Thread: Mexican president's legacy at stake as U.S. resists migratio

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 678834.htm

Posted on Wed, May. 18, 2005
Mexican president's legacy at stake as U.S. resists migration
BY SUSANA HAYWARD

Knight Ridder Newspapers

MEXICO CITY - (KRT) - When President Vicente Fox came into office in late 2000, he hoped his legacy would be U.S. immigration revisions that would allow Mexicans to cross the border into the United States and work legally.

Now, that vision is crumbling in the face of legislation President Bush signed last week that authorizes the construction of more walls along the border and in effect invalidates Mexico-issued ID cards for Mexicans living in the United States.

Fox is pledging to continue his efforts for migrants until his term ends in December 2006. But officials are angry and disheartened at what they see as walls going up between the United States and Mexico instead of coming down.

Fox's government has presented a diplomatic note protesting the law - the first the country has ever formally presented to the United States.

Fox expressed his anger in a speech last Friday: "I respect the sovereignty of the United States and its freedom to take such decisions and measures, but frankly it's not the right approach between friends and neighbors."

Much of the news coverage of his comments focused on the racial overtones of his defense of Mexican migrants' role in the U.S. economy - he said Mexicans "are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do." The Mexican government eventually apologized for offending African-Americans and Fox met with the Rev. Jesse Jackson to clarify the remark.

But the comments underlined Fox's frustration and anxiety at the passage of the so-called Real ID Act, which was attached to an $82 billion spending bill to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The legislation requires that ID cards meet strict federal requirements in three years if they'll be used to request U.S. government services or board an airliner. It also allows the Homeland Security Department to construct a second wall and other barriers around the 150-foot metal wall that's along the border between Tijuana and San Diego.

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. A rancher and former governor of Guanajuato state, Fox made immigration a top priority. During his campaigns, he promised to fight for an open border and for legalizing Mexicans in the United States. He expected Bush, also a former governor with a ranch, to be an ally.

Fox and Bush began a close relationship after they took office, Fox in December 2000 and Bush a month later. They vowed to enrich ties and work on legalizing or giving amnesty to at least 4 million Mexicans and other undocumented workers in the United States.

But a chill followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Bush didn't push an immigration accord. Fox didn't support the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Last year, there was renewed optimism when Bush proposed a program to allow temporary workers, similar to guest programs of the past. But it has lingered in Congress.

Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced a bill last week that would allow immigrants to seek legal status after living in the United States three years, but its passage is considered an uphill battle.

Immigration is the one political constant in Mexico, ahead of next year's July presidential elections. Even Fox's worst political enemies agree with his criticism of the United States. Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the left-of-center Democratic Revolutionary Party, the favorite to succeed Fox, said the United States should help Mexico create jobs, not build walls.

Others agree, calling for a "united, nonpartisan protest."

"This is an anti-immigration campaign without precedent. It's Mexico against Republicans, (California Gov. Arnold) Schwarzenegger, the Minutemen in Arizona, Bush's entire Cabinet," said Primitivo Rodriguez, a Mexican political scientist who specializes in immigration and is working to pass a bill here that would allow Mexicans abroad to vote in the 2006 presidential elections.

The anger over the U.S. legislation is such that diplomatic protests are only one of the plans. Mexican community leaders have advocated going on strike to prove that U.S. employers couldn't survive without cheap Mexican labor.

"These measures are myopic, racist and xenophobic," said Amalia Garcia, the left-of-center governor of Zacatecas state, which has one of the country's highest emigration rates. "Building walls and preventing migrants from getting a driver's license don't solve any security problems."

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© 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Fox and Bush began a close relationship after they took office

Oh Yea? Well now, Want to buy a bridge I have for sale?

This is hogwash. There's a long standing relationship and I'll lay a wager that BIG MONEY is behind it.

PS:
STRIKE.................PLEASE STRIKE!!!

The only thing that will fall is the big boys' profit line. Business will survive.

PLEASE STRIKE

Mexican Officials!! We're taking YOUR TOYS AWAY BOYS AND GIRLS!!

Grow Up.....Your Future has nothing to do with our Immigration Policy...any Harvard Graduate who thought he could build a Legacy for shipping out his apparently undesireable segments of his population is a BAD GRAD with a BIG MENTAL PROBLEM!!

Have you looked into his "eyes" recently???

The man 'aint right...

It is very unfortunate that OUR OFFICIALS let us down and betrayed us with policies and promises in violaton of our American Rule of Law, but NOW that we KNOW and MORE ARE LEARNING EVERYDAY....

This CRAP won't fly here....not here....not any more....it's OVER!!

"NUT JOBS" listen up, you too Mr. Rockefeller, Americans don't want a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT and thus we won't be participating. Probability has it....as I'm sure you know Davey, if it won't fly with the Americans, then it won't fly ANYWHERE.

People around the world like to follow our example....even when they don't like us for whatever reason. When the going gets TOUGH, as this surely will, that's when the TOUGH GET GOING....and EVERYBODY ROUND THE WORLD KNOWS....that those "Cowboy Americans" usually are the tough ones that get these messes, especially ones of world-wide importance, straightenened out....Whatever It Takes.

So...surrender.....it "aint" gonna happen Beanheads.

AND, we may get real stern....if you get my drift....and want all the MONEY back that's been wrongfully and illegally removed from our US ECONOMY....RICO, RICO, RICO!!!! Harvard says its $200 Billion a Year....just in deflated wages and salaries....that's alot of money for all these years you've been lyin to us and cheatin us and costing people their lives, their homes, their education, their medical services, their peace of mind, their jobs, their wages, their benefits, their oppotunities and I shan't need to go on...'cuz' I think you're gettin' my drift....

See....Elitists, you think we're all just those crazy unpreditable nationalistic patriotic "JOE SIX PACKS".....and we are.....many of us....like their six packs in wine, others in coffee, tea, soda, fruit juice, water, and of course, others, beeah....but a WHOLE LOT OF US have some "higha edgekation" and can read while enjoying our favorite beverage and saluting the Flag of America, a 150 Page McCain Kennedy Phoney Baloney Act, Not to Act and a 70 plus page report on your silly Open Borders Scheme to End the World....which means:

WE ARE YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE, You Bunch of Yella Bellied Wimpy Ass Light Weight Fancy Pants!!!

Now crawl back in those holes you been hidin' in all these years and:

GET THOSE "LIMOS" GASSED UP!!

GET THOSE "LIMOS" GASSED UP!!

I'd prefer putting a hose on the end of their tailpipes and placing gently inside the window. Would be much more beneficial to the
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
than just letting them head for the border.

2ndamendsis--I've heard of that!!! It's called "political suicide"!!

Who cares about Fox's legacy?

IMPEACH JORGE BUSH!

OUTSOURCE ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS!

What legacy? Would that be the legacy of blantanly disregarding the sovereignty of another country, sending all his excess baggage there so that he can have them milk that country dry so he can sit back and say "look at all the money that I HAVE gotten for OUR country (while he sits on his ass in the lap of luxury and his people live in poverty), allow drugs and cartels to run rampant killing, butchering and raping, and this list goes on.

What most people do not understand is that Mexico is actually very rich! But it is the elites that have all the money. They don't give a damn about the people. After all, Fox is SPANISH, not mexican indian. The vast majority of the elites are Spanish if I am not mistaken. This is the legacy that BUsh is creating for us! The elites have it and the rest won't. The haves and the have nots!

The word "leach" comes to mind!

Originally Posted by ohflyingone

What legacy? Would that be the legacy of blantanly disregarding the sovereignty of another country, sending all his excess baggage there so that he can have them milk that country dry so he can sit back and say "look at all the money that I HAVE gotten for OUR country (while he sits on his ass in the lap of luxury and his people live in poverty), allow drugs and cartels to run rampant killing, butchering and raping, and this list goes on.

What most people do not understand is that Mexico is actually very rich! But it is the elites that have all the money. They don't give a damn about the people. After all, Fox is SPANISH, not mexican indian. The vast majority of the elites are Spanish if I am not mistaken. This is the legacy that BUsh is creating for us! The elites have it and the rest won't. The haves and the have nots!

The word "leach" comes to mind!

Excellent analysis!

The LEGACY to which they refer is
CAFTA/FTAA