Mexican President tells US to control e xtremists

““Mexican president tells U.S. to control extremists

Chris Hawley
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Mar. 16, 2005 06:42 PM

MEXICO CITY - Anti-immigrant sentiment appears to be growing in the United States, Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday, and he urged U.S. officials to act quickly to control movements like the 950-member-strong Minuteman Project on the Mexico-Arizona border.

Fox said he plans to push for U.S. immigration reform during a meeting with President Bush in Texas next week. He also said the two leaders, along with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, likely will announce a plan to expand the scope of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission recently issued a warning about several new grass-roots movements inspired by Arizona's Proposition 200. Other Mexican officials have cited the Minuteman Project, a plan by activists to patrol the Arizona-Mexico border during April, as a sign of rising extremism.

"There are signs of these kinds of problems present today, and (they are) progressing," Fox said during a news conference for foreign reporters. "We have to act quickly and on time to prevent these kinds of actions."

He said Mexico was watching the Minuteman Project carefully and would take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any of the activists break the law.

"We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups," Fox said. "We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups, which are a minority . . . will not have any opportunity to progress."

Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they have signed up more than 950 volunteers, including 30 pilots with aircraft, to patrol the border for 30 days beginning April 1. The activists say they will notify the Border Patrol if they see border-crossers and will not confront them directly.

Minuteman co-organizer Chris Simcox said participants were exercising their constitutional rights.

"Vicente Fox can rant and rave all he wants, but he obviously doesn't understand what a democracy means," Simcox said. "We have been working within the law."

Fox also harshly criticized the construction of walls along the border, including a new "triple fence" planned for the San Diego area.

"We are convinced that walls don't work. They should be torn down," he said. "No country that is proud of itself should build walls. No one can isolate himself these days."

Fox said he understood Americans' concern about protecting their southern border. But he denied that terrorists have snuck into the United States through Mexico, as the FBI's director recently said.

"We have absolutely no evidence of that," he said.

Fox is meeting with Bush and Martin on Wednesday at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and at Bush's ranch in nearby Crawford. It's an effort to get North American cooperation back on track after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Fox said he will push for action on a "guest worker" program in the United States. He said the United States population is aging and will need Mexican labor in the future, and that turning millions of undocumented Mexicans into legal, tax-paying workers could help keep the Social Security system afloat.

The three leaders likely will announce a plan aimed at further integrating their countries' economies to compete against other trade blocs, Fox said. He called it a "new vision" that will not change the existing treaty.

It will include new border security measures, ways to share customs duties, and a continent-wide energy policy, he said. Other sections will focus on education, technology, and the financial sectors, he said.

NAFTA's critics say the 1994 trade pact has cost American manufacturing jobs while hurting Mexican farmers. But Fox noted the average Mexican income has more than doubled to $6,505 a year.

Fox said the boom of assembly plants along the border has actually helped stop illegal border-crossing, by providing jobs for people who would have gone to the United States.

"That's also part of security on the border, to have this cushion where people can find a job on the Mexican side," he said.

Reach the reporter at chris.hawley@arizonarepublic.com.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0316fox-ON.html



Looks like it is time to email and call your Senators and Reps to stop this. The sad part is that Bush and Fox are in bed together over this. Both want it esp Fox. He nows the worst of the worst have and will continue to leave Mexico for the US. Then they aren't his problem anymore”

“Ya know what we need? We need a fence of some sort we can put along the border so these poor immigrants will not accidentally end up on our side of the border where they might fall victim to these groups. That way they will know exactly where the border is. Oh wait a second…”

“I think it is a sad state of affairs when a person from one country accidentally finds himself in another country illegally, I mean accidentally. Thankfully once these poor misguided souls realise they are in the wrong they immediately move farther from their own country as a precaution, I think... Or could it be Norte Americano induced dementia that takes them farther north? Who knows, maybe we can get a grant to study this... 4 or 5 TT members get a grant to hike, I mean patrol, no I mean kindly and gently approach misguided citizens to ask them their opinions on this topic in the Southwest. Of course due to unknown dangers we could forego the approaching part and just hike the Southwest....”