And Still They Come . . .
and we’re “racist” ?!?
MEXICALI, Mexico, March 22, 05 - When United States Customs officials discovered the latest tunnel under the border here last month, they were stunned. With a cement floor and an intercom system, the passage ran nearly 200 yards from a house on one side of a rusty metal fence, under two streets and an apartment complex, to emerge in an unassuming tract home in California.
“They are poor people, fleeing horrible poverty. They are just coming here to work.”
the tunnel is not unlike the 13 others found during the 1990’s, built by drug cartels.
Who said, “follow the money.”
American officials fear the tunnels could be used just as easily to smuggle terrorists and explosives as cocaine or illegal immigrants. ...another line of investigation is that its builders might have intended to sell passage to terrorists.
Gee… ya think? [NYT catching on? but wait...]
This confluence of worries forms the backdrop for a meeting on Wednesday in Texas between President Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada. But where issues converge, the interests of the United States and its neighbors may not.
And this is mi problema how? eh?
For Mr. Bush and Congress, security tops the agenda.
Waiting to see. Thus far, not so much.
For Mexico, it is a freer flow of migrant workers
Read: protection of illegal workers whose money, sent back to Mexico, is a big part of the economy on which Fox has to expend no energy. [They even made their little comic book on How To Be an Illegal in the US into a DVD. ...more crust than a day old pot of refritos...]
. For Canada, it is the imperative of foreign and domestic policies that increasingly diverge from Washington’s conservative consensus.
I have it on some authority that there are Canadians who are actually afraid that the US will invade and occupy them. No really. Get up off the floor and wipe your eyes—I mean it. There are. But that’s another post....
A year ago, Mr. Bush proposed greatly expanding a guest-worker program for Mexican laborers. But to Mr. Fox’s great dismay, the idea has faded. In the last two weeks, American diplomats have made it clear that Congress is unlikely to act unless Mexico does more to tighten up the border and reduce the rampant crime on its side.
So on the agenda for this series of meetings is “letting more” workers cross the border ‘legally’ for jobs. Like the 2 million or so a year illegally ain’t enough? And with that proposition, Mister Bush, will you include health checks with provisions for refusal to people who are unhealthy and likely to spread disease? Hmmm? Or might that hurt their feeeeelings?
And lesse—I hear Jimmy the Greek is giving odds on Mexico ‘cleaning up’ the Federales. bwa. ha. ha.
Fox: “No country that is proud of itself should construct walls,” hesaidwhined.
No country that wishes to continue can afford not to regulate its borders.
In increasingly strident language, Mr. Fox has painted the anti-immigrant movement as the work of “minority, xenophobic, discriminatory groups” who do not recognize the contributions of the three million Mexicans who work illegally in the United States.
Let’s look a leedle more closely at that sentence… The NYT begins by calling Fox’s language “increasingly strident” and within 5 words uses the most inflammatory of terms, “anti-immigrant movement.”
Slick, fellas, but no. There is no “anti-immigrant movement” about it—there is a movement of American citizens who are tired of illegal, uncontrolled migration across porous borders burdening infrastructure and returning very little. See the difference there?
Fox’s use of the phrase “minority, xenophobic, discriminatory groups” is not only self-contradictory [implying as it does that a ‘minority group ought to be ignored] it is a page from the PC book. “When all reason fails, scream prejudice.”
We recognize the contributions, Mister Fox—we also recognize the burdens. The balance does not favor US.d
Here is where the NYT regains its ...er, “senses” and returns to its habitual strident facts-be-damned-for-our-opinion-is-more-important approach:
More alarming, a group of self-proclaimed patriots, calling themselves the Minuteman Project, are planning to set up a vigilante watch along the Arizona border in April to report illegal aliens.
“Alarming”—reporting law breakers to authorities. Not really the equivalent of throwing oneself under a bulldozer…
“self-proclaimed”—someone please tell me exactly what the hell is wrong with being “self proclaimed”! The NYT proclaims itself to be a newspaper, after all.
“vigilante”—now there’s a word fraught with the baggage of a thousand lynchings, innit? Nice objectivity.
For some Mexicans, the border here seems a cultural affront.
Nuff said.
RACIST!
Posted by Oliver Willis on 03/23/05 at 04:43 PM
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