LatinaLista — Today’s Michigan Republican debate underscored two points that were already known:
1. The Republican candidates don’t want to talk about immigration reform.
2. Representative Tom Tancredo doesnt’ want to talk about anything else.
Four of the Republican contenders in today’s GOP debate.
(Source: LA Times)
On so many levels, this afternoon’s Republican debate that featured, for the first time, all the contenders vying to fill Bush’s chair, was predictable.
Following the transcript of the debate shows that the moderators kept the bulk of the questions centered on the economy, the war and trade issues — topics comfortable for Republicans.
Immigration reform wouldn’t have even been mentioned if Tancredo didn’t force the issue. And even then, it had nothing to do with reform.
Mr. Tancredo: I just want to quickly respond. I certainly can agree with the senator on one thing: that the government — that the people of this country believe that the government is broken and hasn’t fixed their problems to a large extent because of the senator’s efforts in support of illegal immigration. That’s one reason why they’re concerned.
And you’re absolutely right. The government hasn’t fixed the problem. And for every single illegal immigrant family in this country, it costs $20,000 — it costs us $20,000, $20,000 in infrastructural costs. They pay about $10,000 in taxes. You really want to do something to restore the people’s faith in government, do something about illegal immigration, don’t just talk about it.
Tancredo was the only participant to bring up undocumented immigrants – not once, but twice. McCain mentioned it in passing.
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo
Yet, it was obvious that when Tancredo finished his rampages, both the moderators and his fellow contenders, distanced themselves from him. There were no follow-up questions to his remarks nor did any of his opponents take the initiative to expand upon them.
In his second set of remarks about immigration, Tancredo said:
You want to raise wage rates in the United States. You want to reduce taxes in the United States. You want to re- encourage people to think about us doing the right thing as Republicans. Do this: Stop illegal immigration into this country — will do all of these — those things.
And I’ll tell you something else we need to do. I have never voted with Republicans than I have since we’ve been in the minority; it’s incredible. We’re fighting the Democrats now on tooth and nail on every single thing — SCHIP — great. You know what? Standing on principle is a good idea. Too bad we didn’t do it when we were in the majority.
It’s obvious from his remarks, that Tancredo blames the country’s problems on undocumented immigrants. He totally bypasses acknowledging the role they do play in this economy. To him undocumented immigrants are out to get this country.
Yet, what this debate highlighted was that Tancredo thinks the whole world is out to get the United States and diplomacy is not an option.
Now, the other thing is this. When we talk about deficits, our trade deficits, by the way, it’s not importing, you know, toys from China that causes it.
The biggest chunk of our trade deficit is due to one thing and one thing oil — only. It’s oil. That’s where all the dollars flow. And where do they flow? To countries that want to kill us.
So, yes, you better drill every place you can here, and you better figure out every way to reduce your dependency on foreign oil.
But when you trade with people who are your potential enemy, and they have shown a willingness to use that economic opportunity to actually increase their threats to the United States, I’m not for trading with them at all.
Never once does Tancredo say anything about using diplomacy or make the effort to acknowledge what fuels illegal immigration. Both of which show that he has little grasp of the realities of the world we live in.
What he does have a grasp on is hate and mistrust — and he’s not afraid to use that as a platform to run for the highest office in the land.
Comment(32)
Horace
Fear is a healthy instinct in the wild and in a country under threat of its citizens being supplanted by Mexicans. Creatures, human or otherwise are doomed to extinction when they fail to take action to preserve themselves. Preservation of their national identity is exactly what anti-illegal immgration proponents are advocating.
The American position is clear, as it has been for decades now, foreign nationals may not enter this country without applying for permission. No country, Mexico included would surrender its right to require this, or submit to external will. American citizens are the stewards of this nation and the heirs to our Founding Fathers. Only citizens will decide the fate of this country, and the procedures by which new immigrants may enter, marches, fasts, protests by ethnocentrists, shrill anti-American hyperobole, and irrational and irrelevant arguments notwithstanding.
sick-freak
I can’t stand it anymore!!!
Just because someone wants to stop the flood of illegal aliens does not mean they don’t welcome LEGAL immigrants. You seem all too eager to yell racism at anyone who prefers that people come here legally. It simply is a matter of needing to know who is comming in….nothing more. It would be all too easy for Islamic Jihadists to learn enough Spanish and sneak into this country from Mexico and do us harm.
David O.
Horace wrote:
“Only citizens will decide the fate of this country, and the procedures by which new immigrants may enter, marches, fasts, protests by ethnocentrists, shrill anti-American hyperobole, and irrational and irrelevant arguments notwithstanding.”
Yeah like you.
You have lost all credibility by writing that Indians would still be in teepees and using stones if it were not for the europeans.
You should have been gassed and let good people decent caring live
yave begnet
Apparently Tancredo is ignorant about many subjects–immigration being only the best-known of them.
It’s interesting that the other candidates avoided the immigration issue so studiously. Maybe the recent spate of op-eds pointing out how the GOP is busy ensuring minority status for itself for the next generation by alienating Latinos had some effect. One can only hope …
Also, I’d wager the new option to receive email notice of comments on this blog led to the lengthy, vitriolic recent thread. Also, I found myself unable to opt out of email notification–I’ll make sure to uncheck the box first from now on.
flower
Tancredo is a ignorant in this issue (immigration). But, he believes taking about illegal immigration will catch more votes. They had the opportunity to fix the problem but they didn’t; why we have to believe him? Liar
Horace
You call Tancredo ignorant on the issue of immigration, but you fail to state why. Address his position, otherwise you’re just expressing your emotional biases. I’ve heard the same level of discourse from first graders. You make not like what Tancredo says, but you can’t refute it based on good logic. Except in the case of Flower, with her specious economic figures, none of you have tried to refute Frank’s arguments based upon sound facts. The theme goes like this, I don’t like what Frank says, so he must be a racist. Another popular thems is, 160 years ago the U.S. took Mexican territory, so it’s ok to disregard U.S. law. Like that’s really going to convince the rest of the country to go along.
What is untrue what I said about Indians? The American Indian showed little evidence of technical progress from the time they set forth in North America 20,000 years ago, until they had contact with European traders after the Columbus. European contact presence in North American brought Indians in contact with the modern technology of the day. Your objection is another case of not having the backbone to face up to the facts without getting all emotional about it.
Horace
Marisa, when you say he says hateful things, please cite what they are. You may not like what he says, but what he says is not necessarily hateful, just not suitable from your point of view. It seems that you merely disagree with what he says, without being specific as to those allegedly hateful things.
I find your statements lacking in substance. Mr. Tancredo is correct in his observations on China. China is taking most of the money we spend on their products and building an enormise military, and one with an offensive capability at that. To what end? Taiwan has threatened peaceful Taiwan with destruction. China supports terrorist states like Iran with military sales. China defends the sovereignty of states which oppress its people, mainly because they fear that the world will interfere in China’s abuse of its own people. You show extreme naivete in your understanding of the world.
yave begnet
Horace, you’ve carefully ignored many points that I and other commenters have made in response to your comments. It is clear you are not here to engage in reasoned debate. Personally, I see no need to respond further to your comments, as you seem to be here only to antagonize other commenters.
miguel
sick-freak wrote: can’t stand it anymore!!!
Just because someone wants to stop the flood of illegal aliens does not mean they don’t welcome LEGAL immigrants. You seem all too eager to yell racism at anyone who prefers that people come here legally. It simply is a matter of needing to know who is comming in….nothing more. It would be all too easy for Islamic Jihadists to learn enough Spanish and sneak into this country from Mexico and do us harm.
How about when they are white, speak English and are born here? Is skin color a factor then?
sick-freak
Miguel….I don’t care what a person’s skin color is as long as they come here LEGALLY!!!! It is a fact that we caught Muslim males trying to enter America from Mexico illegally. COME HERE LEGALLY!!!!!!!
David O.
“What is untrue what I said about Indians? The American Indian showed little evidence of technical progress from the time they set forth in North America 20,000 years ago, until they had contact with European traders after the Columbus. European contact presence in North American brought Indians in contact with the modern technology of the day. Your objection is another case of not having the backbone to face up to the facts without getting all emotional about it.”
And Europeans also brought them in contact with disease, wholesale killing, and greed. Don’t come to a Latina site stating your truths and not expect to have your nose tweaked.
Frank
Horace, I have little to add to your remarks as you covered the issue quite well with logic, facts and the truth.
So now to express an opposing opinion in here is to antagonize? I feel that Horace and I have been debating reasonably. We aren’t name calling in here such as most of you. You just don’t like our views because we don’t support your ethnocentric agenda.
By the way it was the Spaniards (your ancestors) that brought small pox to the natives.
miguel
For Horace:
Example Here
Tom Tancredo
(AP Wide World Photos)
COLUMBIA, S.C. | Sept. 11, 2006 — For a college football game day, the South Carolina State Museum in downtown Columbia was a busy place on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 9.
On the ground floor, a United States Army brass band commemorated the victims of 9/11. One level up, not far from the museum’s permanent Confederate Army exhibit, the state chapter of the League of the South (LOS), a neo-Confederate hate group, hosted a barbeque in honor of Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. Proceeds from the $15 per-plate fundraiser went to Americans Have Had Enough!, a South Carolina-based non-profit coalition for which Tancredo serves as honorary chairman.
While Tancredo’s hard-line “deport ’em all” stance on immigration has made him a favorite politician of white supremacists, this marked the first time the congressman has appeared at a hate group event.
Dressed casually in a yellow t-shirt, Tancredo addressed the standing-room audience of 200-250 from behind a podium draped in a Confederate battle flag. To the congressman’s right, a portrait of Robert E. Lee peered out at the crowd of Minutemen activists, local politicians, and red-shirted members of LOS and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Confederate trappings of the event found a mismatch in Tancredo’s standard nativist polemic, which stayed clear of references to Southern heritage or direct plaudits for the LOS, a Southern white nationalist organization dedicated to “Southern independence, complete, full, and total.”
miguel
Build the fence North! On the border with Canada?
Tancredo: Kick Anti-Fence Border Towns Out Of The Country
By Eric Kleefeld – October 9, 2007, 8:53AM
Tom Tancredo has pushed hard throughout his career for a fence along the Mexican border. Now that one has been enacted into law, though, actual construction has been thwarted by mayors along the Southern border who don’t want the fence disrupting their communities and local commerce.
So Tancredo has an interesting solution: He would “build the border fence north of these communities.”
“These mayors have already demonstrated that their hearts and loyalties lie with Mexico,” Tancredo said. “Perhaps they’d feel more comfortable if their cities were geographically located there as well.”
Is this a joke, or is he serious?
David O.
“Is this a joke, or is he serious?”
A good question for the twins, but they won’t reply because it’s not their style so defend but to attack.
adriana
“Fear is a healthy instinct in the wild and in a country under threat of its citizens being supplanted by Mexicans.”
This is really nutty because it isn’t happening. We should be more afraid of home grown terrorism, the growth of Al Queda, and climate change. The Bush administration, who is very big on ‘fear campaigns,’ is actually easing immigration policies to let more immigrants in. And interestingly enough, farmers/growers are balking at paying the visa fees to acquire the labor and would prefer the cheap Mexicans/or other Central Americans (so much for their fear of Mexicans). My latest blog entry explains this.
Immigration is always going to be happening, illegal or otherwise. Now, I can think of more things to be afraid of. Let’s face it, the 9/11 terrorists were not Mexican.
Frank
I don’t need to defend Tancredo or anyone else. I will defend my own views, however. So expressing one’s opinion in here is attacking?
You know it didn’t used to be a requirement to be able to speak Spanish to get a job and we rarely saw signs in Spanish until the illegal invasion. And we aren’t being supplanted?
We should be afraid of home grown terrorists, Al Queda and climate changes which can be directly attibuted to too much populatinon growth. But why is it not also reasonable to be afraid of an illegal invasion of our country?
Of course farmers want illegal labor, they work cheaper. But should this be acceptable? It is against the law. If the illegals receive legalization, guess what? They won’t be so desirable anymore because they would have to pay them a fair wage then. Doesn’t that put us back to square one again?
Of course we will always have illegal immigration but shouldn’t we make every effort to cut it back as much as possible?
Your argument about the 9/11 terrorists not being Mexicans is not thought through very well. No one is accusing regular Mexicans coming here looking for work as being terrorists. But the terrorists are sneaking right in with them because of our porous border. No one should be entering our country illegally. Not those looking for work and not those seeking to harm us. We are a sovereign nation with immigration laws and we should be securing or border and enforcing our laws.
Frank
We need to be securing BOTH of our borders but our southern border is the most porous obviously from the number of people who have entered it illegally.
Diana Joe
This is for Horace and Frank that seem to be under the impression that Native Americans have any kind of regard for them-I hope you don’t feel good about the Native North American tribes feeling good about y’all two bilagonahs! Bilagonah is the Dine’ name given to you (by Dine’)to discribe your skin color and your hairiness. Thats pretty much what y’all are a discription of a alien! In alot of settings indins repeatedly speak of and discribe the unmet compensation on the US governments’ part for the ongoing historical traumas,and the perpetuated oppression by your “rule of law”.You try to make better the atrocities that the United States Government impressed upon the Native people..by allowing the tribes to borrow fake loans,and borrow fake mickey mousey puppet-like governing bodies-that simply use the same sick under-minding of people-tactics. Certain elected tribal leaders seemingly attempt to mimick white-collared crimes(like money laundering and misappropriation of funds)and they are publicly ridiculed then they get thrown in federal jails and rediculed for taking what supposedly wasn’t theirs for the taking? We will never hear of these federal crimes because the cover-up is greater than the tribal entities themselves..how can a government that wants to bring restitution to Native American tribes perpetuate a mentality that isn’t working? By allowing the people to beleive that they are the true Americans! BOLOGNA! Native Americans want there land-but the clause says {RESERVATION}joke. Native American tribes are riddled with the ill-effects of being strung along by Uncle Sami..they know they are not SOVEREIGN! They play along with the game..just like the republicans do. Native North Americans are the WEALTHIEST people of these histories boys..they have fallen because they traded feathers and shells-and as we all know the all mighty dollar swallowed up that means. The Northern Native Americans considered gold the sweat and tears of the Sun,and someone locked all the sweat and tears of the Sun over at Ft. Knocks. Indins know what y’all have been up to Horace and Frank..keep getting your tax-breaks by throwing a few dollars at em’ annually-they use the dollars for kindling-and the flag flies upside down-always in sign for distress.
adriana
Frank,
My point w/ the 9/11 terrorists was to show that the act that caused the biggest build up and expense of our national resources in recent years was not caused by the Mexicans.
You are right in that we shouldn’t accept farmers or corporations that pay low wages and exploit the undocumented, but it is harder for farmers to move their operations to India than it is for other businesses. Our greed driven economy isn’t about paying “fair wages.” I could direct you to so many other places that expound upon this, but I really don’t have the time. If you want to read something concise, come visit my blog and read the latest post and the post regarding Wal-Mart. It will give you a better economic context.
In a way, I feel that your efforts are misdirected toward the illegal immigrants. You should be more critical of the system that puts them in the predicament they are in. As far as climate change, you are correct that population growth has something to do with it, but I would bet that the illegals recycle and reuse more than the average American (in CA, they certainly carpool more and utilize public transportation more often than many Anglos). If you have ever been in a poor household, you will find that nothing gets trashed until the last use is squeezed out of it.
Frank
The illegal immigration mess that we are in holds a three-fold blame. Our government, unscrupulous employers and the illegals themselves. You see I blame all that deserve blame, you don’t. You want to give the illegals a pass in this.
What is our blog address and will you debate civilly?
David O.
Well that’s a first from you Frank, placing blame on the real culprits. I see some progress here. Most definitely the U.S. and Mexican Governments are to blame as well as U.S. businesses and but I will draw the line at illegals.
Those people come looking for work. Jail the criminals, jail the drug dealers, jail the smuglers, but leave immigrants already here alone, especially if they have been here for a while and have led good decent lives. Find a common sense solution that will change their legal status so that their contributions to this society benefit all.
adriana
Frank, the blog address is on my name (a hyper texted link), but you can also click here:
http://www.latinopoliticsblog.com
The discussions have been relatively civil and thoughtful.
Of course, I don’t think that anyone likes illegal immigration, but it is a fact or consequence of the economy and global village that we live in.
Frank
David, no it isn’t the first time that I blamed our government and the employers along with the illegals in here. I always have. I don’t know why you only blame the first two though. You can’t come looking for work here if you don’t have the legal papers to do so.
As far as those already here. My solution is for them to go back to their home countries and apply to come legally just like everyone else. Why should they be able to cut in line in front of those waiting in their home countries to do so?
You do realize that many of them are now felons by using fake I.D. and crossing our border more than once illegally, don’t you? That translates into “criminal”. Should they be allowed to stay as felons?
Why should we jail the smugglers but not those being smuggled? Thats like saying jail the bank robber but not his accomplice.
Adriana, thanks for your blog address. I will check it out. Illegal immigration doesn’t have to be the consquence of our economy. It is that we have not enforced our immigration laws and our corrupt government and the employers have been in cohoots with each other to circumvent our laws for cheap labor. As I said before, we are living in a population driven economy. Driven mostly BY illegal immigration. This continued population growth will spell disaster for us down the road.
Horace
This is what Tancredo is talking about. Like it or not, we see evidence of this every day. Try refuting it, but I suspect that you won’t bother. You’ll just rant and call it lies and xenophobia.
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/17/2006
The Mexican invasion of the United States began decades ago as a spontaneous migration of ordinary Mexicans into the U.S. seeking economic opportunities. It has morphed into a campaign to occupy and gain power over our country—a project encouraged, abetted, and organized by the Mexican state and supported by the leading elements of Mexican society.
It is, in other words, war. War does not have to consist of armed conflict. War can consist of any hostile course of action undertaken by one country to weaken, harm, and dominate another country. Mexico is waging war on the U.S. through mass immigration illegal and legal, through the assertion of Mexican national claims over the U.S., and through the subversion of its laws and sovereignty, all having the common end of bringing the southwestern part of the U.S. under the control of the expanding Mexican nation, and of increasing Mexico’s political and cultural influence over the U.S. as a whole.
Cultural imperialism
We experience Mexico’s assault on our country incrementally—as a series of mini-crises, each of which calls forth ever-renewed debates and perhaps some tiny change of policy. Because it has been with us so long and has become part of the cultural and political air we breathe, it is hard for us to see the deep logic behind our “immigration problem.†Focused as we are on border incursions, border enforcement, illegal alien crime, guest worker proposals, changes of government in Mexico City, and other such transient problems and events—all of them framed by the media’s obfuscation of whether or not illegal immigration’s costs outweigh its benefits and by the maudlin script of “immigrant rightsâ€â€”we don’t get the Big Picture: that the Mexican government is promoting and carrying out an attack on the United States.
Another reason we miss what’s happening is that our focus is on the immigrants as individuals. Thus our leaders talk about illegal immigrants as “good dads,†“hard working folks†seeking to better their lives and their family’s prospects. In fact, this is not about individual immigrants and their families, legal or illegal. It is about a great national migration, a nation of people moving into our nation’s land, in order to reproduce on it their own nation and people and push ours aside.
Thus, in orchestrating this war on America, the Mexican state is representing the desires of the Mexican people as a whole.
What are these desires?
(1) Political revanchism—to regain control of the territories Mexico lost to the U.S. in 1848, thus avenging themselves for the humiliations they feel they have suffered at our hands for the last century and a half;
(2) Cultural imperialism—to expand the Mexican culture and the Spanish language into North America; and especially
(3) Economic parasitism—to maintain and increase the flow of billions of dollars that Mexicans in the U.S. send back to their relatives at home every year, a major factor keeping the chronically troubled Mexican economy afloat and the corrupt Mexican political system cocooned in its status quo.
These motives are shared by the Mexican masses and the elites. According to a Zogby poll in 2002, 58 percent of the Mexican people believed the U.S. Southwest belongs to Mexico, and 57 percent believed that Mexicans have the right to enter the United States without U.S. permission. Only small minorities disagreed with these propositions.
Meanwhile, for Mexico’s opinion shapers, it is simply a truism that the great northern migration is a reconquista of lands belonging to Mexico, the righting of a great historic wrong. “A peaceful mass of people … carries out slowly and patiently an unstoppable invasion, the most important in human history†[emphasis added], wrote columnist Carlos Loret de Mola for Mexico City’s Excelsior newspaper in 1982.
You cannot give me a similar example of such a large migratory wave by an ant-like multitude, stubborn, unarmed, and carried on in the face of the most powerful and best-armed nation on earth…. [The migrant invasion] seems to be slowly returning [the southwestern United States] to the jurisdiction of Mexico without the firing of a single shot, nor requiring the least diplomatic action, by means of a steady, spontaneous, and uninterrupted occupation.
Similarly, the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska told the Venezuelan journal El Imparcial on July 3rd, 2001:
The people of the poor, the lice-ridden and the cucarachas are advancing in the United States, a country that wants to speak Spanish because 33.4 million Hispanics impose their culture…Mexico is recovering the territories ceded to the United States with migratory tactics…[This phenomenon] fills me with jubilation, because the Hispanics can have a growing force between Patagonia and Alaska.
The Mexicans, as Poniatowska sees it, have changed from resentful losers—which was the way Octavio Paz saw them in his famous 1960 study, The Labyrinth of Solitude—into winners. What accounts for this change? Their expansion northward into the U.S., as the vanguard of a Hispanic conquest of all of North America—cultural imperialism and national vengeance combined in one great volkish movement.
Politicians echo the same aggressive sentiments. At an International Congress of the Spanish Language in Spain in October 2000, Vicente Fox, soon to become president of Mexico with the support of U.S. conservatives, spoke of the “millions of Mexicans in the United States, who in cities such as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami or San Francisco, inject the vitality of the Spanish language and of their cultural expression…. To continue speaking Spanish in the United States is to hacer patriaâ€â€”to do one’s patriotic duty. Fox was thus describing Mexican immigrants in the U.S., not as people who had left Mexico and still had some sentimental connections there, as all immigrants do, but as carriers of the national mission of the Mexican nation into and inside the United States.
At the same conference, the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes said: “In the face of the silent reconquista of the United States [emphasis added], we confront a new linguistic phenomenon,†by which he meant that Spanish was conquering English just as it conquered the Aztec language centuries ago. According to El Siglo, Fuentes received “an intense ovation.â€
Government statements and policies
The Mexican invasion thus represents the ultimate self-realization of the Mexican people as they move onto a larger part of the world stage—namely the United States—than they have ever occupied before. But the migration, and the imperialism that celebrates it, do not in themselves constitute war. What makes this great national movement war is the Mexican government’s statements and actions about it, particularly with regard to the extraterritorial nature of the Mexican nation and its claims on the U.S. For years, Mexican presidents have routinely spoken of a Mexican nation that extends beyond that country’s northern border into American territory. President Ernesto Zedillo told a 1994 convention of the radical-left Mexican-American lobbying group, the National Council of La Raza, “You are Mexicans too, you just live in the United States.†One of Fox’s cabinet officers, Juan Hernandez, has declared: “The Mexican population is 100 million in Mexico and 23 million who live in the United States.†These are not off-the-cuff statements, but formal state policy. As Heather Mac Donald writes in her important article in the Fall 2005 City Journal:
Mexico’s five-year development plan in 1995 announced that the “Mexican nation extends beyond … its borderâ€â€”into the United States. Accordingly, the government would “strengthen solidarity programs with the Mexican communities abroad by emphasizing their Mexican roots, and supporting literacy programs in Spanish and the teaching of the history, values, and traditions of our country.â€
Such solidarity not only keeps Mexican-Americans sending remittances back to the home country, it makes them willing instruments of the Mexican government. Fox’s national security adviser proposed the mobilization of Mexican-Americans as a tool of Mexican foreign policy, as reported by Allan Wall. The head of the Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad said: “We are betting that the Mexican American population in the United States … will think Mexico first.â€
The Fifth Column
Once the Mexican people have been defined as a nation that transcends the physical borders of the Republic of Mexico, and once Mexican-Americans are defined as “Mexicans†who are to be represented by the Mexican government, claims of “Mexican†sovereignty and rights can be made on their behalf against the country in which they reside.
One such claim is to deny the authority of American law over them. Thus President Zedillo in 1997 denounced attempts by the United States to enforce its immigration laws, insisting that “we will not tolerate foreign forces dictating laws to Mexicans.†[Italics added.] The “Mexicans†to whom he was referring were, of course, residents and citizens of the U.S., living under U.S. law. By saying that U.S. law does not apply to them, Zedillo was denying America’s sovereign power over its own territory. He was saying something that the Mexican elite as a whole believe: that wherever Mexicans live (particularly the U.S. Southwest, which many Mexicans see as rightfully theirs) the Mexican nation has legitimate national interests. From this it follows that the normal operation of U.S. law on Mexicans living in the U.S. constitutes an “intolerable†attack on Mexican rights, which in turn justifies further Mexican aggression against America in the form of illegal border crossings, interference in the enforcement of U.S. laws, and just plain government to government obnoxiousness.
Employing this irredentist logic, President Fox refuses to call undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. “illegals.†He told radio host Sean Hannity in March 2002: “They are not illegals. They are people that come there to work, to look for a better opportunity.†But if people who have entered the U.S. illegally are not doing something illegal, then U.S. law itself has no legitimacy, at least over Mexican-Americans, and any operation of U.S. law upon them is aggression against the Mexican people.
Once we understand the cultural and national expansiveness that drives the Mexicans, the rest of their behavior falls into place. Consider Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda’s non-negotiable demands—“It’s the whole enchilada or nothingâ€â€”that he issued in a speech in Phoenix, Arizona in 2001. America, said Castañeda (as recounted by Allan Wall), “had to legalize all Mexican illegal aliens, loosen its already lax border enforcement, establish a guest worker program (during an economic downturn) and exempt Mexican immigrants from U.S. visa quotas!†He also demanded that Mexicans living in the U.S. receive health care and in-state college tuition. As Castañeda summed it up in Tijuana a few days later, “We must obtain the greatest number of rights for the greatest number of Mexicans [i.e. in the U.S.] in the shortest time possible.†What this adds up to, comments Wall, is basically “the complete surrender of U.S. sovereignty over immigration policy.†And why not? As Castañeda had written in The Atlantic in 1995: “Some Americans … dislike immigration, but there is very little they can do about it.â€
Hitler pursued Anschluss, the joining together of the Germans in Austria with the Germans in Germany leading to the official annexation of Austria to Germany. The softer Mexican equivalent of this concept is acercamiento. The word means closer or warmer relations, yet it is also used in the sense of getting Mexican-Americans to act as a unified bloc to advance Mexico’s political interests inside the U.S., particularly in increasing immigration and weakening U.S. immigration law. Thus the Mexican government is using the Mexican U.S. population, including its radical elements, as a fifth column.
As reported in the November 23, 2002 Houston Post:
Mexico’s foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda, said his country would begin a “bottom-up campaign†to win U.S. public support for a proposal to legalize 3.5 million undocumented Mexican workers in the United States. Castañeda said Mexican officials will begin rallying unions, churches, universities and Mexican communities…. [Castañeda said:] “We are already giving instructions to our consulates that they begin propagating militant activities—if you will—in their communities.â€
La Voz de Aztlan, the radical Mexican-American group that seeks to end U.S. “occupation†of the Southwest and form a new Mexican nation there, writes at its website:
One great hope that came out of the Zapatista March was that generated by the “alliance†that was forged by some of us in the Chicano/Mexicano Delegation and our brothers and sisters in Mexico. The delegation met with officials of the Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD) in Mexico City and discussed strategies that will increase our influence in the United States and further our collective efforts of “acercamiento.â€
Mexico’s violations of our laws and sovereignty
Let us now consider some of the specific actions by which the Mexican government is carrying out the strategy outlined above:
– The Mexican government publishes a comic book-style booklet, GuÃa del Migrante Mexicano (Guide for the Mexican Migrant), on how to transgress the U.S. border safely (“Crossing the river can be very risky, especially if you cross alone and at night … Heavy clothing grows heavier when wet and this makes it difficult to swim or floatâ€) and avoid detection once in the U.S.
– As Heather Mac Donald puts it, Mexico backs up these written instructions with real-world resources for the collective assault on the border. An elite law enforcement team called Grupo Beta protects illegal migrants as they sneak into the U.S. from corrupt Mexican officials and criminals—essentially pitting two types of Mexican lawlessness against each other. Grupo Beta currently maintains aid stations for Mexicans crossing the desert. In April 2005, it worked with Mexican federal and Sonoran state police to help steer illegal aliens away from Arizona border spots patrolled by Minutemen border enforcement volunteers—demagogically denounced by President Vicente Fox as “migrant-hunting groups.â€
– While the Mexican government sends police to protect illegal border crossers against criminals, rogue Mexican soldiers protecting drug smugglers have threatened U.S. Border Patrol agents, and even engaged in shootouts, as reported in the Washington Times in January 2006. Rep. Tom Tancredo says the activities of these renegade Mexican troops in support of drug traffickers amount to a “war†along the U.S.-Mexico border, and he has urged President Bush to deploy troops there.
– Meanwhile, sheriffs from Hudspeth County, Texas testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations this month at a hearing titled “Armed and Dangerous: Confronting the Problem of Border Incursions.†They spoke of a dramatic increase in alien and drug smuggling. “The U.S./Mexico border is the weakest link and our national security is only as good as our weakest link,†said one sheriff. “Our border is under siege.†We need to understand that whether the Mexican government is behind the border incursions or is merely unable (or unwilling) to stop them, it ultimately doesn’t matter. As I said at the beginning, the Mexican war on America is supported by all segments of the Mexican society, even, apparently, the criminals. The situation is thus analogous to Muslim razzias or raids—irregular attacks short of outright invasion—used to soften a target country in anticipation of full scale military conquest. The outlaws and smugglers and the renegade soldiers may not be official agents of the Mexican government, yet they are serving its purposes by sowing mayhem along our southern border and demoralizing our population.
– A major role in Mexico’s revanchist war against America is played by the Mexican consulates in the U.S., reports Mac Donald. Now numbering 47 and increasing rapidly, they serve as the focal point of Mexico’s fifth column. While Mexico’s foreign ministry distributes the GuÃa del Migrante Mexicano inside Mexico, Mexican consulates, unbelievably, distribute the guide to Mexican illegals inside the U.S.
– After the U.S. became more concerned about illegal immigration following the 9/11 attack, the Mexican consulates were ordered to promote the matricula consular—a card that simply identifies the holder as a Mexican—as a way for illegals to obtain privileges that the U.S. usually reserves for legal residents. The consulates started aggressively lobbying American governmental officials and banks to accept the matriculas as valid IDs for driver’s licenses, checking accounts, mortgage lending, and other benefits.
– The consulates freely hand out the matricula to anyone who asks, not demanding proof that the person is legally in the U.S. Here is Mac Donald’s summary of the wildly improper role played by the consulates:
Disseminating information about how to evade a host country’s laws is not typical consular activity. Consulates exist to promote the commercial interests of their nations abroad and to help nationals if they have lost passports, gotten robbed, or fallen ill. If a national gets arrested, consular officials may visit him in jail, to ensure that his treatment meets minimum human rights standards. Consuls aren’t supposed to connive in breaking a host country’s laws or intervene in its internal affairs.
– As an example of the latter, the Mexican consulates automatically denounce, as “biased,†virtually all law enforcement activities against Mexican illegals inside the U.S. The Mexican authorities tolerate deportations of illegals if U.S. officials arrest them at the border and promptly send them back to the other side—whence they can try again the next day. But once an illegal is inside the U.S. and away from the border, he gains untouchable status in the eyes of Mexican consuls, and any U.S. law enforcement activity against him is seen as an abuse of his rights.
– The Mexican consulates actively campaign in U.S. elections on matters affecting illegal aliens. In November 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200, which reaffirmed existing state law that requires proof of citizenship in order to vote and to receive welfare benefits. The Mexican consul general in Phoenix sent out press releases urging Hispanics to vote against it. After the law passed, Mexico’s foreign minister threatened to bring suit in international tribunals for this supposedly egregious human rights violation, and the Phoenix consulate supported the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s federal lawsuit against the proposition.
– The consulates also help spread Mexican culture. We are not speaking here of the traditional activity of embassies and consulates in representing their country’s culture in a friendly and educational way to the host country; we are speaking of consulates acting as agents of the Mexican state’s imperialistic agenda. Each of Mexico’s consulates in the U.S. has a mandate to introduce Mexican textbooks (that’s Mexican textbooks) into U.S. schools with significant Hispanic populations. The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles bestowed nearly 100,000 textbooks on 1,500 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District this year alone.
– It has also been proposed that Mexicans in the U.S. vote in Mexican elections in designated electoral districts in the United States. Under this proposal, California, for example, might have seats in the Mexican Congress, specifically representing Mexicans residing in that state. The governing PAN party of President Fox has opposed this idea, not out of respect for U.S. sovereignty, but out of fear that most Mexicans in the U.S. would vote against the PAN. Meanwhile, another of Mexico’s three major parties, the leftist PRD, urges the designation of the entire United States as the sixth Mexican electoral district.
The follies of the victors
Throughout this article, I have spoken of Mexico’s revanchist campaign against the U.S. as though the Mexicans were carrying it out completely against our will. But as we are bitterly aware, this is not at all the case. Something has happened in America over the last 40 years that has not only opened us to the Mexican invasion, but has even invited it. From the refusal of many American cities to cooperate with the INS, to President Bush’s celebration of Mexican illegal aliens as the carriers of family values, to the Democratic Party’s insistence that all Mexican illegals in the U.S. be given instant amnesty and U.S. citizenship, it seems that America itself wants the Mexicans to invade and gain power in our country. Since we (or rather, some of us) have invited the Mexican invasion, does this mean we (or rather the rest of us) have no right oppose it?
In the first chapter of his history of the Second World War, entitled “The Follies of the Victors,†Winston Churchill wrote that the triumphant Western allies after the First World War made two mistakes, which in combination were fatal. First, they gave the defeated Germans the motive for revenge, by imposing terribly harsh penalties on them, and second—insanely—they gave them the opportunity for revenge, by failing to enforce the surrender terms when Hitler began to violate them in the 1930s. Yet the fact that the victors’ inexcusable follies enabled Germany to initiate a devastating war against Europe did not change the fact that Germany had initiated the war and had to be beaten. In the same way, by wresting vast territories from Mexico in 1848 we gave the Mexicans the motive for revenge, and then, 120 years later, we insanely gave them the opportunity, by letting Mexicans immigrate en masse into the very lands that our ancestors had taken from theirs, and also by adopting a view of ourselves as a guilty nation deserving of being overrun by cultural aliens.
We gave them the opportunity, they took it, and now it is they who are dictating terms to us.
To quote again from Jorge Castañeda’s 1995 Atlantic article:
Some Americans—undoubtedly more than before—dislike immigration, but there is very little they can do about it, and the consequences of trying to stop immigration would also certainly be more pernicious than any conceivable advantage. The United States should count its blessings: it has dodged instability on its borders since the Mexican Revolution, now nearly a century ago. The warnings from Mexico are loud and clear; this time it might be a good idea to heed them.
Because the U.S. has been silent and passive, Castañeda, in the manner of all bullies and conquistadors, tells us to heed Mexico. The time is long since passed for us to reverse this drama, and make Mexico heed the United States. But for us to do this, we must recognize that the Mexicans are not coming here merely as individuals seeking economic opportunities, but as a nation, expressing their national identity and collective will. Even more important, we must revive our own largely forgotten and forbidden sense that we ourselves are a nation, not just a bunch of consumers and bearers of individual rights, and have the right to defend our nation as a nation.
Lawrence Auster is the author of Erasing America: The Politics of the Borderless Nation. He offers a traditionalist conservative perspective at his weblog, View from the Right.
David O.
“Horace
This is what Tancredo is talking about. Like it or not, we see evidence of this every day. Try refuting it, but I suspect that you won’t bother. You’ll just rant and call it lies and xenophobia.”
Gee Horace you make it sound like a bad thing. I have no problem with it at all.
Horace
David O:
I didn’t think you would, but most Americans, coming to the realization that those are the facts, object to this vigorously. You forget that yours is a minority view, even among Hispanic citizens. More and more citizens are coming to the realization that Auster and Tancredo’s perspectives have merit and illegal immigration and Mexican interference will no longer be tolerated. You will ultimately face ignominious defeat.
Horace
Marisa,
Fear platform? There are more out there that believe as David O. Is the fear of such people’s intent irrational? If you listen to others in this blog intently, you’ll notice that their attitudes support Mr. Auster’s contention that ultimately, illegal immigration is driven by the Mexican government and many Mexicans who would like to push aside citizens in favor of themselves. And you wonder why non-Hispanic citizens are taking the stances that they do. Get real Marisa, this isn’t just about the welfare of individuals, but the fear citizens have for their sovereignty, fears that are rooted in past and present deeds by Mexicans and their government.
George
David O, why do you hate this country so much? What has it done to you that you feel that the citizens that have made this country so successful should be pushed aside in favor of a Mexican style government that has shown itself to be both incompetent and corrupt? I know many Korean-Americans that are very supportive of the country that has given them so much. I go to a Korean-American church whose membership would decry the ill will that you hold towards the citizens of this nation. Korean-Americans are prospering in this country, yet you would have it destroyed. Why?
David O.
George wrote
“David O, why do you hate this country so much? …”
How did you arrive to that conclusion? Is it because I don’t agree with Tancredo the Cretin?
Frank
Thank you posting the brutal truth, Horace.
Horace
Anytime, Frank.
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