Southern Border Developments

[ChrisF202]

M21, the name of the group is Los Zetas.

OOE, I would not consider customs officers "toll booth collectors", an example of toll booth collectors playing cop is the Tribourgh Bridge and Tunnel Authority "Police" in NYC. They have made several good "catches" over the years though.

[Officer of Engineers]

OOE, I would not consider customs officers "toll booth collectors", an example of toll booth collectors playing cop is the Tribourgh Bridge and Tunnel Authority "Police" in NYC. They have made several good "catches" over the years though.

That's NYC. This is Canada. A whole different world. My point is that if they want to act like cops, they better be cops.

[troung]

rifles and handguns are no match for trained soldiers, machine guns, and military vehicles.

First off who says Mexico has trained soldiers? They might be brutal in terms of human rights voilations but not terribly compatent in terms of being combat ready. In big open spaces a few ranchers with bolt action scoped rifles would wreck havoc on a platoon of Mexican soldiers playing drug bandits, and that is only one rancher not a dozen or so.

Secondly history has shown that regular people with rifles and handguns are able to bloody the nose of some of the best militaries much less Mexico. What is a Mexican tank going to cross into New Mexico... doubt it...

----
A Militia does need to deal with this to make it fully public what is going on... being in armed standoffs with another nations military on our own border is a joke and should never ever happpen....

[ChrisF202]

First off who says Mexico has trained soldiers? They might be brutal in terms of human rights voilations but not terribly compatent in terms of being combat ready. In big open spaces a few ranchers with bolt action scoped rifles would wreck havoc on a platoon of Mexican soldiers playing drug bandits, and that is only one rancher not a dozen or so.

Secondly history has shown that regular people with rifles and handguns are able to bloody the nose of some of the best militaries much less Mexico. What is a Mexican tank going to cross into New Mexico... doubt it...

----
A Militia does need to deal with this to make it fully public what is going on... being in armed standoffs with another nations military on our own border is a joke and should never ever happpen....

I agree with you. Just look at the Alamo and all the conflicts involving Mexico since, lets just say that since they cant even beat a few Commies in Chipias I dont think we have much to fear from them, except for overwhelming numbers.

[troung]

Southern Border Developments

Mexico Cheers Passage of Immigration Bill

Mexico Cheers Passage of Immigration Bill in Senate Committee, Credits Migrant Marches

By MARK STEVENSON

The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans cheered the proposal approved Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee to legalize undocumented migrants and provide temporary work visas, and credited huge marches of migrants across the United States as the decisive factor behind the vote.
Mexican President Vicente Fox said the vote was the result of five years of work dating to the start of his presidential term in 2000, and puts Mexico one step closer toward the government's goal of "legalization for everyone" who works in the United States.

"My recognition and respect for all the Hispanics and all the Mexicans who have made their voice heard," Fox said. "We saw them turn out this weekend all across the United States, and that's going to count for a lot as we move forward."

Some Mexican media outlets were even more euphoric, predicting final approval for the committee bill as drafted, and suggesting the weekend demonstrations showed Mexico still holds some sway over former territories which it lost in the 1846-48 Mexican-American War.

"With all due respect to Uncle Sam, this shows that Los Angeles has never stopped being ours," reporter Alberto Tinoco said on the Televisa television network's nightly news broadcast, referring to a Saturday march in Los Angeles that drew an estimated 500,000, mainly Mexicans.

But U.S. ambassador Tony Garza warned Mexicans on Monday that the proposal still faces a long, difficult path through Congress.

"The debate will no doubt be heated and at times contentious," Garza wrote in an open letter distributed in Mexico City. "The debate in the Senate is only one part of the lengthy process."

The bill is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of so-called guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorizes a "virtual wall" of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border. It also allows more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelters humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

The most controversial provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years.

Fox has been pushing for a migration accord that would grant some form of legal status to many of the estimated 6 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States. He is likely to bring up the topic when he meets with President Bush starting Thursday in Cancun.

Although a bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants is unlikely to be approved by Congress, Fox remains hopeful that at least a guest-worker program will be put in place before he leaves office on Dec. 1.

If the United States approves such a program, it would bolster Fox's image and aid the prospects of Felipe Calderon, presidential candidate for Fox's National Action Party, or PAN, said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary.

"Fox is looking for some way to be remembered in history," Grayson said.

Illegal migration has emerged as a significant issue in the campaigns of Mexico's three major presidential hopefuls for the July 2 elections, and the United States has asked Mexico to do more to strengthen security along their common border.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

[Bill]

I love mexican food even more than fritos...but not butter cookies.

[THL]

I love mexican food even more than fritos...but not butter cookies.

I don't understand the butter cookie thing unless you have been sent on a mission by Bluesman, but Migas is my favorite!!

[THL]

Mexico Cheers Passage of Immigration Bill

I have said before that I think the US needs immigrants here to do the work that they do that we then do not have to (yes that sounds bad, but it is reality). I do not, however, think that legalizing the world to join the US is the best idea ever created.

[troung]

I love mexican food even more than fritos...but not butter cookies.

WTF...

I knew you were an Islamist...

No red blooded American would put fritos below butter cookies... much less religion...

[Bill]

What can i say, i am a kindler more politically correct automaton that used to be an American.

The feds reprogrammed me earlier this morning...

[troung]

Damn Ayran!!!!!!!!!!

Damn him to hell!!!!!!!!!!

[Parihaka]

Damn Ayran!!!!!!!!!!

Damn him to hell!!!!!!!!!!

Already taken care of.

[Confed999]

I do not, however, think that legalizing the world to join the US is the best idea ever created.

I think we should. Then when Mexico is empty, we'll just move in and start a new state. ;)

[troung]

Mexico prefers to export its poor, not uplift them

from the March 30, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0330/p09s02-coop.html
Mexico prefers to export its poor, not uplift them

At this week's summit, failed reforms under Fox should be the issue, not US actions.
By George W. Grayson WILLIAMSBURG, VA. - At the parleys this week with his US and Canadian counterparts in Cancún, Mexican President Vicente Fox will press for more opportunities for his countrymen north of the Rio Grande. Specifically, he will argue for additional visas for Mexicans to enter the United States and Canada, the expansion of guest-worker schemes, and the "regularization" of illegal immigrants who reside throughout the continent. In a recent interview with CNN, the Mexican chief executive excoriated as "undemocratic" the extension of a wall on the US-Mexico border and called for the "orderly, safe, and legal" northbound flow of Mexicans, many of whom come from his home state of Guanajuato.
Mexican legislators share Mr. Fox's goals. Silvia Hernández Enriquez, head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for North America, recently emphasized that the solution to the "structural phenomenon" of unlawful migration lies not with "walls or militarization" but with "understanding, cooperation, and joint responsibility."
Such rhetoric would be more convincing if Mexican officials were making a good faith effort to uplift the 50 percent of their 106 million people who live in poverty. To his credit, Fox's "Opportunities" initiative has improved slightly the plight of the poorest of the poor. Still, neither he nor Mexico's lawmakers have advanced measures that would spur sustained growth, improve the quality of the workforce, curb unemployment, and obviate the flight of Mexicans abroad.
Indeed, Mexico's leaders have turned hypocrisy from an art form into an exact science as they shirk their obligations to fellow citizens, while decrying efforts by the US senators and representatives to crack down on illegal immigration at the border and the workplace.
What are some examples of this failure of responsibility?
• When oil revenues are excluded, Mexico raises the equivalent of only 9 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes - a figure roughly equivalent to that of Haiti and far below the level of major Latin American nations. Not only is Mexico's collection rate ridiculously low, its fiscal regime is riddled with loopholes and exemptions, giving rise to widespread evasion. Congress has rebuffed efforts to reform the system.
• Insufficient revenues mean that Mexico spends relatively little on two key elements of social mobility: Education commands just 5.3 percent of its GDP and healthcare only 6.10 percent, according to the World Bank's last comparative study.
• A venal, "come-back-tomorrow" bureaucracy explains the 58 days it takes to open a business in Mexico compared with three days in Canada, five days in the US, nine days in Jamaica, and 27 days in Chile. Mexico's private sector estimates that 34 percent of the firms in the country made "extra official" payments to functionaries and legislators in 2004. These bribes totaled $11.2 billion and equaled 12 percent of GDP.
• Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization, placed Mexico in a tie with Ghana, Panama, Peru, and Turkey for 65th among 158 countries surveyed for corruption.
• Economic competition is constrained by the presence of inefficient, overstaffed state oil and electricity monopolies, as well as a small number of private corporations - closely linked to government big shots - that control telecommunications, television, food processing, transportation, construction, and cement. Politicians who talk about, much less propose, trust-busting measures are as rare as a snowfall in the Sonoran Desert.
Geography, self-interests, and humanitarian concerns require North America's neighbors to cooperate on myriad issues, not the least of which is immigration. However, Mexico's power brokers have failed to make the difficult decisions necessary to use their nation's bountiful wealth to benefit the masses. Washington and Ottawa have every right to insist that Mexico's pampered elite act responsibly, rather than expecting US and Canadian taxpayers to shoulder burdens Mexico should assume.
• George W. Grayson, who teaches government at the College of William & Mary, is the author of "Mesías Mexicano," forthcoming, a book about Mexican presidential front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

[troung]

Southern Border Developments

Few Protections for Migrants to Mexico

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...04-18-18-08-31


TULTITLAN, Mexico (AP) -- Considered felons by the government, these migrants fear detention, rape and robbery. Police and soldiers hunt them down at railroads, bus stations and fleabag hotels. Sometimes they are deported; more often officers simply take their money.
While migrants in the United States have held huge demonstrations in recent weeks, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central Americans in Mexico suffer mostly in silence.
And though Mexico demands humane treatment for its citizens who migrate to the U.S., regardless of their legal status, Mexico provides few protections for migrants on its own soil. The issue simply isn't on the country's political agenda, perhaps because migrants make up only 0.5 percent of the population, or about 500,000 people - compared with 12 percent in the United States.
The level of brutality Central American migrants face in Mexico was apparent Monday, when police conducting a raid for undocumented migrants near a rail yard outside Mexico City shot to death a local man, apparently because his dark skin and work clothes made officers think he was a migrant.
AP_Tacoda_AMS_DDC_addPair("SECTION", "INTERNATIONAL; LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN")AP_Tacoda_AMS_DDC("http://te.ap.org/tte/blank.gif", "1.0")
Virginia Sanchez, who lives near the railroad tracks that carry Central Americans north to the U.S. border, said such shootings in Tultitlan are common.

======

Enforcement PollBuy AP Photo Reprints
Lopez said he had been shaken down repeatedly in 15 days of traveling through Mexico.
"The soldiers were there as soon as we crossed the river," he said. "They said, 'You can't cross ... unless you leave something for us.'"
Jose Ramos, 18, of El Salvador, said the extortion occurs at every stop in Mexico, until migrants are left penniless and begging for food.
"If you're on a bus, they pull you off and search your pockets and if you have any money, they keep it and say, 'Get out of here,'" Ramos said.
Maria Elena Gonzalez, who lives near the tracks, said female migrants often complain about abusive police.
"They force them to strip, supposedly to search them, but the purpose is to sexually abuse them," she said.
Others said they had seen migrants beaten to death by police, their bodies left near the railway tracks to make it look as if they had fallen from a train.
The Mexican government acknowledges that many federal, state and local officials are on the take from the people-smugglers who move hundreds of thousands of Central Americans north, and that migrants are particularly vulnerable to abuse by corrupt police.
The National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency, documented the abuses south of the U.S. border in a December report.
"One of the saddest national failings on immigration issues is the contradiction in demanding that the North respect migrants' rights, which we are not capable of guaranteeing in the South," commission president Jose Luis Soberanes said.
In the United States, mostly Mexican immigrants have staged rallies pressuring Congress to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants rather than making them felons and deputizing police to deport them. The Mexican government has spoken out in support of the immigrants' cause.
While Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal said Monday that "Mexico is a country with a clear, defined and generous policy toward migrants," the nation of 105 million has legalized only 15,000 immigrants in the past five years, and many undocumented migrants who are detained are deported.
Although Mexico objects to U.S. authorities detaining Mexican immigrants, police and soldiers usually cause the most trouble for migrants in Mexico, even though they aren't technically authorized to enforce immigration laws.
And while Mexicans denounce the criminalization of their citizens living without papers in the United States, Mexican law classifies undocumented immigration as a felony punishable by up to two years in prison, although deportation is more common.
The number of undocumented migrants detained in Mexico almost doubled from 138,061 in 2002 to 240,269 last year. Forty-two percent were Guatemalan, 33 percent Honduran and most of the rest Salvadoran.
Like the United States, Mexico is becoming reliant on immigrant labor. Last year, then-director of Mexico's immigration agency, Magdalena Carral, said an increasing number of Central Americans were staying in Mexico, rather than just passing through on their way to the U.S.
She said sectors of the Mexican economy facing labor shortages often use undocumented workers because the legal process for work visas is inefficient.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
"At night, you hear the gunshots, and it's the judiciales (state police) chasing the migrants," she said. "It's not fair to kill these people. It's not fair in the United States and it's not fair here."
Undocumented Central American migrants complain much more about how they are treated by Mexican officials than about authorities on the U.S. side of the border, where migrants may resent being caught but often praise the professionalism of the agents scouring the desert for their trail.
"If you're carrying any money, they take it from you - federal, state, local police, all of them," said Carlos Lopez, a 28-year-old farmhand from Guatemala crouching in a field near the tracks in Tultitlan, waiting to climb onto a northbound freight train.