For Mexico, terrorist crisis is an opportunity

Mexico's President Vicente Fox is unhappy that President Bush and the United States are spending so much time on such trivia as terrorism, war in the Middle East and the collapsing stock market and paying so little attention to the really important stuff, such as the amnesty Mr. Fox wants for the millions of illegal aliens from Mexico he either refuses or is unable to stop. Last month, Mr. Fox unbosomed his unhappiness with this country in an interview with the New York Times.

[Transcript here.]

"The Mexican president," the Times reported, "has displayed increasing impatience with the lack of progress on Mexico's proposals for immigration reforms," including giving "legal status to three million undocumented [i.e., illegal] Mexicans working [sometimes] in the United States."

["After 9/11, Fox Still Waits for U.S. Moves on Mexico" NYT, By GINGER THOMPSON, September 13, 2002]

It's understandable that Mr. Fox would complain about the "lack of progress," since Mexico stands to gain immensely by formalizing the legal status of that not inconsiderable part of its population that has managed to sneak into this country. Not only does it rid itself of excess people whom it neither wants nor is able to sustain, but also it colonizes those parts of the United States in which the Mexicans settle and establishes an increasingly powerful voting bloc that can be expected to exert the political pressures where and when the Mexican government desires.

To that particular goal Mr. Fox addressed himself in the Times interview. If the Bush administration doesn't get back with the program soon, El Presidente vowed, after the November elections, "his government would embark on a broad new campaign that would seek support for the measures from grass-roots organizations up to Congress. And he said he expected the White House to join him."

Just which "grass-roots organizations" does Mr. Fox expect to mobilize in his campaign for the legalization of illegal Mexican aliens? No doubt the increasingly powerful Hispanic lobby, as well as the Open Borders crowd in general, will sign up, but mainly Mr. Fox can expect to fire up the 20 million or so Mexicans who live in this country. If he can use them to lobby an amnesty into existence, he can expect to add some 3 to 4 million more to his massive fifth column inside the United States.

What emerges fairly clearly from the interview with Mr. Fox is that the Mexican president plans to exploit the crises the United States is facing with terrorism and impending war for his own and his country's advantage. At no time in the interview does he disclose the slightest indication that his own government bears any responsibility for reducing the illegal flow of immigrants into this country or any suggestion that his government might do more to stop it.

Yet the Washington Times, in a mammoth five-part series on illegal immigration published only a week after the interview with Mr. Fox, finds that "record numbers of illegal aliens continue to find their way into the United States," and that "federal, state, city and county law-enforcement authorities, along with civic leaders and immigration analysts, said hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens remain undeterred and undetected each year."

New strategies and technologies used by the Border Patrol have been effective at apprehending many illegals, but the main effect has been to force the flow into new areas. Interestingly, the series finds that in those areas where border control has been effective, the result has been "a decline in crime and an upgraded quality of life in border towns in Texas and California"—a fact that suggests that maybe getting rid of illegal aliens, not legalizing them through an amnesty, is what should be done.

Mr. Fox's arrogant announcement that he's displeased with the quality of the attention the U.S. government is paying to him and what he wants ought to be greeted in Washington with the silent contempt it deserves. His further announcement that he plans to mobilize political pressure to force Washington to do what he wants the way he wants it is a bit more serious. It's one more bit of evidence that the Mexican government has every intention of using the fifth column mass immigration has created to gain political power inside the United States and to use that power for its own interests. That should have been obvious ever since Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo announced in 1997 that "the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders and ... Mexican migrants are an important—a very important—part of this." [RealAudio Sound Clip]

Terrorism from the Middle East isn't the only crisis the United States is confronting. The naked threat of intrusion into our domestic politics to gain the power Mr. Fox and his government crave may be less violent but is no less an act of aggression against our nationality than hijacking airliners and crashing them into skyscrapers.

September 30, 2002