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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Mexicans Denounce Senate Border Plan
 Will Weissert - Associated Press
| | Mexican and Central American migrants gather around near the shelter for migrants 'Casa del Migrante Nazareth' in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico on Wednesday, May 17, 2006. Many of these migrants think the deployment of the U.S. National Guard along the U.S. border and the construction of a border wall, wont be enough to stop then from crossing illegally into the U.S. (AP/German Garcia) |
Mexican lawmakers angrily denounced a measure approved by the U.S. Senate to build new border fences, and illegal immigrants vowed to skirt them and cross into U.S. territory anyway.
But the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox, which had called the fence proposal "shameful" and "stupid" as recently as December, was conspicuously silent after the Senate bill passed Wednesday perhaps because the measure also opens the door for millions of undocumented Mexicans to achieve some legal status in the United States.
"There are so many of us, most with families and roots in the United States. They are never going to stop us from crossing," said Julio Cesar Gutierrez, a 21-year-old from the western city of Guadalajara who was planning to swim across the Rio Grande into Texas from the border city of Nuevo Laredo. "We will dig under a wall, go over one. If the authorities over there want a war, we will fight."
Gutierrez, who was wearing a Washington Nationals baseball cap and a backpack carrying bottled water, said he had crossed three previous times and worked as a cook in Houston but was deported each time.
"They want to treat migrants like criminals," he said. "All we want to do is work."
The Senate agreed to give many illegal immigrants a shot at U.S. citizenship, but also backed construction of 370 miles of triple-layered fencing along the southern border. It is unclear where the new barriers would be built, though some have speculated they could go up in an area that includes Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas.
The measure, which has yet to clear the House, comes as President Bush continues to flesh out his plans to deploy 6,000 National Guard soldiers along the border to support the Border Patrol.
In Mexico City, lawmakers from Fox's conservative National Action Party and both major opposition parties denounced the initiative.
"It's a lamentable development and more evidence of a step backward in bilateral relations between Mexico and the United States," said Inti Munoz, a spokesman for House lawmakers from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. "The construction of a wall and the militarization of the border are signs that speak of the absolute failure and lack of Mexican foreign policy."
Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said late Wednesday that the government would not immediately comment on the Senate bill. Just days earlier, the Fox administration was quick to express concern that Bush's National Guard plan could "militarize" the border region.
In December, the Mexican president said extending border walls was "shameful," and Derbez called a U.S. House proposal to do so "stupid."
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador a fiery Fox critic and the Democratic Revolution Party's presidential candidate in July 2 elections called the president's silence on the Senate bill a sign of weakness.
"The truth is the federal government and the president have no authority," Lopez Obrador said Wednesday. "And for that reason, Mexicans who cross the border out of necessity are being humiliated."
Migrants preparing to cross the border in Nuevo Laredo said they would prefer to climb walls than make dangerous trips through the desert into Arizona and New Mexico, routes that have become popular since U.S. authorities fortified barriers separating San Diego and Tijuana.
"In the desert, smoke rises from the ground and you can die while you're walking," Gutierrez said. "The river here, even with a wall, is easier."
Jose Antonio Maldonado, a 16-year-old from Honduras who was trying to make it into the United States illegally for the first time, said he had no family or friends across the border and was unsure where to find work if he succeeded in crossing.
"We have withstood days of train rides, risking our lives without eating, without sleeping, to get to the border," he said, detailing the trip from his homeland. Central Americans traveling without proper documents in Mexico face deportation and often complain of being beaten or extorted by corrupt authorities.
"If there were a wall here, or any other obstacle, we'd overcome it," he said.
Mexicans See Insult, Danger in Border Plan
Monica Campbell - USA TODAY
Mexico City The border-security plan President Bush announced Monday as part of his immigration agenda has made him few friends here.
Alfredo Martinez, 56, a tomato seller at an open-air market, shook his head when asked about Bush's plan to send 6,000 National Guard troops to help police the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border.
His 22-year-old son crossed the border illegally last year and now sends money home every month from his job in a New York City deli. "I don't think he'll be able to come back and visit for a while," Martinez said. "It's a shame. There should be a way to recognize the work we do up north, a way to see us as laborers and not delinquents."
His complaint was echoed by many Tuesday on the streets of Mexico's capital city.
"I don't understand why the United States must take such a repressive attitude toward us," said Agustin Melgar, 45, who works in the same open-air market as Martinez near Chapultepec Park in the city center. "It's insulting. We all know there's a mutual demand: The gringos need our cheap labor, and we want better pay."
Ruben Aguilar, a spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox, said Monday that a security-first policy at the border would not solve the problems created by illegal immigration. Fox has said he prefers a plan that would offer some form of legal status for all undocumented Mexicans now in the USA.
Rafael Fernandez de Castro, an international relations expert at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, characterized the Mexican government's response as muted. "The government here does not want to portray this as a big setback for Mexico," he said. "But it clearly is. Mexico has been given the stick, while the U.S. Congress gets the carrot."
The government began to change its message on Tuesday. Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez warned that the United States might face lawsuits if the increased troop presence on the border resulted in human rights abuses. "If we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people ... we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates," he told Radio Red, a Mexico City radio station.
Andrιs Manuel Lpez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who is running for president in July elections, said Tuesday that Fox's government is "mostly responsible. ... There are no jobs in Mexico, so people need to emigrate."
Felipe de Jess Caldern Hinojosa, the presidential candidate of Fox's party, said Monday that he understands the U.S. government's desire to protect its borders, but adding troops there will only "increase the social and human costs for immigrants."
He was referring to the possibility that hardening the border will force migrants to try to cross at more remote and dangerous points, especially the vast deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. In 2005, 463 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the Latin America Working Group, a human rights organization based in Washington.
"We realize that the discussion over how to manage the border has now turned into a win-lose game between the Republicans and Democrats," said Humberto Garza, an expert on Mexican foreign relations at the College of Mexico. "But it's an insult to Mexicans. This discussion clearly lacks foresight. It ignores the fact that no matter how tight you make the border, people will still find a way to cross." |
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