Thread: Solution to border problem isn't hate

Published: 10.13.2006

Solution to border problem isn't hate
SALOMÓN R. BALDENEGRO
Tucson Citizen

"When I went to Tucson in 1996, they put me in a parade that went through Mexico town."

- Pat Buchanan, Republican strategist and commentator
U nder the guise of addressing immigration issues, right-wingers are waging a hate campaign against people of Mexican descent.

I've lived in Tucson all my life, and I can say with absolute certainty that there is no area called "Mexican town" in Tucson.

Buchanan was in the Rodeo Parade, which goes through Tucson's South Side.

As do other right-wingers who are creating a culture of hate against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Buchanan simply makes things up.
In an effort to give these a semblance of credibility, he put them in a book: "State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America."

In a book-promotion interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," Buchanan said of Mexican folks in Los Angeles: "They cheer Osama (bin Laden) in the stadiums there."

In today's America, there is no more scurrilous a lie that can be leveled at someone than that.

Republican congressional candidate Randy Graf is running a campaign ad also designed to scare Arizonans.

The ad says hordes of Mexicans are crossing the border into Arizona, emphasizing that some of these Mexicans may be "terrorists."

Never mind that there is not a single instance of terrorists having come into the U.S. through our southern border.

The known or suspected terrorists who have entered our country have done so by flying in or via the Canadian border.

A linchpin of Buchanan's book is that there is a conspiracy among the Mexican government, Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans to give Arizona (and other Southwestern states) back to Mexico.

I'm sure even Buchanan knows how stupid that notion is. How does one give an American state to another country?

But he knows his audience. He knows there are folks who are predisposed to believe his big lie and pass it on.

Having no qualms about using a noxious epithet long used to demean Mexican-Americans, Arizona Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, recently proposed that a failed 1950s program, "Operation Wetback," which sought to round up and deport all Mexican immigrants, be resuscitated.

But the historical reality is that previous mass-deportation schemes have not differentiated between immigrants and citizens. If you looked Mexican, you were deported, citizenship notwithstanding.

Indeed, anti-Mexican policies can only be enforced on the basis of looks, surname, language and accent. To the haters, we all look and sound alike.
This past July, the Springfield, Tenn., City Council considered banning all Hispanics from city parks.

When it was pointed out to the alderman who sponsored the motion that not all Hispanics in Springfield are "illegal" - which was the basis of the motion - he responded: "If they're speaking Spanish, I tend to think they are illegal."

Immigration is, indeed, a real and serious issue in our community, one that needs to be addressed.

But the solution to the immigration situation lies in the realm of politics, not the arena of hate. c/s

Political historian Salomón R. Baldenegro is a lifelong Tucsonan and longtime civil-rights activist. The "c/s" at the end of his column is a Chicano barrio term that stands for "con safos," which denotes closure, along the lines of "that's all I got to say." E-mail: SalomonRB@msn.com

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/29215.php

Mexicans do chant for Osama at soccer games when they play Americans.

Where has this flake been?

Who said there was a conspiracy to retake the SW? It's more like a situation that exists because of strong levels of that attitude in the ranks of the illegal aliens.

It's no conspiracy.

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Mexicans do chant for Osama at soccer games when they play Americans.

Where has this flake been?

Who said there was a conspiracy to retake the SW? It's more like a situation that exists because of strong levels of that attitude in the ranks of the illegal aliens.

It's no conspiracy.

W

Yup. It's hard to label as conspiracy something that is the public platform of several leading Hispanic groups.

Yup. It's hard to label as conspiracy something that is the public platform of several leading Hispanic groups.

And the thousands parading in our streets and carrying signs claiming the SW US as theirs and telling those of European descent to leave.

Never mind that there is not a single instance of terrorists having come into the U.S. through our southern border.

Mexican Diplomat Charged With Helping Smuggle Arabs Into U.S.
Human Events, Jan 5, 2004 by Jeffrey, Terence P

The real life horror story that began eighteen months ago when an Arab illegal alien named Youseff Balaghi showed up at a San Diego hospital, dying from what the Border Patrol initially-and erroneously-feared was radiation sickness, has now reached high into Mexico's foreign service.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Imelda Ortiz Abdala was Mexico's consul in Lebanon. On Nov. 12, 2003, Mexican authorities arrested her, according to the Associated Press, "on charges of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico." The AP said Mexico had also arrested "alleged ring leader Salim Boughader Mucharafille." Boughader earlier pleaded guilty in the U.S. to the smuggling incident that resulted in Balaghi's death.

Unfortunately, this story is not over.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Skerlos prosecuted Boughader. This week, citing Ortiz's arrest, I asked him if there were other rings still bringing Middle Easterners in from Mexico.

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"Yes," he said.

Another Front

Far from Iraq, there's another front where the terror war's not over. It's on our own border-and, here, the key enemies are the smugglers who bring people such as Balaghi into California, and who collaborate with allegedly corrupt officials such as Ortiz.

In congressional testimony in 2002, then-Assistant Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Joseph Greene said: "Information available to the INS indicates terrorist organizations often use human smuggling operations to move around the globe." According to a Library of Congress study, "Organized Crime and Terrorist Activity in Mexico, 1999-2002," former Mexican national security adviser Adolfo Aguilar Zinser said in May 2001: "Spanish and Islamic terrorist groups are using Mexico as a refuge."
How is the U.S. countering the threat of terrorists using human smuggling operations and finding refuge in Mexico? Rather than securing our border generally, the government tolerates large-scale illegal immigration, while trying to selectively stop the smuggling operations most likely to move terrorists. The administration, Greene told Congress, has put in place an "enforcement initiative aimed at targeting alien smuggling organizations specializing in the movement of U.S.-bound aliens from countries that are of interest to the national security of the United States."

Balaghi was from Lebanon.

On June 5, 2002, he showed up, vomiting blood, at Scripps Memorial Hospital-Chula Vista. He quickly died. When the Border Patrol heard his symptoms, they feared radiation sickness-and dispatched an agent with a detector to check his remains.

Balaghi was clean. But he was far from the only Middle Easterner Boughader's ring had smuggled.

In an affidavit, Border Patrol Agent John R. Korkin said an investigation "positively identified at least 80 Lebanese nationals that have been, or were intercepted in the process of being, smuggled into the U.S." by the ring. Boughader admitted in court to smuggling more than 100. He was sentenced to one year in prison, and deported to Mexico in November.

Almost immediately, Mexican authorities arrested him in their own anti-smuggling case. A few days later, they arrested Ortiz.

She had worked in Mexico's foreign service for 25 years. From 1998 to October 2001, AP reported, she was Mexico's consul in Lebanon. She later directed the consular office in Mexico City.

She was fired in May, AP said, "after 150 Mexican passports were stolen and two others were found to have been issued irregularly."

Jose Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's assistant attorney general, told Notimex that Boughader's ring moved "a great number of Arabs" into the United States. El Occidental, a Mexican newspaper, said it was "at least 200."

I asked Skerlos to compare that number to the "at least 80 Lebanese nationals" cited in Korkin's affidavit "I think it is fair to say that the numbers we included in our affidavit were conservative," he said.

Almost a month after Ortiz was arrested, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said: "The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it."

No, Mr. Secretary. We already have immigration laws. It's your duty to enforce them. If the arrest of a Mexican diplomat for helping to smuggle Arabs into the U.S. can't convince you of the need for that, what will?

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jan 5, 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... i_n9371745

I've lived in Tucson all my life, and I can say with absolute certainty that there is no area called "Mexican town" in Tucson.

I'm sure "Mexican town" was a figure of speech. This guy really doesn't have a clue does he. I'm amazed beyond belief that these pro-illegal/open border advocats just put to print what ever comes to mind. It doesn't matter that there isn't one shred of evidence to substantiate there claims. They are certainly becoming experts at spinning propaganda.

If American's were to leave the southern states and turn them over to Mexican's, they would just cross the borders to the American side. We are their bread and butter. The land means nothing if they can't leech off of American citizens.