Thread: Mexico's Own Migrant Story

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article ... 2235.shtml

Mexico's Own Migrant Story
George Putnam
Thursday, April 20, 2006

It is this reporter's opinion that with thousands of legals and illegals demonstrating on our streets under the protective arm of our government, with our border patrol rescuing illegals from our deserts and rivers as they violate our sovereignty, our borders, for a better life - and as these same illegals break our laws - compare our humane treatment of these migrants with the inhumane treatment, the lack of protection, for Central Americans. Such brutality they face as they struggle across Mexico headed for the United States!

Recently The Associated Press sent topflight reporter Mark Stevenson to Tultitlan, Mexico, to cover the story of those who fear detention, rape and robbery, as the Mexican police and soldiers hunt these pitiful migrants down at railroads, bus stations, and fleabag hotels.

Though Mexico demands humane treatment for its citizens, fleeing to the United States, Mexico provides few protections for migrants on its own soil.

Reporter Stevenson brings us many on-the-scene first-person stories:

"Virginia Sanchez, who lives near the railroad tracks that carries Central Americans north to the U.S. border, tells of a raid in which Mexico police shot to death a local man because he had dark skin and work clothes, which caused the officers to think he was a migrant. Says Sanchez, 'You hear the gunshots at night. The Mexican police chasing the migrants. If it's not fair in the U.S., it's not fair here.'"

Central American migrants complain much more how they are treated by Mexican officials than about authorities on the U.S. side of the border.

Carlos Lopez, a farmhand from Guatemala, waiting to climb aboard a northbound freight train, says, "If you're carrying any money, they take it from you - federal, state, local police - all of them."

Lopez tells of being shaken down repeatedly in 15 days of travel through Mexico. "The soldiers are there as soon as we cross the river," he says. "They say, 'you can't cross unless you leave something for us.'"

Jose Ramos of El Salvador says, "The extortion occurs at every stop in Mexico until we are left penniless and begging for food ... If you're on a bus, they pull you off and search your pockets. If you have any money, they keep it and say, 'Get out of here!'"

Maria Gonzalez says female migrants complain of cruel, abusive police: "They force you to strip, supposedly to search them. Their purpose is to sexually abuse the women."

Others tell the AP reporter of migrants being beaten to death by the police, their bodies left near the railway tracks to make it look as if they had fallen from a train. But these are only a few of the stories.

The National Human Rights Commission is aware of all this and they documented the abuses south of the U.S. border in a December report: "One of the saddest failings on immigration issues is the contradiction in demanding that the North respect migrant rights, which we are not capable of guaranteeing in the South," says the Commission president, Jose Soberantes.

And while Mexico denounces the criminalization of their citizens living without papers in the United States, Mexican law classifies undocumented immigration as a felony punishable by up to two years in prison or deportation. Meanwhile, back in the United States, Mexicans routinely intervene in our political life and all too few of our citizens seem concerned about it.

These stories - a few of thousands reported on the wires - clearly demonstrate the contrasts between the cruel treatment of Mexico's fellow Latinos as compared with our own day-to-day humanitarian efforts put forth by the United States even in treatment of those who are violating our sovereignty. While the Mexican government and its activists scream for the rights of illegals, they are cruel to those who dare to cross their own borders. Mexico, treating with such cruelty those who cross their borders, should raise its standards with regard to their own migrants and do unto them as they would have us do unto their own.

If ever we have witnessed an example of a double standard, this is it!

This topic is making its way to the front. I saw the Mexican Constitution published somewhere and it spells out just what you say here. The list of restrictions that are placed on legal immigrants is a far cry from what we are demanded to do. You can't hold public office, own property and the list goes on. Mexico has granted 15,000 (thousand not million) legal immigrations in 5 years. But we are supposed to grant 12 million tomorrow.

We need to keep this topic up front along with the fact that Mexico is not a poor nation.

Snatching the cover off Mexico is another way to tackle this problem.