President Calderon of Mexico yesterday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in America and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers.
On his first trip to America as Mexico's president, Mr. Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments.
"The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Mr. Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
"I need to change in Mexico the perception that the Americans are the enemy, and it is important to change the perception that the Mexicans are the enemy," he said. "We are neighbors, we are friends and we must be allies." (Leader Decries U.S. Anti-Immigrant Views)
Calderon should have said, "We need your money!" He might also be negotiating for more help to protect Mexico from those pesky illegals passing through Mexico's southern border with Guatemala. And if you weren't aware, Mexico's policy for illegals is jail time, unlike in the U.S. where illegals enjoy the benefits of gang membership, sexual predation, drug dealing, drunk driving, car theft, and a host of pursuits by a northwardly mobile population, while Wal Mart now sells its products with Spanish labels to make them better consumers, and the U.S. government prints everything in Spanish--so they know their "rights." However, I don't believe that the Mexican government will provide documents in English; Spanish is an official language; English is not.
[Mexico] has traditionally been just a transit point on the immigration route, and has long been under pressure by the US to step up its security. Shortly after taking office in December, President Felipe Calderón responded to the call by setting up a new border police force with 645 officers.
But his administration is under equal pressure by critics who say Mexico demands of the US what it doesn't give to its own migrants: fair treatment. (Mexico's other migrant problem)
Of course it is no surprise Mexicans (and Hondurans and Gruatemallans, and Chinese?...want to come here with the way the Mexican workers--and others--are treated by the government and corporations and land owners.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gerónimo Gutiérrez recently (2006) acknowledged that Mexico's immigration laws were "tougher than those being contemplated by the United States," where the authorities caught 1.5 million people illegally crossing the Mexican border last year....A trip to Chiapas raises questions about whether Mexico practices at home what it preaches abroad.
If the major characters in the migration drama unfolding in Chiapas could be captured in a collage, it would include a burly, white-haired farmer named Eusebio Ortega Contreras, who did not hide that most of the workers who picked mangos in his fields for $6 a day were underage, undocumented Guatemalans. Indians from Chiapas used to do these jobs, Mr. Ortega said. But in the past five years, they have been migrating to the United States. And lately, he said, he has begun to worry that he is going to lose the Guatemalans, too.
"We know that the conditions we provide our workers are not adequate," said Mr. Ortega, president of the local fruit growers' association, who showed a reporter the meager shelter he can offer: an awning off a hay shed for a roof and lined-up milk crates for beds. (Mexico Worries About Its Own Southern Border)
I guess we should have invaded Mexico instead of Iraq when we wanted to depose corrupt leaders.
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