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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Former Mexican President Decries U.S. Immigration Policies
 Timothy Roberts - East Bay Business Times
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| | Former Mexico president Vicente Fox looks through a camera on the sideline before a NFL football game between the New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007, in Irving, Texas. (AP/LM Otero) |
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, speaking late Thursday to a Northern California business group with a strong interest in immigration issues, called on the United States to tear down the wall it has been building on the Mexican border and to reject isolationist policies.
"Walls don't work," he said. "The Chinese wall didn't work. The Berlin wall didn't work against freedom. This one won't work either."
Fox was elected president of Mexico in 2000, breaking the 70-year sometimes authoritarian hold on the country's politics by the Revolutionary Institutional Party. He served a six-year term during which Mexico reduced its foreign debt and significantly increased its per capita income.
Speaking Thursday night at the annual Legends and Leaders dinner of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, Fox reminded the roughly 1,000 dinner guests gathered in the Fairmont Hotel that America was founded by immigrants. He noted that his paternal grandfather, the son of German Catholic immigrants, was born in Cincinnati and rode a horse to Mexico to seek a better life in 1898. Historians add that José Luis Fox rode away from Ohio at a time of economic stagnation and went to the nearest place that welcomed Catholics.
"Today the United States is building a wall, isolating itself from the rest of the world - it is inconceivable," he said to an audience that supports free trade and a steady supply of immigrant labor. "Ironically," he added, "the wall is being built by Mexican immigrants."
Fox's visit drew a small protest across the street in the Plaza de Cesar Chavez, where demonstrators held signs accusing him of being a thief. Fox has been frequently attacked by the PRI, primarily for supporting the candidate who followed him, Felipe Calderón. Fox expressed anger at the PRI for its continued attacks on him after leaving the Palacio Nacional.
"PRI has to accept it lost power in 2000 and that it lost power to democracy," Fox said.
To show his support for Mexican immigrant workers, Fox invited the dinning room staff up on stage with him at the end of his speech. Earlier he had addressed the "Lupitas, Pedros, Juans and Marias, who are here in the room being paid to wait tables and wash dishes - with pride ... They are my heroes." |
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