Getting in the way of a solution

Fox's support of illegal immigration leaves problem unsolvable, says
MARK DAVIS mdavis@airmail.net.
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 17, 2007
http://www.dallasnews.com


Vicente Fox somehow managed to endure the oppressive atmosphere of Irving, Texas, last weekend. Of course, he was in a luxury box at the Dallas Cowboys-New England Patriots game.

Thus sealed away, I presume he was protected from the racist hordes that call the city home.

At least that's the story told by the former Mexican president, who now seeks to sell a book full of insults aimed at any American who dares to think our immigration laws actually should be enforced.

Irving's tendency to find and deport illegals must strike him as some modern Holocaust, if one takes his panicked, preachy tone at face value.

And that tone has been on abundant display as he has sought to sell books on American soil, which he has every right to do. He is not here illegally, his gains are not ill gotten and the book is in English. So far, so good.

But the words in his book – and the words he speaks as he traverses our nation marketing himself – reveal contempt for America's laws and culture that go a long way toward explaining why illegal immigration proved so hard to solve during his tenure.

In fact, we will never solve illegal immigration as long as the occupant of the Mexican presidential palace is an ardent supporter of it, as Vicente Fox was. And is.

He supported it with rhetoric designed to erode our shared border. He supported it with his refusal to address valid American concerns over the economic and security concerns posed by waves of lawbreakers flowing north from his country. He supported it when his government published pamphlets filled with advice for illegals on how to successfully slink undetected into the United States.

The incentives for his embrace of such lawlessness are many. Every illegal crossing into America is another Mexican that his own corrupt, cash-strapped country does not have to support. Every illegal arrival here is another potential source for dollars flowing south back over the border.

And the pull of those dollars is a narcotic that only the most virtuous Mexican leader could resist. It is impossible to know how much free American money poured into Mr. Fox's Mexico during his years in office, but even highly restrained math yields a shocking figure.

Estimates of the U.S. illegal immigrant population range from 12 million to 20 million. Let's go with the lower guess. Let's make two-thirds of them wives and children, leaving a mere 4 million actual workers occupying what should be American jobs.

Some send thousands back across the border; some send none. Even a miserly $100 weekly average yields more than $20 billion per year that never touch the American economy.

But those dollars flood into Mexico and some other nations, washing away the resolve of leaders like Mr. Fox, who turned his head as it was happening and now scolds us for trying to stop it.

Those of us who seek strong enforcement of illegal immigration laws area are "denying America's immigrant soul," he admonished last week.

If zealous activists in our country dumb themselves down to the point that they cannot distinguish between legal and illegal immigration, that's annoying enough. But when the former president of an adjoining nation is so blind, disaster looms.

And Mr. Fox's words provide shocking, sad evidence of how blind he chooses to be. He can spout the tired (and false) assertion that "walls don't work." But how does one decipher this twisted logic: "Today, as National Guard troops patrol the rivers from Arizona to Iraq, the United States isn't building a wall. It is building a prison."

Huh?

Mr. Fox's book is not without merit. It is an impressive story of a young man inspired by his nation's history and thirst for independence. Mexicans are properly proud of their culture and protect it strongly, with some of our hemisphere's toughest laws designed to protect against wanton disregard for its sovereignty and unity.

Imagine immigrating to Mexico and making instant demands to be economically accommodated and coddled indefinitely in your native language. As president, Vicente Fox worked tirelessly to make sure his nation would never bend to such preposterous demands.

Yet those are precisely the demands he makes of America. I hope I will be excused if I am in no mood for lectures from a leader who is a brazen accessory to an illegal invasion.

Mark Davis is heard weekdays from 8 to 11 a.m. on WBAP-AM, News/Talk 820. His e-mail address is mdavis@airmail.net.