Thread: Stepping Over the Line

And Mexico dares to have the gaul to ever in this world complain about how horrible and racist we are? Yea, right.

Stepping Over the Line
Don't try sneaking north across Mexico's other border.


By Joseph Contreras
Newsweek

June 5, 2006 issue - Ever since he crossed into Mexico, José Moisés has had nothing but trouble. Now the 30-year-old Honduran mechanic is hunkered down with other young illegal migrants in a rail yard just north of Mexico City, waiting for nightfall to hop a northbound freight. He displays a pale line encircling his finger. He used to have a ring there, he says—until Mexican cops slammed him against a squad car in the southern border state of Chiapas and grabbed it. "They took everything," says Moisés. "Here the Central American has no value."

As tough as the United States can be for workers who slip in from south of the border, Mexico is in a poor position to criticize. The problem goes far beyond the predatory gantlet of thugs and crooked cops facing defenseless transients like Moisés. There's ample precedent in Mexico for just about everything the United States is—or isn't—doing. Calling out the military? Mexicans may hate the new U.S. plan to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, but five years ago they cheered President Vicente Fox for sending thousands of Mexican soldiers to crack down on their southern frontier. Tougher laws? Hispanic-rights groups are enraged over U.S. efforts to criminalize undocumented aliens—yet since 1974, sneaking into Mexico has been punishable by up to two years in prison. Foot-dragging on amnesty? Fox has spent the past five years urging the United States to upgrade the status of millions of illegals from Mexico. Meanwhile, his own government has given legal status to only 15,000 foreigners without papers.

Some of the worst abuses take place on the coffee plantations of Chiapas state, where some 40,000 Guatemalan field hands endure backbreaking jobs and squalid living conditions to earn roughly $3.50 a day. Some growers even deduct the cost of room and board from that amount. "If you ask them, 'Why are you bringing in Guatemalans to work?' they say, 'You can't depend on Mexicans. They don't work hard; they're irresponsible'," says George Grayson, a political scientist specializing in Mexico at the College of William & Mary. "The truth is, you can pay [the guest workers] a pittance. And if they cause the slightest disturbance, you can send them back to Guatemala."

At least a few Mexicans are balking at the hypocrisy. Late last year their National Human Rights Commission issued a report criticizing Mexico's widespread mistreatment of aliens; the report described sub- human facilities where captured illegals are kept until they can be deported. Several international news agencies ran stories on the publication. But most of Mexico's leading papers ignored it.

With Monica Campbell
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc. | Subscribe to Newsweek
__________________

"If you ask them, 'Why are you bringing in Guatemalans to work?' they say, 'You can't depend on Mexicans. They don't work hard; they're irresponsible',"

So they are not really the honest hardworking people George Booosh claims??

Cool story but I need to say the Guatemalan that worked for our company a few years back was the lazzest sob that every woal in my office door. He had an I owe him the world addy and told me that when i fired him
On the other hand if i could find a good point the Immigrent mexicans that work here are the low life of the food chain and dont care who knows it but we keep them around for the low wage and great quility of work.
NOT Goerge does a fine job glad he works here
Wehave had trainies from mexico that fit the above discrption to a T

Originally Posted by legal4mykidsfuture

"If you ask them, 'Why are you bringing in Guatemalans to work?' they say, 'You can't depend on Mexicans. They don't work hard; they're irresponsible',"

So they are not really the honest hardworking people George Booosh claims??

Seems to be their convenient argument!

(however, when we had a cleaning business, for commercial buildings, we had to do many one time jobs ...to save the job for the company that we sub'd from because ...as one of the businesses said after we did the one time clean..."the difference is like night and day." They did not do good work!)

Mexicans may hate the new U.S. plan to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, but five years ago they cheered President Vicente Fox for sending thousands of Mexican soldiers to crack down on their southern frontier.

Selfish hypocrites and entitled? Naaw. What's mine is mine and what's your's is mine too.

Hispanic-rights groups are enraged over U.S. efforts to criminalize undocumented aliens—yet since 1974, sneaking into Mexico has been punishable by up to two years in prison. Foot-dragging on amnesty? Fox has spent the past five years urging the United States to upgrade the status of millions of illegals from Mexico. Meanwhile, his own government has given legal status to only 15,000 foreigners without papers.

Prosecution, rests.