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.

Apparently, an amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget passed by Senators with little fanfare and will gut the already-approved Secure Fence Act.

For more go to "Where's the fence?"

"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." Theodore Roosevelt

This excerpt from a column by Tom Knott:

Harry Reid, the sniffling land speculator of Nevada, has vowed to resume his fight to award in-state tuition breaks to illegal aliens because of its rightness, fairness and sensibleness.

Mr. Reid reflects the thinking of many of the lawmakers in our region, where it has become the duty of taxpayers to help illegal aliens feel at home, whether it is building day-laborer centers in their honor, providing them with social services or encouraging them not to play by our bureaucratic rules.

Yours is a phony driver"s license? That is not a problem. We understand. America"s racist, bigoted ways forced you into taking this unlawful measure. We are so sorry. Have a nice day.

Mr. Reid is promising to resurrect the Dream Act in the weeks ahead. It is a wonderful piece of legislation if you are living illegally in Texas and always wanted to attend the University of Virginia. You would be allowed to pay the same tuition as the American student who grew up in Virginia. Now if it were Billy Bob applying to Thomas Jefferson"s school, his parents would have to pay out-of-state tuition, which is about three times higher than the in-state tab.

And in other attempts to give illegals more rights than U.S. citizens--Bush backs Mexico, rapist-murderer--the U.S. Supreme Court has heard a case in which the Bush administration seeks to overturn the death penalty of a convicted rapist-murderer at the behest of the International Court of Justice.

Jose Medellin confessed in 1993 to participating in the rape and murder of two Houston teenagers. Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena were sodomized and strangled with their shoe laces. Medellin bragged about keeping one girl's Mickey Mouse watch as a souvenir of the crime.

Medellin and four others were convicted of capital murder and sent to Texas' death row. A juvenile court sentenced Medellin's younger brother, who was 14 at the time, to 40 years in prison.

The intervention in the case by the Bush administration comes after the International Court of Justice found Medellin was not informed of his right to contact the Mexican Consulate for legal assistance.

That, according to the Hague, was a violation of a 1963 treaty known as the Vienna Convention.

"We find ourselves in an unusual position," Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz told the Houston Chronicle. "Texas is not regularly litigating against the United States. But sadly enough, the United States will appear alongside Medellin at the argument."

Former Mexico President Vincente Fox on talk radio last week claimed that the waves of illegals that have come here--especially those given water and maps by his government--were not the problem but a security issue for the U.S., but he is also against the U.S building a wall. Of course! Mexico is being propped up by the billions of dollars sent back to Mexico; why would they fix their own problems to actually have a vibrant economy of their own?

It's all over; time to learn Mexican, since it's not even real Spanish.

Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made at least 56 arrests in Reno, Sparks and Fernley after raids at the restaurants and a franchise corporate headquarters in Reno, agency spokesman Richard Rocha said.

The raids drew immediate criticism from Reno Mayor Bob Cashell and activists, who estimated the number of arrests to be closer to 100.

The mayor joined a news conference area Hispanic leaders and members of the American Civil Liberties Union called in front of the federal courthouse late Thursday.

"We don't approve of the Gestapo methods ICE is using," said Gilbert Cortez, a Latino leader who urged Hispanic workers to stay home from work in protest Friday.

Funny, when you give them a date to appear for a hearing, they disappear and reappear under a new identity. But if they get picked up in a raid Latino leaders get upset and white politicians are afraid to state the truth; these people have broken the law by entering the country, are forging documents, and often commit other crimes, and they certainly aren't going to come in to officials and say, "A propósito, tengo tres sistemas de las licencias de conductor y de los números de Seguridad Social." (By the way, I have three sets of driver's licenses and social security numbers.)

Apparently the proposed immigration bill in the Senate had even less support than Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Harry Reid (D-NV) and President George Bush had hoped. The bill failed to receive even a simple Senate majority. Only 46 senators, including 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and 1 independent, voted to advance the bill. It appears that even 15 Democrats, who joined with 37 Republicans and 1 independent to block the legislation, didn't believe in the bill despite Ted's and Harry's behind the scenes manuevering.

Today the Senate resurrected the immigration bill designed to eventually legalize millions of illegal immigrants, but it still has the same problems.

Conservatives succeeded in delaying until Wednesday consideration of a package of amendments designed to pave the way for a final vote on the bill by using Senate rules to insist that the entire 373-page package be read aloud.,

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to postpone action on the amendments.
Probably no one has read the whole thing and it might take weeks for the rambling bill to be read in its entirety.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, called the vote "a major step forward for our national security, for our economy and for our humanity."

National security? Add a couple more miles of fences and what...expect the illegals to turn themselves in? We keep losing the ones we catch.

President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers this weekend to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, claiming the U.S. government is using psychological and economic warfare as part of a campaign against his government. Note that some of that immense oil money has been spent to purchase $3 billion (U.S.) worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.

Heck, they can just fly up to Mexico, cross the border, and fight us here--and probably win. Then maybe we can make them pay for school and road improvements in the Southwest.

Scores of illegal immigrants, including a man wanted for murder and a convicted child molester, were arrested in Southern California raids this week, U.S. authorities said on Friday.

The sweeps in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, were part of an operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting "criminal aliens" -- defined as people in the country illegally who have also committed other crimes.

Of the 175 people arrested, 27 are criminal aliens and another 26 are "immigration fugitives" who had ignored deportation orders by a judge.

The raids were part of larger crackdown on immigration fugitives, which this year has resulted in the first ever decline in their number, to 632,189, according to an agency spokeswoman.

26 as against 632,189 immigration fugitives--we must be winning the war on immigration problems. No wonder some of our politicians want to sign them up as citizens; we can't stop them from coming across the border and we can't find the ones we have already caught. I have looked at a few of the immigration bill proponents and here's my take on their positions:

President George W. Bush: George Bush is actually working for the Democratic party as he has single handedly castrated the Republican party and pushing for citizenship for illegals is definitely a plus for Democrats, for as registered voters they would overwhelmingly vote Democrat. The ones who are illegally registered already are voting Democrat.