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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: U.S. needs to watch extremists, Fox says U.S. needs to watch extremists, Fox says Chris Hawley MEXICO CITY - Anti-immigrant sentiment appears to be growing in the United States, Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday, and he urged U.S. officials to act quickly to control movements such as the 950-member-strong Minuteman Project on the Mexico-Arizona border. Fox said he plans to push for U.S. immigration reform during a meeting with President Bush in Texas next week. He also said the two leaders, along with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, likely will announce a plan to expand the scope of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission recently issued a warning about several new grass-roots movements inspired by Arizona's Proposition 200. Other Mexican officials have cited the Minuteman Project, a plan by activists to patrol the border during April, as a sign of rising extremism. advertisement "There are signs of these kinds of problems present today, and (they are) progressing," Fox said during a news conference for foreign reporters. "We have to act quickly and on time to prevent these kinds of actions." He said Mexico is watching the Minuteman Project carefully and will take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any of the activists break the law. Patrols start in April "We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups," Fox said. "We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups, which are a minority . . . will not have any opportunity to progress." Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they have signed up more than 950 volunteers, including 30 pilots with aircraft, to patrol the border for 30 days beginning April 1. The activists say they will notify the Border Patrol if they see border crossers and will not confront them directly. Minuteman co-organizer Chris Simcox said participants are exercising their constitutional rights. "Vicente Fox can rant and rave all he wants, but he obviously doesn't understand what a democracy means," Simcox said. "We have been working within the law." 'Walls don't work' Fox also harshly criticized the construction of walls along the border, including a new "triple fence" planned for the San Diego area. "We are convinced that walls don't work. They should be torn down," he said. "No country that is proud of itself should build walls. No one can isolate himself these days." Fox said he understood Americans' concern about protecting their southern border. But he dismissed fears that terrorists have sneaked into the United States through Mexico. "We have absolutely no evidence of that," he said. Fox will meet with Bush and Martin next Wednesday at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and at Bush's ranch in nearby Crawford. It's an effort to get North American cooperation back on track after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Plan on Social Security Fox said he will push for action on a "guest worker" program in the United States. He said that the U.S. population is aging and will need Mexican labor in the future and that turning millions of undocumented Mexicans into legal, taxpaying workers could help keep the Social Security system afloat. The three leaders likely will announce a plan aimed at further integrating their countries' economies to compete against other trade blocs, Fox said. He called it a "new vision" that will not change the existing treaty. It will include new border-security measures, ways to share customs duties, and a continentwide energy policy, he said. Other sections will focus on education, technology and the financial sectors, he said. NAFTA's critics say the 1994 trade pact has cost American manufacturing jobs while hurting Mexican farmers. But Fox said the average Mexican income has more than doubled, to $6,505 a year. Fox said the boom of assembly plants along the border has actually helped stop illegal border crossing by providing jobs for people who would have gone to the United States. "That's also part of security on the border, to have this cushion where people can find a job on the Mexican side," he said.
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#18. To: Mr Nuke Buzzcut (#0)
In my spare time, I like to scheme up really stupid forms of protest.... things which are visibly absurd, yet yet have an impact and the politics of it is not lost on even the most politically unaware people. Lately, I was thinking that all those Minutemen who volunteered to guard the border should just get together some really professionally made signs, and go cross the southern border into Mexico.... with big signs which thank Vincente Fox for his support for illegal immigration in the name of human rights. I then think a thousand of those Minutemen should march to the Mexican immigration authorities and request political refuge on human rights grounds. They'd never get it obviously, and would be deported back to America, so no harm no foul..... but I bet it would make the newspapers and TV in all of Mexico and the Mexican people would finally get the message that it works both ways and that two can play at that game. Of course, that would be totally hypocritical considering that we're supposed to oppose illegal border crossing....... but still..... it would be amusing and quite effective.
Nuke's got a point there. Maybe we could just catapult all the litter and crap they leave here, back over the border, or take it to our nearest Mexican Embassy here. I like the way you think, none-the-less. Cheers.
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