Monday, May 15, 2006

Mr. Rogers Gives a Speech from the Oval Office

Well, you heard the speech. The question is, which parts do you find credible?

They are going to send six thousand National Guard troops to the borders — not for interdiction or military action. It seems they’re going to train the people already there. Right. Six thousand men and women for how many thousands of miles of borderland?

So who pays the National Guard? The states? I didn’t hear any fiscal relief for the southwestern border states. And they’re going to stay a year to solve a generations-old problem? Why not just be honest, Mr. President. Tell us, “they’re staying till 2008, and then I’m outta here.”

[oops. They are getting some help: "Another way to help during this period of transition is through state and local law enforcement in our border communities. So we will increase federal funding for state and local authorities assisting the Border Patrol on targeted enforcement missions. And we will give state and local authorities the specialized training they need to help federal officers apprehend and detain illegal immigrants." Still no mention of the other costs, however...]

Someone over at the Corner said he sounded more like Mr. Rogers than Mr. Reagan. I’m afraid so. We need someone leading us who says “we’re finished putting up with your lawlessness. Get out of Dodge or we’ll put you out. Pronto.”

I am tired of statesmanship practiced with the likes of corrupt Mexico. We ought to copy their immigration laws, line for line. For example, these are the people permittted to settle in Mexico, right off their page:

· Retirees
· Investors
· Professionals
· Scientists & Technicians
· Artists and Sportspeople
Ummm…no peasants? No riff-raff? Oh, right — they’re sending them all northward.

Well, what’s sauce for the goose, etc…Here's what you need to do/have in order to get your fine self inside the borders of Mexico, per the link above:

Immigrant, Active: - i.e. you do want to acquire permanent residency in Mexico AND work there:

You will need to satisfy the requirements for entry (e.g. professional, sponsored by a company, etc), or be able and prepared to invest at least 40,000 times the minimum daily wage in Mexico City.

Immigrant, Non-Active: - i.e. you do want to acquire permanent residency in Mexico but NOT work there:

If you are of retirement age (50+), and have at least US$1,500 or equivalent income per month, then a Retiree permit will be your easiest route.

If you are not of a retirement age (below 50) and want to live but not work in Mexico, you will need to contact the Mexican Consulate. Provided that you can prove a permanent steady income in line with the regulations, you may be granted an FM3 permit to live in Mexico, which would be eligible for conversion to an FM2 in 5 years. You will need to state what you intend to do there, e.g. early retirement due to health, etc.

Let’s play Immigration By Mexican rules. Remember the email that American Digest validated? Here’s how it goes if you want to get into Mexico:

”I spent five years working in Mexico.

I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval.

During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to secure a permanent work visa called a FM3. It was in addition to my US passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country. Barbara’s [his wife]was the same except hers did not permit her to work.

To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following notarized originals (not copies) of my:

1. Birth certificates for Barbara and me.

2. Marriage certificate.

3. High school transcripts and proof of graduation.

4. College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of graduation.

5. Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at least one year.

6. A letter from The ST. Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was “a citizen in good standing.”

7. Finally; I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our “I am the greatest person on earth” letter. It was fun to write.

All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized. It produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side and Spanish on the right.

Once they were completed Barbara and I spent about five hours accompanied by a Mexican attorney touring Mexican government office locations and being photographed and fingerprinted at least three times. At each location (and we remember at least four locations) we were instructed on Mexican tax, labor, housing, and criminal law and that we were required to obey their laws or face the consequences.

We could not protest any of the government’s actions or we would be committing a felony.

We paid out four thousand dollars in fees and gratuities to complete the process. When this was done we could legally bring in our household goods that were held by US customs in Loredo Texas. This meant we rented furniture in Mexico while awaiting our goods. There were extensive fees involved here that the company paid.
We could not buy a home and were required to rent at very high rates and under contract and compliance with Mexican law.

We were required to get a Mexican drivers license. This was an amazing process. The company arranged for the licensing agency to come to our headquarters location with their photography and finger print equipment and the laminating machine. We showed our US license, were photographed and fingerprinted again and issued the license instantly after paying out a six dollar fee. We did not take a written or driving test and never received instructions on the rules of the road. Our only instruction was never give a policeman your license if stopped and asked. We were instructed to hold it against the inside window away from his grasp. If he got his hands on it you would have to pay ransom to get it back.

We then had to pay and file Mexican income tax annually using the number of our FM3 as our ID number. The company’s Mexican accountants did this for us and we just signed what they prepared. It was about twenty legal size pages annually.

The FM 3 was good for three years and renewable for two more after paying more fees.

Leaving the country meant turning in the FM 3 and certifying we were leaving no debts behind and no outstanding legal affairs (warrants, tickets or liens) before our household goods were released to customs.”

I want immigrations laws like Mexico’s. I don’t want the President’s half-measures. I want citizen arrests. I want lots and lots of money paid to our government for any Mexican who wants to live here. I want what agri-business and people who hire servants don’t want: an austere immigration policy that says we respect our own sovereignty and we respect those we hire to work for us.

Will that be tough on the poor Mexicans? Initially, yes. But it may literally kill Vicente Fox as his country implodes and the corruption currently holding that cesspit together finally blows.


UPDATE: “In From the Cold” calls the speech 'tepid'. In a post entitled Boots on the Ground, he says in part:

...the “boots on the ground” coalition won’t apply the same principle to securing our southern border. President Bush’s tepid plan to assign 5,000 National Guard members to border duties (on a temporary basis) has been met with predictable “concerns” [from Senator Hagel] about our over-stretched military, and calls to further strengthen the Border Patrol, rather than deploy military personnel…

[…]

Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I do seem to recall something about ensuring domestic tranquility and providing for the common defense in the preamble to the Constitution. And, given the chaos that exists along our southern border, some sort of military presence seems essential to satisfy those constitutional requirements. But folks like Senator Hagel would prefer to spend a few more years recruiting (and training) more Border Patrol agents. By the time we achieve that goal, or more accurately, if we achieve that goal, another 3 or 4 million illegal immigrants will have crossed our borders, and making the crisis even worse.

Hagel’s concerns actually seem premature, since President Bush will apparently propose the use of military personnel in support roles, including surveillance of the border. The work of actually trying to stop the influx of illegals will remain in the hands of overtaxed border patrol agents. In other words, we may have better information on the location and numbers of illegals attempting to enter our country, but we still won’t have the necessary resources to stop them. And this is an improvement?

Hell, no, it's not an improvement! It’s a stopgap measure as we bleed from every orifice until 2008, when it becomes someone else’s problem.

Let’s face it, President Bush is worn out, and who can blame him? Even Lincoln only had one war to think about. And better advisors, too.

26 comments:

William Zeranski said...

One: It’s an election year.

Two: Who in the border patrol bureaucracy is going to tell the Mexicans where the Guard is going to be?

Three: What is the point, if the point is to do nothing, right?

bordergal said...

According to the Heritage Foundation and Senator Sessions, the Hagel/Martinez "comprehensive" immigration bill the President favors will add between 100 and 200 million new immigrants to our country in the next twenty years.

Who knew that there were that many jobs Americans won't do?

Uriah said...

I don't know that I would wish for an "implosion" in Mexico. A Venezuela style state on our southern border might not bring in the millenial paradise on earth that many of the fired up types seem to anticipate.

William Zeranski said...

People are always uptight about Spanish over welling English, but--and correct me if I am wrong--wasn’t there an article out there the stated Spanish speakers from down south were even illiterate in their own language? Apparently in Mexico, the drop-out rate is over 50%.

Illiterate and unemployed?

Well, my grandparents, 90 years ago, came from partitioned-Poland speaking three languages!

Dymphna said...

Uriah-

Then reality might seep in. We are being killed, our infrastructure is being stretched to the limits, and our southwestern states are emptying out of Americans as they flee the lawlessness.

I don't know that it has to be a Chavez moment, but the crisis is approaching and crises are dangerous opportunities. Unfortunately, we have a tired and beleaguered president.

At any rate, I agree with Spook 86: it was a "tepid" speech at best. The fire is gone from his voice, maybe even his spirit.

jakejacobsen said...

With all due respect Uriah, perhaps the very best thing that could happen would be a violent confrontation with Mexico.

They have been an enemy for a lot of years, but a quiet, unnoticed one. Sometimes the best thing that can happen is to put the cards on the table and let them play out.

Mexico's revolution is on hold until whenever we stop allowing them to use us as a relief vlave.

Bobby Coggins said...

I think the President is putting boots on the wrong side of the border. It is time to fix Mexico, this time for real. Once they have a real government of the people, and significant anit-corruption safeguards, they can become a nation instead of a basketcase.
I work with many illegals, and most report that they are sending half or more of their pay back to Mexico so their families won't starve. They say as illegals here, they receive better treatment from the U.S. government tham from their own government back home.
I know it would be very unpopular, but we need to start making noises about fixing the problem at it's source, not just treating the symptoms.

Wally Ballou said...

The kind of change Mexico needs won't come from revolution. One of the most persistent follies in human thought, that has persisted in spite of being universally disproved for eons, is that catastrophe will breed improvement. When things get really bad, they must perforce get better. Actaully, when things get really bad, they have a tendency to get worse.

If we knew how to promote values that condemn and root out corruption, and that promote the rule of law and the inviolability of private property and private contract, we could usher in the libertarian New Jerusalem. Unfortunately, we can't even maintain these values in our own country, much less project them onto others.

One concrete thing we could do to reduce Mexican corruption and crime would be to decriminalize marijuana, which would make its smuggling and its attendant crime and corruption much less profitable, but that isn't going to happen, either.

Wally Ballou said...

That remark in the post from the people who were working in Mexico:

I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our “I am the greatest person on earth” letter. It was fun to write


rang a bell. My Peruvian former housemate many years ago, had to write just such a letter during his US naturalization process, which took many years (this would have been in the 1970's). He was a labor economist with degrees from MIT and Harvard. I don't think the fellows currently lounging in front of the 7-11 are being asked to write such a letter.

Charro99 said...

So now we want a Mexican-style immigration system? What other ways do we want to be like Mexico?

Wally Ballou said...

Last point. There is a current uproar in both California and Arizona right now about high school exit exams. Both states are requiring new exams for high school graduation; both have been suspended by lawsuits alleging that the exams are discriminatory, leaving the graduation status of many thousands of students indeterminate.

The burden of the claim is that these tests (which are already dumbed down to an incredible degree) are de facto discriminatory because students with better English skills will fare better. There is also the "class" argument that students form poorer schools cannot be expected to perform well. This latter is an attack on the idea of achievement and merit itself.

Fancy the idea that knowing English at least minimally is a necessary requirement to be successfully graduated from high school.

The biggest problem with uncontrolled Latin immigration is not the attitudes and beliefs of the immigrants themselves, many of whom would prefer to adapt to their new home. Polls consistently show that Latino parents oppose mandatory bilingual education. The problem is the self-hating Americans and irredentist Latino activists who are receiving these people and fighting for their "right" to live in a perpetual cultural ghetto in the heart of America.

We need a new word for the attitude of hating one's own culture. "Homophobia" won't do -it is already taken (though inexactly). Any ancient Greek speakers out there? What is the opposite of "Xeno" as foreigner - we need a word meaning native or familiar or homeland - which would be the root of our needed phobia word? or maybe patriphobia?

Wally Ballou said...

Charro99 - way to miss the point. We don't want to be like Mexico. We want to point out that Mexico reserves the right to strictly limit and control immigration, that uncontrolled immigration is not a "human right". We are certainly entitled to do the same and throw their own policies back in their faces as an argument.

Charro99 said...

Cato,

You're 100% correct. Maybe I missed the point.

Let me try to make my point better: Mexico's government is awful. If we want to act within our rights, that's fine, and if we want to point out the Mexican gov't's obvious hypocrisy, that's fine too. I just don't like using "Mexico does it too" as an argument in support of whatever it is we decide to do.

Charles Martel said...

If we knew how to promote values that condemn and root out corruption, and that promote the rule of law and the inviolability of private property and private contract, we could usher in the libertarian New Jerusalem. Unfortunately, we can't even maintain these values in our own country, much less project them onto others.

It is miraculous that these sacred values, which provide the foundation for ALL Western wealth, emerged at all in a world marked by cultural entropy. But it wasn't always so. Man's bruthish struggle to emerge from the quagmire of poverty was a long difficult road. And what specific conditions allowed for their emergence? We know these conditions did not emerge in those cultures dominated by Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism or Confuscianism. These conditions emerged in a Christian Europe dominated by the Catholic Church. More specifically, it was the merging of the rational mind with the immutable Truths of the Catholic faith as embodied by the Scholastics among whom Thomas Aquinas was the finest example.

The institution of the Catholic Church stood against the forces of chaos and an emancipating order was imposed which provided the springboard for the emergence of Western wealth andliberty. No such institution now stands guard against the crippling forces of cultural entropy. We are still living off the accumulated capital of that great civilization.

Order somehow needs to be restored. But, to do so we must first understand that which we have lost. Instead, we contemptuously derogate all that made us great.

Wally Ballou said...

The influence of the Catholic Church was not uniformly beneficial to the development of economic liberty. Although the Church, with its doctrine that all men were equal (at least in death) in the sight of God, provided an essential foundation for the eventual flowering of economic liberty and other human rights, for centuries the Church stood resolutely athwart the path to economic freedom. Its moral philosphers condemned both interest and profit as inherently sinful. Not until the late Middle Ages, and more so in the reformation, was free economic activity to lose some of its strong odor of evil. Even today the Church's attitude toward capitalism and economic freedom is somewhat conflicted and contradictory. The popular doctrine of "fair trade" today has deep roots in the medieval doctrine of "just price"

Marty said...

Cato:

"Patriophobia"?

Baron Bodissey said...

Charles Martel,

What you say is true, but the Church alone was not enough to beget Western Civilization. It was that weird hybrid of three things -- Christianity, pagan Greek thought, and Judaism -- that gave birth to the West.

Especially Judaism. As I have said before:

The Laws of the Jews form the moral and ethical core of Western Civilization. Without them we would be a hollow culture, subject to the whims of polytheism and prone to the fads of nihilism. They are the backbone of what makes us civilized; we repeal them at our own peril.

airforcewife said...

My problem with putting the National Guard on the border is this...

They are there for an undelineated "support" role. This means that they will have both hands and both feet tied behind their backs, basically. There isn't really much they can do except stand there looking sexy.

And if, God forbid, some people crossing the border start behaving violently toward a 19 year old with an M16 and (s)he feels threatened enough to shoot and cause damage, they will be blamed for protecting themselves.

It happens in Iraq, a war zone; I have no doubt that it will happen x3 here. And the ACLU and immigrant right groups are right there to help the "horrible trigger pulling Kill-bot" be prosecuted to the fullest extent of liberal law.

I'm sure preferrably in the 9th Circuit.

It's a bad situation for our Guard guys.

Rancher said...

Cato

"When things get really bad, they must perforce get better"

Yet we are the presure valve that lets the steam escape. If we can plug the vent maybe that will also force Mexico to change, kill two birds with one secure border.

linearthinker said...

Thunderpig--" It is time to fix Mexico, this time for real."

And if pigs had wings, they could fly...get real...

airforcewife--"And if, God forbid, some people crossing the border start behaving violently toward a 19 year old with an M16 and (s)he feels threatened enough to shoot and cause damage, they will be blamed for protecting themselves."

You assume they'd be issued rifles and ammo? My hunch is they'd be equipped like the ROTC "Pershing Rifles" boys who are sent out to the stadium parking lots on game day to direct traffic with a patent leather Sam Browne belt and an empty holster. Weapons aside, they'll bring some tools and toys with them that will be helpful. I wish it could be others than the Guard...they've been overworked and underpaid lately.

Cato, charro99, rancher, et al regarding reforming Mexico:

I don't quibble with the needs you address. But, we need to get our own house in order, and the place to start is with the fence. And I think Bush's Five Point Plan is at least a positive start.

A good start on the damned fence would be to turn the task over to the ranchers, 4-H Clubs, and Boy Scout Troops in the border counties from San Ysidro to El Paso, thus accomplishing something tangible while Chertoff and his Secure Border Initiative play bureaucratic games with tax payer dollars to the tune of $3 Billion.

Anonymous said...

At this point amnesty for the illegals already here is more of a threat to our sovereignty than even the porous borders. Heritage Foundation estimates the Senate bill will bring in more than 100 million more immigrants from the Third World, mostly from Latin America, over only 20 years, because of family reunification as well as many other goodies for La Raza that are hidden in the bill. Putting aside the threat to our national identity, culture, political structure and prosperity, (which SOME people here seem to think is all a big joke), we simply do not have the resources to assimilate and support that many desperately poor people massing here in such a short time period.

This is the end of our nation, if this bill passes. Please call your Senators and Congressmen and express your opposition as forcefully as you can.

Anonymous said...

I just don't like using "Mexico does it too" as an argument in support of whatever it is we decide to do.

It's obvious to anyone with half-a-brain that you don't support doing ANYTHING that would keep your Mexican pals from milking the cash cow formerly known as the United States of America.

You've made that quite abundantly clear. Hell, you even admitted that you were an apologist for illegal immigration.

Wally Ballou said...

adventuress - What on earth are you talking about? If anone has "admitted to being an apologist for illegal immigration", or promoted or excused illegal immigration on this blog, I missed it. You need to be specific with an accusation like that. Who, what, when - you know?

Wally Ballou said...

adventuress - I won't speak for charro99, but his(?) point seemed to be not that we shouldn't control immigration, but that we shouldn't use Mexico as a model. I think you suffered a severe case of "miss-the-point-itis" much more severe than charro99's momentary lapse. Nobody here is trying to sneak in more of their "pals".

Charro99 said...

Cato and others,

Adventuress is attempting to drag our long and overheated dispute from another string over to this string, and I do not intend to play along, mostly because I'm sure y'all don't want to hear it.

I will not address anything she says I said, because odds are, I didn't say it. She has repeatedly accused me of believing things I've never expressed.

In fairness to Adventuress, and to clarify, I support securing the border immediately, but as for those who are already here, I favor the President's plan of making them sign up and identify themselves and pay a significant fine. I laid out my arguments over on the other string, though, admittedly, not always very well.

In the context of that debate, I admitted to being an apologist for illegal immigrants who want to come here and build a better life. I know many of them personally and I've seen--and smelled--what they came from, and I'd do the same thing they did if I were in their position.

I realize that this is not a popular view on this blog, which I have enjoyed reading quietly for the past couple of months.

Regards,

Charro99

Wally Ballou said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.