Thread: Fox says U.S. 'denying its immigrant soul'

Former Mexican president Fox says U.S. 'denying its immigrant soul'

Mexican ex-president decries Irving policy, says book is a reminder

11:29 PM CDT on Thursday, October 11, 2007
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox speaks before signing copies of his memoir in New York City. Mr. Fox will be in Dallas today as part of a tour to promote his book, Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith, and Dreams of a Mexican President. In an interview Sunday, he also talked about allegations of financial impropriety against him and his family, along with his views of President Bush, and the U.S. presidential campaign.

But Mr. Fox consistently returned to the topic of immigration.

The United States is denying its immigrant soul," he said. He pointed to the controversy in Irving, where police are working with federal immigration officials in a crackdown against illegal immigrants, a policy resulting in "repression and unjustified fear," Mr. Fox said.

"What is happening in Irving, Texas, is disturbing, deeply troubling," he said. "It shows that the anti-immigrant mood that I confronted in the U.S. Congress has now reached the public at large."

Irving Mayor Herbert Gears said Thursday that officials there are not trying to weigh in on the national immigration debate.

"We're simply attending to our local responsibility to involve any measure available to improve the quality of life for all people that live in our city, including immigrants," he said.

Mr. Gears said law enforcement officials are bound by federal laws and have a duty to uphold them.

"It should not disturb or deeply trouble anyone that a municipality is committed to enforcing existing laws," he said.

Mr. Fox still displays some of the personal style that made him popular as president. Dressed in his trademark blue shirt and cowboy boots, Mr. Fox walked through the lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel without bodyguards or aides, waving at bystanders. He sat down at a restaurant table and immediately shook hands with waiters, a busboy and a cook who came to greet him.

Most were illegal immigrants from Mexico, and all expressed concern over what they referred to as an "ugly climate" against them. Mr. Fox listened to their stories.

Mr. Fox said he decided to write the book in English and release it first in the United States as way to remind the American public "of its rich immigrant soul, its heritage that is now threatened by fear, xenophobia."

He endorsed the strategy of his successor, Felipe Calderón, of having Mexico's 47 consulates in the U.S. take a more aggressive stand in defending the rights of its migrants.

Mr. Fox acknowledged that he had unsuccessfully lobbied his friend Vicente Guerrero Reynoso, mayor of León, Guanajuato, to cancel a trip to Irving – a sister city of León – as a way of "supporting our paisanos and of sending a message to Texas authorities that we will not tolerate these acts of hate against our people. This is no way of treating a sister city."

He added: "Many of the people from my hometown of San Cristóbal are people I grew up with, honest, hardworking men I played marbles with as kids, and who later had to migrate to North Texas, Dallas. Of course it hurts when these cities deny the people you grew up with and treat [them] like criminals."

In his book, he writes about his grandfather, Joseph Fox, an Irish immigrant who migrated to Cincinnati and later to Guanajuato in the 1890s "in search of his own American dream." Joseph Fox never learned Spanish as he worked his way up from night watchman at a carriage factory to prosperous plantation owner.

"My grandfather embodied the dream of many Latin Americans and Americans who believe the American dream exists, whether in the United States, Mexico, or other parts of Latin America," he said. "That says something about the universality of immigration."

Mr. Fox made history in 2000 when he became the first opposition politician to win the presidency after 71 years of autocratic rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

His call for immigration reform, free trade and regional prosperity has at times been overshadowed by allegations of influence-peddling by relatives, charges that he called "lies, lies and more lies."

During his administration, his wife, Marta Sahagún de Fox, and her sons faced allegations of influence-peddling to win government contracts for the sons. No allegations were proved, despite a congressional inquiry, and the family has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Fox also faces a possible congressional inquiry for improvements made at his ranch, where he is building a presidential library.

He said that during last year's presidential campaign, he made many enemies in the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, as well as the former ruling party.

"It's politics," he said of the allegations against him. "There are many people who aren't happy with me, people from the PRI and PRD. And no, I'm not in favor of a congressional inquiry, because I don't think any president should go through that witch hunt."

Pressed on specific allegations, such as whether he received a Jeep from a businessman in exchange for a seat on the board of his wife's foundation, Mr. Fox said the vehicle belongs to his wife. He encouraged anyone questioning his personal finances to log on to centrofox .org.mx, where "my finances are an open book," he said.

He said that another vehicle on his property, a Hummer, belonged to secret service agents assigned to protect him. He said that home improvements featured in Quien, a celebrity magazine, were done to make his home suitable for welcoming world dignitaries, and that he paid for all the work. In his book, Mr. Fox recalls an all-night dinner with Fidel Castro, "the region's most infamous revolutionary," a man who he says had a "strange habit of pulling his ears between every bite of food."

Mr. Fox also praises the Cuban leader's "inexhaustible energy and brilliant, diverse intelligence."

He takes "gentle" jabs at his "amigo" President Bush and says that the Iraq war tested their friendship. He pokes fun at Mr. Bush's "grade-school-level Spanish" but praises his "cultural sensitivity" toward Hispanics and his "real compassion for the Latino citizens" of Texas that "goes well beyond political practicality."

He says it's time for a woman to be elected president in the United States to help the country "regain its compassionate side."

"This country, this world, needs love," he said, "and I think a female president is more capable" of delivering that.

Staff writer Brandon Formby in Dallas contributed to this report.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... cc8f5.html

Mr. Fox acknowledged that he had unsuccessfully lobbied his friend Vicente Guerrero Reynoso, mayor of León, Guanajuato, to cancel a trip to Irving – a sister city of León – as a way of "supporting our paisanos and of sending a message to Texas authorities that we will not tolerate these acts of hate against our people. This is no way of treating a sister city."

See what smoking crack does to ya boys and girls... it gives you delusions of grandeur and makes you feel important as you order your burrito

Take your broke a_s back to your Broke A_S third world country... and feel free to take your 17th century throw back citizens with you

Isn't it ..."repression and unjustified fear," that drove Mexicans out of Mexico and into the US to find a job?