Lawmakers Up in Arms Over Mexico's ‘How-to’ for Illegals
Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Friday, Jan. 7, 2005
A 32-page "Guide For the Mexican Migrant" that tells illegal immigrants how to cross the U.S. border, and how to stay in the U.S. unobtrusively, was supposedly intended to keep Mexican citizens from risking breaking into the United States because it's dangerous, kills hundreds of Mexican migrants annually, and violates U.S. law.
To hear Mexican officials tell it, their government is all about law and order — which is why critics shouldn't take a new guide providing migrants with tips for sneaking into, then remaining, in the United States, the wrong way.
"We are a country that respects the law and we advise our people to respect the law," Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Carlos de Icaza tells The Washington Post.
Despite de Icaza's explanation, critics say the guide not only sends the wrong message to Mexican migrants, but they think it was specifically designed to better protect them while they break into the U.S., not to try and talk them out of it.
U.S. lawmakers who have long called for tighter border policing and immigration restrictions especially believe the guide is little more than a "how-to" manual for illegal immigrants.
"The Mexican government is aiding and abetting the illegal invasion" of migrants into the country, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., told the Post.
In calling for the Mexican government to end it's planned distribution of about 1.5 million copies of the guide, which was written in comic-book form. "Can you imagine if our State Department ... put out a publication saying, 'We don't recommend stealing, but if you are going to be involved in stealing in Mexico anyway, here are some helpful hints on how to jimmy the door?'" Hayworth said.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, our most staunch border defender in Congress, cautioned Mexico over their Foreign Ministry’s distribution of the “comic book.”
“This is not an action of a friendly neighbor. What would the Mexican government say if we encouraged our citizens to violate Mexican law? It is a great example of how hooked Mexico has become on remittances, which are dollars sent home by alien nationals working in the U.S.,” explained Tancredo, Chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Remittances - the money Mexicans in the U.S. send back to their relatives in mexico - are now at about $18 Billion dollars a year, account for more income to Mexico than any source other than PEMEX, the state owned Petroleum Company.
De Icaza swears U.S. officials are just misinterpreting the guide's true meaning and intentions. "Some are not interpreting the guide correctly," he told the Post.
He said information in the booklet also instructs migrants not to carry false identification, run from Border Patrol agents or throw rocks at them, and to be honest with U.S. officials.
But it also instructs migrants to stay away from scenes and situations which could draw attention to them or put them at risk of arrest.
Still, "the aim of the book is to save lives," says Alfonso Nieto, press secretary at the Mexican Embassy, in an interview with the Arizona Republic.
"It clearly states at the beginning and the end that the appropriate way to gain entry is with a passport or a visa," he said, adding the Mexican government has published such guides before. Yet according to a study of the guide, there is no detailed information regarding the U.S. visa application process.
On Wednesday White House spokesman Taylor Gross said President Bush had not seen the guide. He said the president nonetheless maintained "an excellent working relationship with the Mexican government" and that both governments remained committed to battling illegal immigration."
The U.S. State Department said virtually the same thing, issuing a statement claiming Washington "and the Mexican government have a strong commitment to ensuring that migration into the United States is safe, orderly and legal."
Others have also criticized the guide.
"This is more than just a wink and a nod," Rick Oltman, Western field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told the Republic earlier this week. "This is so transparent, this is the Mexican government trying to protect its most valuable export, which is illegal migrants."
Said John Keeley, director of communication for the U.S.-based Center for Immigration Studies, in an interview with New London, Connecticut newspaper The Day, "With this document the Mexican government not only has not instructed its citizens to obey immigration law but, in rich detail, it has supplied a manual on how to circumvent U.S. immigration law. It's very, very troubling."
In a letter of protest to the Mexican government, Hayworth described "Mexico's state sponsorship of illegal immigration is nothing less than an act of deliberate hostility against the United States - an attack on our sovereignty," saying "it must cease before it does permanent damage to our relationship."
Tancredo is now considering a provision that would cut Mexico’s foreign aid by the amount of remittances they receive, in order to both offset the strain illegal immigrants put on the American taxpayers and to pressure Mexico to stop encouraging their nationals to put their lives at risk in the desert.
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