Time To Get Mexico Out Of Our Hair!
Time To Get Mexico Out Of Our Hair!
By Joe Guzzardi
Last weekend, I became aware of an alarming new development in the war for immigration sanity: the anchor dog!
I was at the local feed store talking with Stacy, a freshly scrubbed young woman in a "Cowgirl" tee shirt. Stacy was helping me make a new tag for my Australian Shepherd, Sparkle.
We got to talking about our pets. Stacy said: "I have a Chihuahua puppy and she’s the real thing. Her mother was born in Mexico."
I asked Stacy to explain. "Well," she said, "the dog’s owner arranged for the mom to come to the U.S. so that her puppies could have a better life!"
Then Stacy added, "You know, kind of like the people do."
We had a pretty good laugh about that.
In reality, of course, I don’t think much of "anchor dogs." As a board member of the local animal shelter, I know firsthand how many homeless animals we have to place.
Stacy’s dog story is another amazing example of the one-sided relationship between the U.S. and Mexico—whatever its needs are, and they’re multiple, we’re right here to bail the country out.
The time is now for the U.S. to demonstrate tough love toward Mexico by demanding that, before we do anything more on its behalf—like fork over $1.4 billion under the Marshall Plan/Merida Initiative as Brenda Walker outlined last night in her column here—it visibly demonstrate that its taking steps to helping itself.
Here are two recent examples of how Mexico uses its financial and intellectual resources to improve conditions for Mexicans living in the U.S. instead its own citizens.
On September 10th Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretariat announced that the budget for Mexican consulate offices in the U.S would be doubled from the 2006 level to $830 million pesos (slightly more than $76 million or about $1.75 million per Mexican consulate office). The La Jornada story by reporter José Antonio Román is here but in Spanish only: Duplica la SRE recursos para la red consular en Estados Unidos.
The story conveys the impression that the Mexican consulate offices exist for the benign purpose of providing "military registrations and birth certificates" or general help and guidance for Mexicans residing "abroad."
But for more than five years, the main mission of Mexican consulate offices and their temporary sub- stations that they have set up in suburban areas has been to distribute matricula consular cards to aliens.
The story, in fact, acknowledges that by issuing matricula consular cards, consulate offices are directly intervening in U.S. domestic policy: "Currently it is estimated that there are 4 million Mexicans with high security Consular ID which are accepted at various public and private institutions in the United States."
Stated another way, the matricula consular card enables Mexicans to get checking accounts and home mortgages—with the considerable help of greedy bankers—even though it is illegal for aliens to have commercial banking accounts of any kind or for banks to accept non-secure identification. (Comprehensive background on Mexican consulate offices and the matricula consular card is in the Center for Immigration Studies report IDs for Illegals The 'Matricula Consular' Advances Mexico's Immigration Agenda January 2003)
The final, inescapable conclusion: Mexico’s doubling of its consular budget means that the country is willing to spend twice the money in its reconquista efforts.
Here’s an even more egregious example of how Mexico sees itself vis-Ã*-vis the U.S.
In another story from La Jornada "Seeking To Make Migration An Issue in the 2008 US elections," also written by reporter Román [Buscan que la migración sea tema en comicios de 2008 en EU - La Jornada, November 6, 2007; sorry, still Spanish only] reveals that a group that calls itself the "First Parliament of Mexican Immigration Leaders"[“Primer Parlamento de LÃ*deres Migrantes Mexicanos que viven en Estados Unidos de Americaâ€
