Mexico vs Arizona

[HagiaSophia]

"…During a January 28 radio interview, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez threatened the state of Arizona with legal action through the international courts in order to overturn Proposition 200, a ballot initiative lawfully passed last fall to curb state expenditures on illegal aliens.

Derbez plans to initially use the “legal capacities” of the United States to achieve his goal. But if that doesn’t work, he will resort to theintervention of “international tribunals.”

Momentarily sidestepping the absurdity of granting any legal capacity to an international organization regarding strictly internal issues, consider the larger picture of what is actually being attempted as a foreign power now makes threats against an individual American state…"
"…Of course, Derbez is not acting alone. Mexican President Vicente Fox has long rejected the term “illegal alien,” claiming instead that the invaders are “undocumented workers” and thus displaying a complete disregard for American law.

Fox has been unrestrained in his contempt for the very concept of American sovereignty, promoting the concept of “dual citizenship” whereby Mexican immigrants would conceivably be eligible to vote in both countries.

Increasingly, his long-term goal appears to be an effort to transform the American Southwest into a Mexican “Sudetenland,” which was the heavily Germanic region of Czechoslovakia that Hitler exploited as an excuse to invade and occupy that country.

Though nobody is suggesting a full-scale invasion by Fox’s armies, he increasingly seeks to dictate and define laws and regulations on this side of the border, so as to maximize his ability to siphon and bleed as much as possible back into his own nation’s economy.

A proper response to such audacity would be to warn Fox that America is just as likely to bend under his diplomatic pressure as it would from the terrorist acts of al-Qaida. Unfortunately, President Bush has already given far too much ground, even embracing the term “undocumented worker” and advocating amnesty for those who have flouted U.S. law to enter the country…"

newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/7/175421.shtml

 

[jlw]

Oh the absurdity of it all.

Fox knows the largest part of his economy is the untaxed income earned by “undocumented” workers being wired back to families in Mexico.

Bush knows that the profit margins for employers are better when they don’t have to pay more than they need to and nor do they have to pay payroll taxes thusly keeping cash in our private sector economy. Oh, and he’s walking the political wire, too, let’s not forget that.

But aside from the profit/loss arguments, I WANT TO PROTECT OUR COUNTRY FROM TERRORISTS. For goodness sake, I want to know who the heck it is coming into our country, whether over the Rio Grande or the St Lawrence River!!

 

[HagiaSophia]

But the recent false alarm about Chinese nationals being smuggled across the border for a terrorist attack in Boston put a spotlight on Mexicali’s role in illegal immigration from China. U.S. authorities say it is one of the busiest points of entry used by Chinese people smugglers, along with Los Angeles, New York and Seattle.

One attraction is that this city of 800,000 people has a large Chinese community. Chinese have been living here since around 1900, after the United States halted Chinese immigration and cotton growers in this part of Mexico began looking for cheap labor.

Eduardo Auyon Gerardo, president of the 86-year-old Chinese Association of Mexicali, says the city has 35,000 residents of Chinese descent and two dozen Chinese community groups. There are about 300 Chinese restaurants, some of which can seat up to 2,000 people.

That makes it easy for Chinese migrants to blend in while trying to get across the border, said Michael Unzueta, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau in San Diego.

The trip from China to the United States typically costs $30,000 to $50,000, U.S. law enforcement officials say. Migrants fly to Milan or Paris, then Mexico City, then Tijuana or Mexicali on the U.S. border to link up with people smugglers.

Last June, for example, federal agents were tipped that a Cessna was ferrying illegal immigrants from an airstrip just over the frontier from Mexicali. Officers found five Chinese nationals — ranging in age from a 17-year-old girl to a 51-year-old man — after the plane landed at El Monte Airport, near Los Angeles.

“A lot of it is probably put in place before they even leave China,” Unzueta said.

The Border Patrol refuses to say how many Chinese are caught illegally crossing the border, but the number is small. Mexicans accounted for 94 percent of the 1.1 million arrests last year and much of the rest were Central Americans. Along this part of the frontier, Mexicans accounted for 99 percent of the 75,000 arrests.

But the Chinese gained attention after a Mexicali man warned of a terrorist plot in Boston Jan. 17. A week later, Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinones admitted calling 911 from a cell phone to make the fake warning, Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office said.

One of 13 Chinese nationals who were briefly sought for questioning about the alleged plot turned out to have been in U.S. custody in San Diego since Nov. 11 after being arrested in Calexico. Investigators said Mei Xia Dong, 21, paid a smuggler to get her into the United States through Mexico and she came looking for work…

cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/25/national/main669315.shtml

 

[Philip_P]

I have to say I support Bush’s proposal to shift illegal immigrants to some sort of legal basis. I’d still like to see the details of his proposal (as in his ss proposals, the devil may well be in the details), but the basic concept behind stikes me as sound. Completely closing the border is unrealistic. We need these workers as much as Mexico does (and I don’t want to hear any nonsense about Mexican stealing American jobs. The jobs these migrants have are not those American’s would wish to be paid to do). At the same time, the human rights abuses of workers that the illegal system allows is a scandal to our conscience. Some sort of legal recognition is necessary, from a security standpoint (track who is coming in), and more to the point in these forums, from a moral standpoint (so far as I know, Catholic theology does not take nationality into consideration. A child of God in misery is a child of God, regardless of class, gender, nationality, race, etc).

Let’s go beyond the politics and challenge our politicians, who have been so recently concerned with the “catholic vote,” to make good on their rhetoric.

 

[WhiteDove]

I thought Mexico was a much poorer, weaker country than the U.S.? Don’t they need all the help they can get?