January 22, 2004
Memo From Mexico, By
Allan Wall
Fox Is Back In The Game. Are We?
George W. Bush and
Vicente Fox had a very pleasant get-together in
Mexico on January 12. Could it be that they are
amigos again?
They’ve had their problems
the past few years. There was Bush’s failure to deliver
on an immigration accord. There was Fox’s cancellation
of a trip to Texas, because of that Mexican
cop-killer’s execution. And, of course, Fox didn’t
support the
Iraq war.
But all that looks like
water under the bridge now.
The backdrop for this
friendly reunion was the
“Special Summit of the Americas”, held in Monterrey,
Mexico on January 12-13.
And quite a summit it
was. Mexican commentator Sergio Sarmiento estimates that
the Mexican government spent $50 million dollars hosting
it! (Costo-beneficio,
Sergio Sarmiento, El Siglo de Torreon, January 13th,
2004)
Now what could the Mexican government have done with
that $50 million dollars, besides hosting a summit?
Nevertheless, the Special
Summit was not without its own interesting developments
to relieve the tedium—albeit nothing quite like the
embarrassing flap with
Fidel Castro at a 2002 UN summit in the same city .
Fidel wasn’t even invited
to this get-together, although every other head of state
in the Western Hemisphere was.
The summit ended on
Tuesday the 13th (Tuesday the 13th
is the
Spanish equivalent of the English Friday the 13th,
by the way). And at the closing ceremony, as Fox was
speaking, a row erupted between the presidents of
Bolivia and Chile. Back in the War of the Pacific
(1879-1883), Bolivia lost its
entire coastline to Chile and wants it back.
(Clausura
Fox Cumbre de las Américas, El Universal,
January 13th, 2004)
The
“Declaration of Nuevo León” signed at the summit
officially supports the establishment of the FTAA, the
Free Trade Area of the Americas, of which both Fox and
Bush are big boosters.
This proposal deserves
more scrutiny, as critics predict it could become a
Western Hemisphere equivalent of the
European Union.
After President Bush
announced on January 7th the
proposal which we refer to at VDARE.com as
“The Bush Betrayal,” Vicente Fox had
responded that “It’s much tinier than what we
were looking for.”
But by the time the summit
rolled around a few days later, Fox publicly embraced
the Amnesty Proposal (Bush,
Fox Forge Immigration Agreement, AP, January 12th,
2004) and even congratulated Bush on the capture of
Saddam Hussein.
Things seemed pretty
peachy-keen between the two amigos.
Just what’s going on with
these two guys? They seem to have a strange sort of
symbiotic relationship—they feel they need each other.
Bush thinks Fox helps him
in his
quest for the “Hispanic
Vote,” which he’s willing to pursue at the risk of
alienating his own base. But try as he might, Bush
cannot seem to win the
hearts and minds of most Hispanics.
Certainly not the
merchants of “Latino T-Shirts,” who do a brisk business
of hawking t-shirts with
anti-Bush slogans. (Click
here to see for yourself.)
For
Vicente Fox, whose presidency has been a
disappointment in many ways, accomplishing something on
the immigration issue is and
always has been a number one priority. Fox continues
to work toward his
dream of
open borders.
Of course he supports the
Bush Amnesty Proposal—because it’s a definite step along
the way. As long as Mexicans are moving northward, Fox
is still in the game.
The fact that the Bush
Betrayal doesn’t immediately grant citizenship to those
legalized is only a detail. If legalized Mexicans stick
around
long enough, they will acquire citizenship.
Meanwhile, their U.S.-born children are
citizens already.
Besides, as the
distinction between U.S. citizen and non-citizen blurs
increasingly, that matters less and less.
Just a few days after the
summit, on January 15th, Fox was in the state
of Michoacan (a
major source of emigrants to the U.S.).
There, he defended the
Bush Betrayal, promised that illegals in the U.S. would
be legalized, touted the totalization
Social Security plan, and made it clear that “his
administration would seek a total
accord between the [Mexican] government and
the American Congress.”
(Defiende
Fox plan migratorio de Bush,
January 16th, 2004, El Siglo de Torreón)
Definitely, Vicente Fox is
still in the game.
But is
George W. Bush? And is America?
American citizen Allan Wall lives and works legally in
Mexico, where he holds an FM-2 residency and work
permit, but serves six weeks a year with the Texas Army
National Guard, in a unit composed almost entirely of
Americans of Mexican ancestry. His VDARE.COM articles
are archived
here; his
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived
here; his
website is
here. Readers
can contact Allan Wall at
allan39@prodigy.net.mx.
