referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. ''This wall is shameful,'' Fox said at an event for migrants in his home state of Guanajuato. On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 239-182 in favor of an immigration enforcement bill that includes a proposal to...

SIERRA VISTA — A man robbed, kidnapped and threatened to kill the owner of a local eatery Saturday morning before fleeing into Mexico, Sierra Vista police said. The man was able to get away when he forced the store owner to give him a ride to the Naco Port of Entry. Police said the incident began at about 4 a.m. when the store owner heard a strange noise while working in the Bread Basket Bakery, 355 W. Wilcox Drive. After going outside, he was robbed by a man with a black-colored, semi-automatic pistol. The robber also took an undisclosed amount...

With the 2006-2007 United Nations budget set to pass later this month without proper allocations in place for much-needed reforms, hope for institutional change is greatly diminishing. Last week, America's able representative to the U.N., John Bolton, attempted to rectify the situation, taking bold steps to delay the biennial budget's approval, citing evidence that none of the prescriptions or conclusions for reform agreed upon at the World Summit in September were reflected in the document. For his unwillingness to allow the world body to continue its pernicious game of smoke-and-mirrors, Amb. Bolton and the country he represents were excoriated by...

Mexico's top diplomat said here Thursday that his nation wants to see Washington undertake an immigration reform extending legal status to "all the Mexicans in the U.S." The time has come to debate that reform, "without passion, but with reason, because it mutually suits us," Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said in Chicago, home to a burgeoning Mexican community. Mexico will continue pointing out to U.S. authorities the need for such an accord, he told business and civic leaders at a breakfast organized by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. He reminded his audience that since taking office in December 2000,...

While I appreciate the editors of The Roanoke Times giving some attention to the TRUE Enforcement and Border Security Act, H.R. 4313, on the editorial page ("Immigration absurdity survives the election," Nov. 15), I only wish the whole bill had been addressed. The bill I introduced along with California Congressman Duncan Hunter does provide for construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. However, the fence is only a small part of the bill's plan to control mass illegal immigration. If your editors had focused on the whole bill, they would have discovered that we, too, believe that a fence...

TIJUANA, Mexico, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Mexico has closed a boot camp for troubled U.S. teenagers south of this city on the California border and deported 13 youngsters whom workers are suspected of abusing, health authorities said on Tuesday. The U-Turn For Christ Youth Ranch, a group home for the treatment of adolescent alcohol and drug addiction near the Pacific-coast resort of Ensenada, was closed last Friday after inspectors said they had found a range of violations at the center. Juan Carlos Mariscal, a spokesman for Baja California state health authorities, said youths attending the camp showed "signs of physical...

MEXICO CITY – The number of Mexicans leaving their country – almost all for the United States – has reached 400,000 per year and will continue to grow for several more years, the head of Mexico's National Population Council said on Friday. The increase in migration has coincided with the United States increasing security on its southern border. "The effort to increase control of the (U.S.) border has not reduced migratory flows one little bit," Council Secretary General Elena Zuniga said. "After 15 years, what we have seen is a growth in migration, and growth in a way that is...

O'Reilly of Fox News has said that he was joking when he said on his radio show that he wished that a flood had hit the United Nations building in New York. A left-wing group called this "hate speech" and Tim Wirth of the U.N. Foundation demanded an O'Reilly apology. Perhaps we need fewer jokes and more factual reporting about the U.N. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that two-thirds of the American people lack confidence in the world body, up from half, a decade ago. But despite the oil-for-food and U.N.-peacekeeper sex-abuse scandals, the world organization came...