Thread: Speakers Call for 'Balanced' Approach to Immigration During

Speakers Call for 'Balanced' Approach to Immigration During UCF Forum

Oct. 9, 2006

By Sam Gardner

A standing-room-only crowd gathered Monday for a symposium on immigration featuring Gerónimo Gutiérrez, the undersecretary for North America at Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and three U.S. lawmakers from Florida.

“U.S. Immigration Policy: Open Borders or Closed Doors?,” held by the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government at UCF, drew a crowd of more than 1,000 that included students from about 15 local middle and high schools. Speakers included U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla.; U.S. Reps. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, and Ric Keller, R-Orlando; and Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Catholic Diocese of Orlando.

Syndicated newspaper columnists Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel are scheduled to give the evening keynote addresses at 7 p.m. in the Pegasus Ballroom of the Student Union. Their presentations are free and open to the public.

Most of the speakers talked about addressing immigration with a balanced approach that looks at border security and the root cause of the immigration – economics. U.S. businesses rely on illegal immigrants in agriculture, construction, hospitality and other sectors.

Gutiérrez said the Mexican government does not promote undocumented immigration to the United States and that it sees illegal immigration as a failure on Mexico’s behalf. He said tackling illegal immigration is a shared responsibility and suggested that perhaps the United States does not offer enough opportunity for legal immigration.

“If there is a legal avenue, they will use it,” Gutiérrez said. “Are there enough legal avenues? No, there are not.”

Gutiérrez said the Mexican government hopes that Mexicans crossing the border to the United States do it as a conscious decision and not out of necessity.

Noting that the average U.S. income is roughly four times that of an average Mexican income, Gutiérrez commended the United States for investing nearly $600 million into the betterment of the Mexican economy.

“Without economic stability, you can’t have economic development,” Gutiérrez said, “I don’t believe we are in an economic crisis. Mexico is a very vibrant, but young, democracy.”

He alluded to the recent economic progress in Mexico, stating that the inflation rate is down to 3.3 percent and that the economy is growing at 5.5 percent yearly.

Martinez began his speech with a reflection upon his immigration from Cuba as a child, stating that, “My parents were desperate for me to have the opportunity to do the things they could not do.”

He shared that many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants come to the United States to seek hopes and dreams not available to them in their respective countries. He also pointed out that the legislation does not set an immigration quota based on nationality and that those immigrants come from countries all over the world.

Martinez also discussed a misconception that the guest worker program is for entire families. He said the purpose of the program is for immigrants to be able to work in the U.S. and provide for their families back home while still having the liberty to travel back and forth to visit them over the course of their stay.

Martinez said a conference committee needs to be established to reconcile the differences between House and Senate plans for immigration. The Senate version proposes an increase in security along the U.S.-Mexico border and also allows for long-time illegal immigrants to gain a kind of restricted citizenship. The citizenship proposal is absent from the House plan.

Former U.S. Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli, a Democrat from Lexington, Ky., who shared the stage with Martinez, noted that “with immigration, it doesn’t matter what you do. Half the people are still going to be upset with you.” He addressed the Simpson-Mazzoli bill of 1986, which led to the legalization of more than 2.7 million immigrants and criminalized the act of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Keller said he will continue to help people who are trying to enter the United States legally but also said the United States should crack down on employers who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

“More than 8,000 illegal aliens come here every day,” Keller said. “We have 11 million illegals, and it presents a huge problem. We need to fix it.”

Feeney said the United States needs “a balanced immigration policy that will allow us to be the great future America that we have been in the past.”

Other speakers Monday included Chester Glover, an aide to U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville; Noah Pickus, associate director of Duke University’s Kenan Institute of Ethics; and Dennis Clare, an immigration attorney from Kentucky. David Harris, a former Canadian intelligence official, also spoke Monday afternoon.

The Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government, which was founded in 2002, is a nonpartisan organization that promotes civic education for students and other Central Florida residents. The spring symposium will cover environmental policies.

In addition to the institute, sponsors of Monday’s symposium included the UCF Global Perspectives Office; Fifth Third Bank; Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor and Reed; the Orlando Sentinel; and the Global Connections Foundation.

Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala and Chad Binette contributed to this story.

http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page= ... &mode=news

Gutiérrez said the Mexican government does not promote undocumented immigration to the United States and that it sees illegal immigration as a failure on Mexico’s behalf. He said tackling illegal immigration is a shared responsibility and suggested that perhaps the United States does not offer enough opportunity for legal immigration.

If mexico sees this as their own failure
then
why should this be a SHARED RESPONSIBILITY WITH AMERICA?

Isn't that a contradictory statement?

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

Gutiérrez said the Mexican government does not promote undocumented immigration to the United States and that it sees illegal immigration as a failure on Mexico’s behalf. He said tackling illegal immigration is a shared responsibility and suggested that perhaps the United States does not offer enough opportunity for legal immigration.

If mexico sees this as their own failure
then
why should this be a SHARED RESPONSIBILITY WITH AMERICA?

Isn't that a contradictory statement?

You are correct sis.