Lou Dobbs CNN 11-28-07

"Mexican government leaders and politicians led by an illegal alien deported from the United States are now intensifying their criticism of U.S. government efforts to enforce our immigration laws. Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, has gone so far as to say that Mexican citizens living in the United States are being used as, quote, "symbolic hostages in the U.S. presidential race". Calderon also criticized what he called in his words, the quote, "growing harassment and persecution of Mexican citizens in the United States". Casey Wian has our report.

CASEY WIAN, voice-over: She's back. Deported former illegal alien Elvira Arellano sat in front of the U.S. embassy in Mexico City on the tenth day of a hunger strike. She is demanding amnesty for the estimated six million Mexicans living illegally in the United States.

ELVIRA ARELLANO, MEXICAN DEPORTEE: Today I decided to sit in front of the embassy to protest peacefully against the raids deportation and separation of families, to demand legalization for a migrant community who live in the United States.

WIAN: Mexican politicians and activists are growing more vocal in their criticism of U.S. efforts to enforce immigration laws. Earlier this month, Arellano addressed representatives of Mexican citizens in the United States meeting in Mexico City. They denounced deportations and the growing number of state and local laws seeking to crack down on illegal immigration. The participants proposed reserving a dozen seats in the Mexican parliament for migrants living abroad. Some even demanded a trade embargo against the United States until deportation ceased.

GEORGE GRAYSON, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY: The political class speaks with one voice and that is that Mexicans have a God given right to come to the United States, that they're doing Americans and specifically the American economy a favor.

WIAN: President Felipe Calderon who has gone further than his predecessors in acknowledging Mexico's responsibility for illegal immigration and failed border security seems to be returning to the harsh rhetoric of the past. His government this month called the construction of more border-fencing medieval and Calderon himself accused U.S. presidential candidates of holding Mexicans in the United States as symbolic hostages, a group that included Arellano until she was deported this past August after leaving her church sanctuary in Chicago. She vows to continue her hunger strike until December 12th, the day Mexico celebrates the feast of

WIAN: As for the threat of a trade embargo, it would undoubtedly do more harm to Mexico's economy than to the United States. We asked one supporter of the trade embargo to defend the idea and he said it would be useful as leverage --

DOBBS: Well that's simply idiotic. We have a $70 billion trade deficit with Mexico. Mexican citizens in this country send $25 billion a year back to Mexico for their families there and we're buying about 25 -- between 25 and $45 billion worth of illegal drugs from Mexico. It's still the principal source of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana into this country. These idiots really think that they would be in some way harming the United States if they actually obeyed the law and ended this highly disadvantageous relationship with the United States?

WIAN: They seem to think so. Some of the politicians and supporters of illegal aliens in the United States who are in Mexico, you know it's $180 billion in exports from Mexico to the United States. We represent about 85 percent of their exports. Without us, their economy would really be in bad shape, even worse than it is now, so we can't imagine that these threats will come to any kind of fruition. There is a lot of saber rattling. We're expecting to hear more of that in the future.

DOBBS: What is interesting to me and I think to millions of Americans, would be my guess, Casey, is that the United States government in the form of either the president of the United States when George W. Bush, neither the leaders of the Republican Party or Democratic Party or the Senate majority leader or the House speaker or any one of the presidential candidates is responding to this kind of insulting rhetoric from the government of Mexico and its leading politicians.

And that in itself is disgusting and it suggests a paternalism toward Mexico that is frankly I think that could be construed as racist because it is not one in which we see an equal partner."