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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Mexicoâs Undiplomatic Diplomats |
| 2005-11-04 |
| EFL - RTWT Itâs a strain being a Mexican diplomat in the United States these days, as the plaintive expression on Mario Velázquez-Suárezâs dignified features suggests. Diplomacy may be the art of lying for oneâs country, but Mexican diplomacy requires taking that art to virtuosic heights. Sitting in his expansive office in Mexicoâs Los Angeles consulate, Deputy Consul General Velázquez-Suárez gamely insists that he and his peers observe the diplomatic duty not to interfere in Americaâs internal affairs, including immigration matters. âImmigration is an internal discussion,â he says. âWe have to respect that regardless of whether it pleases us.â Well, at least one part of the deputy consul generalâs statement is true: immigration is an âinternal discussion.â The decision about who can enter and permanently reside in a country is central to its identity. The rest of his statement, though, is utterly false. Mexican officials here and abroad are involved in a massive and almost daily interference in American sovereignty. The dozens of illegals milling in the consulateâs courtyard as Velázquez-Suárez speaks, and the millions more radiating outward from Los Angeles across the country, are not a naturally occurring phenomenon, like the tides. They are there thanks in part to Mexicoâs efforts to get them into the U.S. in violation of American law, and to normalize their status once here in violation of the popular will. Mexican consulates are engineering a backdoor amnesty for their illegal migrants and trying to discredit American immigration enforcementâactivities clearly beyond diplomatic bounds. Mexicoâs governing class is not content simply to unload the victims of its failed policies on the U.S., however. It also tries to ensure that migrants retain allegiance to La Patria, so as to preserve the $16 billion in remittances that they send to Mexico each year. Mexican leaders have thus tasked their nationâs U.S. consulates with spreading Mexican culture into American schools and communities. Given the American publicâs swelling anger about illegal immigration, itâs past time for Washington to tell Mexico to cease interfering and for the Bush administration to start enforcing the law. Just how shameless is Mexico in promoting illegal entry into the U.S.? For starters, it publishes a comic bookâstyle guide on breaching the border safely and evading detection once across. Mexicoâs foreign ministry distributes the GuÃa del Migrante Mexicano (Guide for the Mexican Migrant) in Mexico; Mexican consulates along the border hand it out in the U.S. The pamphlet is also available on the website of the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior, or IME (Institute for Mexicans Abroad), the cabinet-level agency that promotes Mexicanismo in the U.S. Nodding to U.S. law, the guide does briefly remind readers that âmechanisms for legal entryâ into the U.S. exist and are the surest way to get in. But the book primarily consists of âpractical adviceâ for entering illegally: do drink salt water and cross when the heat is lowest; donât wear heavy clothing when fording a river. Do keep your coyote in sight; donât send your children across the border with strangersâa Mexican variation on the usual parental advice. And donât âthrow rocks or objects at officials or at patrols since this is considered a provocation by those officials.â (This last piece of advice clearly hasnât taken hold: attacks on the border patrol have steadily increased in number and viciousness.) The guideâs recommendations on how to avoid detection once in the U.S. are equally no-nonsense: do keep your daily routines stable, to avoid calling attention to yourself; donât engage in domestic violenceâthe Marvel comicâtype illustration shows a macho man, biceps bulging, socking a woman a big one in the jaw. Donât drink and drive because it could result in deportation if youâre arrested. Mexico backs up the publication with serious resources for the collective assault on the border. An elite law enforcement team called Grupo Beta protects illegal migrants as they sneak into the U.S. from corrupt Mexican officials and criminalsâessentially pitting two types of Mexican lawlessness against each other. Grupo Beta currently maintains aid stations for Mexicans crossing the desert. In April, it worked with Mexican federal and Sonoran state police to help steer illegal aliens away from Arizona border spots patrolled by Minutemen border enforcement volunteersâdemagogically denounced by President Vicente Fox as âmigrant-hunting groups.â Disseminating information about how to evade a host countryâs laws is not typical consular activity. Consulates exist to promote the commercial interests of their nations abroad and to help nationals if they have lost passports, gotten robbed, or fallen ill. If a national gets arrested, consular officials may visit him in jail, to ensure that his treatment meets minimum human rights standards. Consuls arenât supposed to connive in breaking a host countryâs laws or intervene in its internal affairs..... |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #3 Thanks frank..bit depressing eh, been going on way too long. Being a citizen demands Vigilance 24/7/365. At least you, Kathy McD and the rest of us here get it. money-voting-networking-baggering pols-don't hire illegals etc, do the best you can. thank you. |
| Posted by: Red Dog 2005-11-04 20:31 |
| #2 I understand that out here in SoCal, some of the illegals have discovered that they can come out ahead by filing taxes and getting "earned income tax credits". |
| Posted by: usmc6743 2005-11-04 16:03 |
| #1 Sold out to the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Saudis ... America - walking proud in the new century. |
| Posted by: Thrineger Unaiper4863 2005-11-04 13:09 |