Scores of volunteers gathered at a remote ranch Saturday to help a civilian border-patrol group start building a short security fence in hopes of reducing illegal immigration from Mexico.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps plans to install a combination of barbed wire, razor wire, and in some spots, steel rail barriers along the 10-mile stretch of private land in southeastern Arizona.
Timothy Schwartz of Glendale, Ariz., who was among at least 200 volunteers gathered, said he wants to see a fence along the border from California to Texas.
"We're not going to stop," Schwartz said. "We're going to stay here with a group and keep building."
Quetzal Doty of Sun Lakes, Ariz., a retired U.S. diplomatic consular officer, brought his wife, Sandy, to the event.
He said he's convinced the Minutemen and most Americans aren't anti-immigrant.
"They're just anti-illegal," said Doty. "The Minutemen walk the extra mile to avoid being anti-immigrant and that's what we like about the organization and what got us interested."
American Flag Raised At The Border On Its New Permanent Pole
Guard heads to border in June
About 300 Arizona National Guard troops will be sent to the state's porous southern border in June as the first tangible step in President Bush's controversial plan to beef up border security throughout the Southwest.
Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano said Arizona is ready for deployments after months of preparation. In addition to assisting Border Patrol agents, Napolitano said, the Guard can focus on the increasing drug trade that has wreaked havoc on Arizona families.
For months, Napolitano has pleaded for the federal government to do more in the battle against illegal immigration. In January, she unveiled a plan to station more National Guard troops at the border but only if the federal government picked up the tab. Now that plan is about to happen.
On Saturday, she gave a hearty thanks to the men and women in the Arizona National Guard.
Mexican voters fear country on brink of chaos before presidential elections
Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos – a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.
Fox has failed at job creation in Mexico
(Editors note: I'm not a big fan of the notion that government should be in the business of creating jobs, even if it is a quasi-socialist concern. The creation of wealth, jobs and income is best left to the people who are better served by that interest. However, gov't can foster an enriched climate for citizens to prosper.)
Mexicans are not your typical immigrants, it seems.
"We're not here for the American Dream," Jose Gonzalez said. "We're here to survive."
At various times during his U.S. trip, Fox said his government would "continue expanding jobs in Mexico so that migration is no longer a necessity."
Gonzalez doesn't believe it. So I had to ask: What would he do to make a better Mexico if he were presidente for a day?
Three things, he said.
(1) Tackle police corruption; people have no incentive to be productive if they're constantly being fleeced and robbed by those who are supposed to protect them.
(2) Stop penalizing employers and small businesses; cutting licensing fees would allow companies to create more jobs and pay higher wages.
(3) Clean up the environment by punishing companies that plunder natural resources and lay waste to the countryside and waterways.
Fox hadn't done enough in those areas, Gonzalez insisted.
He's all talk and no action. A mentiroso (liar), he said.
Is the tide finally turning in Mexico?
When I was in Mexico last fall, after dozens of visits over the years, people on every political and social level confirmed these accusations, complaining to me of Fox's failures. Forty families still own 60 percent of Mexico. There are no voluntary organizations, no civic involvement, no family foundations – and thus, no accountability, allowing corruption to flourish. Mexico gains $28 billion from oil revenue and $20 billion from immigrant remittances. There is virtually no industrialization, no small business, no real chance at individual entrepreneurship. Under Fox, it has created only one-tenth of the 1 million jobs needed.
Ah, but there are new voices of change, of reason, of self-awareness in Mexico, in place of the hoary anti-gringo rants: the beginnings of a transformation of the debate. Other prominent Mexicans were quoted as saying, for instance, the formerly unthinkable: that a wall would be the "best thing that could happen for Mexico"; the "porous border" allowed "elected officials to avoid creating jobs." And former Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castañeda, who always took a tough line toward the United States, writes in the Mexican newspaper Reforma that Mexico needed “a series of incentives” to keep Mexicans from migrating, including welfare benefits to mothers whose husbands remained in Mexico, scholarships, and the loss of land rights for people who were absent too long from their property.
This is European social democracy, this is American New Deal, this is real development talk, in place of the tiresome historical Mexican attitude that everything is the gringos' fault and they should pay for it. This is a real revolution of the mind! It also may indicate that, while President Fox failed in carrying through such basic modern reforms, he did lay the basis for them.
Surely the fact that America has awakened to the insult of its "neighbor" cynically exporting its problems, while doing nada at home, can only help Mexico and jar it to some modern sense. Ironically, the debate and the anger in the U.S. about this mammoth illegal immigration has already helped Mexico to begin to shed its dependency on America – and to turn its energies toward its own real predators, all home-grown.
Uh, Mexico promotes tourism? via the american comedy network. Thanks, Boortz!
