Saturday, April 01, 2006

Immigration Reform, Mexican-Style

This dates back to July of 2005, but it is both relevant and telling - Jorge Castaneda, the Mexican foreign minister, testified before Congress on immigration reform. And he let it be know that it will be done Mexico's way, or the U.S. will suffer the consequences:

"Unless and until both governments bite the bullet and reach an understanding on an all-encompassing joint border security initiative, with adequate funding and infrastructure, the violence and criminal activity at the border will remain unabated," he told the senators.

Unilateral measures relating to immigration that are adopted by the U.S. without consultation and agreement with Mexico are doomed to fail, he said.
"If there is no cooperation from the source country on either a guest worker program, or an earned regularization scheme, I cannot see how the U.S. on its own will be able to deal with the enormous operational complexities involved."


Seems like some implied threats there, no? So unless we do it Vincente Fox's way (which, if you read the transcript, involves legalizing all illegals currently in the U.S., authorizing hundreds of thousands of new visas yearly, and untold million {possibly billions} in American aid to protect the border and bring up Mexico's standard of living), the Mexican government has no intention of stopping the flow of illegal immigration; in fact, it may very likely encourage it.

Doesn't sound like a multilateral border partner to me - better start laying the foundation for that wall...

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