Who the fuck cares? If you're so concerned about fair trade then be concerned about China, Japan, et al. Why is it us that has to be fair and not the others? Do you think sending jobs to Mexico because they are free to pollute with abandon, and treat employees like shit,
fair trade? :eyebrow:

Again, they need to take control of their own nation... the solution to their problem and ours.

Maybe because the nations who are accused by virtually then entire world of unfair trading also have immigration problems? You don't see the world complaining so much about Japan or China.

Are you assuming that China and Japan are unfair traders? Fine. Why are those nations not subverting the Doha round of GATT?

60 Minutes last night had but another example of the myopia when we complain about the illegals. Federal agents were invited into Nebraska to sweep illegals from meat processing plants. Federal sweep was so successful that the region suffered a massive economic downturn. The Feds were strongly invited to leave so that the illegals would come back.

Of course, that is but another job just as easily performed outside the US. Just another job that we need illegal immigrants for - or a job that needs the US to eliminate another reason for the problem - immigrant quotas. Nebraska simply learned illegal immigrants are not the problem so many hype them to be. The real problem is in the American laws - that create an illegal immigrant problem.

The latest damning example being ethanol. We suddenly want lots of ethanol. And who pioneered the technology? Who has plenty of ethanol to sell? Brazil. So what do we do? Pass laws that put a 54% tariff on Brazil ethanol. It this action based in intelligence - or just the rich manipulating laws for their own purpose - and creating more need for illegal immigrants.

Bruce – as soon as I hear reasons from political hypsters being used, then t I doubt. By doubting absolute nonsense (such as terrorists massing at that border), then discovered is this major reason for an illegal immigration problem. US – with or without periods in that word.

This is where an intelligent Brazil says "Fuck you" and deals with other nations. It ain't hard.
So tired of people blaming the Gap for the clothes they are wearing... don't like em', don't shop there.

Brazil was one of so many countries loudly saying "FU" to US and France. The problem is that we are dumping agricultural products on the world thereby destroying jobs in those countries. We are so ignorant of what our 'bought and paid for' politician do that we don't even know about the 54% tariff on methanol.

I would guess that virtually every lurker here never heard of that 54% tariff - but heard repeatedly how illegal immigrants would become mass murdering terrorists. Somehow the reality is little known and the fears are widely publicized.

No wonder America would put up useless walls -cure a symptom - rather than address the problem. Too many want solutions without first learning what the problem really is. How many lurkers knew about Cancun long before reading about it here? Again demonstrates 'casting blame before learning of reality'.

Our skewed import/export practices are a problem... but having a secure border has nothing to do with it and I see no problem with it.

Our borders are as secure as they ever were. Any insecurity is Rush Limbaugh spin.

If you think for one minute that ignoring reasons for this problem will make our borders any safer, then you also believed the McNamara line defended S Vietnam. As Federal agent friends said, even the war on drugs was a myth. No matter how many agents, soldiers, Coast Guard cutters, and even nuclear subs; there was no significant reduction drug trafficking. Why? We used a big gun and big wall strategy to solve symptoms rather than address the problem.

What makes borders secure? Address the reason for problems; not solve a problem foolishly with big guns and big walls.

We don't have a border security problem - anymore than we did 30 years ago. What we have is denial that is only making illegal immigration necessary. The minute we start hyping fear of unsecured borders, then I know someone is being led by the nose (sound byte spin) rather than first asking some embarrassing simple questions. Spin doctors are hyping the 'unsecured border' hype so that you will not think logically.

For that matter, prove we have a border security problem. Not administration emotion. Show me with facts and numbers how our border security is so dangerous. How many buildings have been bombed? Where are all the rapes?

Our borders today are as unsecured as they were every decade previously. Why is that suddenly a problem? Do we cure symptoms - with simple minded solutions such as big walls and big guns? Or do we instead use intelligence to address the real problem?

BTW, what is the only way to have secure borders? Good, reliable, close friends on that border. I don’t see those who worry about ‘unsecure borders’ even for one minute talking about THE best source of secure borders. They hype big walls and big guns; a ‘big dic’ mentality that absolutely ignores the most significant reason for secure borders.

Exactly one word too many: these are nations that have immigration, full stop. Now think why they do, and weep for the cause of Blame America First that you so madly, sickly, daily espouse, you idiot.

NoBoxes, welcome to the club of "I've taken tw's measure, and he sucks bong water and eats his dandruff," whose membership grows every time tw tries to pay attention to about anything. He can't copyedit and he's quite mad, though he can simulate a well-founded mentality on just enough occasions for people to take him seriously, for a moment or two. He has one redeeming social value -- he shows in detail how sick and wrong the Blame America First point of view is. In disagreeing with loonies like tw, we strengthen our patriotism and win the GWOT, not least to piss these fools off so bad they have to jump off bridges.

Tw, dear patriotism catalyzer, how do you type so much with one forefinger up your nose?

On a general note, what Mexico needs is an economy that resembles that of the United States, rather than a replication of feudal Spain. Make a good living and everything else pretty much falls into place, or at least you've got a menu of options.

We have always had lax border/immigration security, it is just time to fix it. Thanks for bringing that up and making the point as well.
Have too many illegal immigrants or illegals we don't want, hell illegals at all? We have a border problem. It ain't hard, and security is the first thing we need to worry about... relations are something we only have control over 1/2 of.

No, no, no. You want proof? 11 M I L L I O N illegal aliens...at least. Nobody here is saying we are in danger of bombing or raping or they are dangerous..... except you.

Once more with feeling, THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE...period.

Is that clear enough? The reasons they are here are myriad and complex as you have stated, I think properly, ad infinitum. One of them being the Beef producers that are making a bundle off of them.

BUT, the fact remains, they are not supposed to be here.:smack:

Where in the world did you come up with THAT??? I live in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the most prolific food-producing areas in the world, and all we ever hear is how impossible it is for us to export foodstuffs to ANY country. Hell, California produces so many tons of garlic that they even have a festival in Gilroy, so we IMPORT garlic from China, that is how screwed up our balance of trade is in favor of the OTHER guys. The only meaningful food exports from this country are wheat and corn, which it seems that Russia and the former Communist Block countries can't get enough of, but otherwise OUR farmers compete against cheaper imports from everywhere else. WE have to obey sanitation and environmental and employer laws while the competition grows their stuff in sewage, does not get inspected, and uses slave labor. TW, you are from CA also, how in the world could you make a statement like that one???

I seem to recall that we import a lot more than we export ... given this, folks should be staying in their home countries in droves to make more money off of us.

Exactly, you have to look very hard now to find pure FL OJ and try to find US electronics... why? Because foreign markets have done here what TW says we are doing elsewhere, a myth. Cheap foreign goods hurt the US, not the other way around.
Find a factory producing something in the US other than on a nominal level... try it.
Yeah, they just eat-up US made cars, cheese, electronics, and every thing else other than music, jeans (oh... that's right, we don't make those any more) and movies...sure... sell us on that typing on your PC made where, on a chair made where, furniture made where, in clothes made where, listening to music packaged where, being lit by lights made where...? It's a FLOOOD of US goods!!! :vader1:

What does this have to do with illegals in this nation?
Not a damn thing.
They are ILLEGAL... so, they should get a visa or get out. It is not complicated.
All of this is the same crap as "his momma spanked him so it ain't his fault he robbed the Circle K and killed that poor lady"...
It's a "look over here" tactic and is just silly.

*Whether I praise, agree with, disagree with; or, criticize someone who posts here, I prefer to do it in an educated language.*

People with my formal training and experience in antiterrorism and counterterrorism are not likely to draw all the conclusions that tw has.

Those, like me, who have held a security clearance and accessed restricted information, refrain from drawing conclusions on controversial subjects to the degree of certainty that tw does when all they are working from is open sources.

People with my background realize that there are real needs and perceived needs and that more conflicts today result from disputes over perceived needs (ideologies - political, economic, social ... etc.) than from disputes over real needs (e.g. water, food, shelter ... etc.).

It is my opinion that tw's efforts to dispel the perceived needs that cause our actions to hinder our progress is a worthy endeavor. It is also my opinion that just enough of tw's conclusions are so seriously flawed as to make tw ineffective in that role. tw now only serves as entertainment for me; BUT HEY, THAT'S WHAT I CAME TO THE CELLAR FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE! I certainly didn't come here to solve the problems of the world. :cool:

What? Why you bastard, you killed Kenny, didn't you? :smack:

No, its not complicated. It just takes years to get a visa. It requires spending massive sums on lawyers because even the immigration forms are incomprehensible. They and their employers need those jobs filled now. As Nebraska demonstrated, once we start demanding this 'get a visa' nonsense without fixing a defective (and restricted) system, then that region of Nebraska went into recession.

You have a problem with illegals? Then your next post would demand we start with defective American immigration laws. Blaming the victim never solved problems.

Want to fix the visa problem? Start by eliminating nonsense quotas. But that would require political balls. Better to do as Nebraska did. Kick the feds out and employ more illegals. Again a problem that exists, in part, because American laws are defective. So instead we blame the victims. It is easier.

A dirty little secret. I also had those security clearances. So what? Does that make me a genius? Not for one minute. It just meant I was going stuff I don't talk about.

Every industry always makes complaints about how difficult it is to stay in business. It helped even during labor contract negotiations. That does not make it true. It’s too often nothing more than propaganda.

Meanwhile, tell us about what happened in Cancun. Tell us why the Doha round has missed another milestone. Where did I come up with that? I am simply repeating what virtually every nation in the world complained about so loudly as to walk out of an international conference three days early - in mass. This in part so that you would even learn how unfair they consider US trading practices. Why would they all walk out if America (and France) were not subverting these jobs throughout the world? Or maybe did you never learn about Cancun?

I don't give much credence to industries that are always crying unfair competition. If they cannot compete without government support, then they should move out. Curious. They would move to where Jose Mexicana desperately needs a job. Illegal immigration solved.

11 million productive people who would not be illegal if we started by fixing defective American laws - such as self serving, politically inspired, immigration quotas.

No their not suppose to be here. No, we are no supposed to give any corporate welfare to sugar, corn, cotton, and so many other agricultural industries. And no, America should not be dumping these crops on other nations thereby destroying overseas jobs. Finally, America that says oil prices are too high should not put a 54% tariff on Brazilian methanol. But then illegal immigration is being hyped as if it were the only problem AND that nothing we have done created that problem.

11 million would not be here if they could be doing those jobs at home – if America was a free trading nation in a spirit that has somehow gotten lost.

Why do you blame illegals for problem WE have created?

Employ more illegals? That is your solution to illegal immigration?:lol:
So when my son hits 13 I should just give him the key to the liquor cabinet as a solution to a late night out... right? Makes perfect sense.

if we have the jobs, then yes. However do you really think there is this mass of illegals who just can't get into America?

If you don't like illegals in America, then why are you not demanding those industries that cannot survive without those illegals move to where those ilegals live? Oh. American trade restrictions means those businesses - ie meat packing - must stay in America.

It is only speculation on your part that eliminating immigration quotas would only mean more illegals. Reality- it means a greater percentage of America's future population will be more productive. Are you opposed to more productive Americans?

Hey, now tw's saying what i said from the start, to some extent...

Make it easier to be a LEGAL immigrant, and we wont have a problem with illegals.

Really! In the US government system a person holds only one security clearance. It can be upgraded, downgraded, rescinded and reinstated. It can even have special billeting attached; but, a person holds only one security clearance.

In the US government system [which granted mine], a security clearance doesn't just mean that a person was doing stuff they don't talk about. It means that a person knows what others are doing; but, aren't talking about. It means a person can recognize open source information that's not in the best interest of the US government to talk about. Additionally, it means a person can access globally acquired information that simply isn't available from outside of official channels and know what's actually going on in the world when open source users don't.

In the US government system, a security clearance doesn't make a person a genius; however, it can enable access to information which can significantly expand the scope of a person's knowledge to the point that the person becomes a bona fide subject matter expert rather than just a self appointed one (an armchair quarterback so to speak).

The differences in our descriptions of what a security clearance means prompts these legitimate questions:

Which country's government granted you your security clearances?

What is the definition of the acronym DSAR in this context?

Inquiring minds want to know! :rolleyes:

PS: It was self defense, he called me a bastard and the truth was killing me.

A distinction without a difference. You could just as easily say that a person only has one clearance at a time, and it is replaced or revoked.

You would not even mention your security clearance which is necessary if that clearance was of a level that actually provided special information. Security clearance means nothing to immigration issues. Used as some inflated claim that somehow you have more knowledge? Bull. There is nothing about America's immigration problem that is top secret. Citing a security clearance to proclaim yourself more knowledgeable is a 'blow hard' effort to sound smart. The fact that you are even talking about your security clearance suggests how low that clearance really is.

Bullshit, it isn't our responsibility to solve everyone else's problems. All these third world countries are whining that we don't fix their problems. Just because we don't fix them then we caused them? No way.
It's about taking care of this country. I don't care if they all piss and moan about us, we take plenty of lumps (and always have) in the "free trade" market.
Move more operations out of the country? Bite your tongue.:eyebrow:

It's a distinction that I "could just as easily" have made to see if TW has held a security clearance with:

a. another government

b. more than one government

c. any non-government entities (e.g. privately issued corporate clearances).

Just because you don't recognize the "difference" these factors can make in assessing someone's credibility doesn't mean that everyone else has limited vision too.

Actually, I used my own security clearance to demonstrate why people may believe that there is often more to important issues than your open source information can accurately represent.

Not for you; because, regardless of security clearance, information access is granted on a need to know basis anyway. Security clearance can be very important to those who deal with tangent issues that affect immigration policy (whether you think those issues should affect immigration or not).

I've not made that claim for myself. I've not even stated a position on immigration.

You would have no way of knowing that and you likely never will. That was just another way of putting your previous statement "Security clearance means nothing to immigration issues." I'll indulge your redundancy and put my reply another way. There is significant restricted information regarding, at least, other issues that impact on immigration policy.

I've made no such proclamation about myself. I do infer that people working from only open sources may not be as knowledgeable as they could; or, should be.

Your statement is absurd. The US President has unlimited security clearance and he flaunts it whenever he cites national security reasons for not giving the press/public requested information. There is no correlation between the topical discussion of security clearances and anyone's clearance level. Additionally, this was just another way of putting your previous statement "You would not even mention your security clearance which is necessary if that clearance was of a level that actually provided special information." See my reply to that.

PS: Two redundancies in the same paragraph! TW, I am disappointed. As entertainment goes, I had thought you were a class act. Now I'm getting bored. Please continue to provide quality entertainment, not quantity entertainment.

PPS: I had already classified your presentations as For Entertainment Use Only. I may have to assign the same classification to your integrity since you didn't answer either of the 2 questions I asked of you in a previous post.

Don't assume my vision is more limited in that regard.

You have hyped a theoretical security clearance only to complain. If you have facts, then post them. If you have no facts, then stop whining. It's like listening to a child crying - not one useful fact posted.

They did not make these problems. We did. And then some would be so myopic as to blame the victims. We created (in part) this illegal immigration problem. Its our problem - not theirs. Rather than fix the problem, we do as Westmoreland proclaimed - solve the problem with body counts - the Big Wall and Big Guns solution. Attacking symptoms with a frontal assault will not be any more effective than a Great Wall in China. Why? To fix a problem, one must first identify reasons for problems. And so many of the reasons are simply US.

I rather doubt we are as unilateraly to blame as you suggest tw. I'm not saying we had no impact on the Mexican business market, but to suggest that these people are here because we have single-handedly destroyed their ability to survive in Mexico is not true. I also question whether illegal aliens really cannot support themselves at all in Mexico. The issue of wage is always better wages, not wages period. As long as we offer better working conditions and wages people will still cross the border illegally, and I don't think that's going to change. The real question is whether we will enforce our laws and make it impossible for illegals to be hired here.

Notice that I never said we are 'unilaterally' to blame. We have a major part in creating the problem. If we want to address the problem, we should start with what we have done to create the problem- not solve its symptoms. History is ripe with proof about how big walls don't solve the problem. Even worse, big walls historicallyimply a wall builder has created his own problem rather than addressing reasons for the problem. Did we forget the Maginot line or the Berlin Wall as previous historical examples?

We did enforce laws to make it impossible for illegals to be hired. It only so destroyed that Nebraska regional economy that the feds were asked to leave. The illegals are not a problem. Only problem is that they must come here illegally.

Yeah, the wall only kept the mongols out for a few hundred years, not very successful at all huh?

Just sayin'...

Something tw is not yet aware of is that nothing done north of the Rio Grande is actually striking at the root of the problem: that Mexico's economy less resembles that of the United States than it does that of medieval Spain, whose own economic development was stunted by the Reconquista's centuries of warfare which absorbed energies that might otherwise have gone to developing and creating wealth, and whose development after 1492 was poisoned by such a flood of New World gold as to cause gold itself to suffer inflation, especially on the Iberian peninsula. Latin America's economies were all built on the Spanish model of great estates owned by the wealthy few and leaving practically the entire remainder of the population as landless tenant farmers and workers, poverty-stricken, with little stake in the economy and next to no incentive to improve or develop it, because their property rights such as they were were not secure, and they got no profit nor benefit from devising improvement. It is difficult to see how the Spanish colonists could have come up with a better economic model than the one they implemented, it being the only one these landholding, noble hidalgos had any experience of. It didn't help at all that the great majority of the Spanish colonists were either petty nobility or not so petty, would-be nobility and younger sons, and all trying to set themselves up as estateholders, all the while having very few people trying to get from Spain to the New World for the purpose of bettering themselves, such as the English-language colonies further north had.

Want our immigration problems to go away? Make a Mexican middle class you can see without a microscope. This is at least 99% of the problem. We ourselves have very little "part in creating the problem." It grew naturally from Mexico's five-century-long screwup.

Here is an example of tw's acute emotional immaturity, and I've slapped tw around on that before. This sort of belittlement tactic isn't too out of line for a fourteen-year-old, tw -- but it is altogether grotesque in a man of fifty. It's one of a fistful of reasons why you aren't respected. In fundamental ways, you have never become an adult. If your thinking's actually good enough, you need not bolster it with abusive language. Nor need you indulge in hysterics.

I agree with NoBoxes, though, in the effect on one's thinking that having held a clearance has, from my own experience in holding a very high-level clearance and some very close-held accesses. You have some notion of what may be happening behind the scenes, and it restrains any tendency to blow off.

I got a flat tire from picking up a nail that dropped off a truck that was carting away a house that was torn down because a company moved out of the community causing a local depression and slums which let to the house deteriorating to the point it had to be torn down.
Should I rail against the runaway company?
NO, I should change the fucking tire.:smack:

Yeah, Bruce, change the tire. Make US employers accountable for the employees they hire. How hard is it? "Your work permit, please?" How difficult is this for ANY employer to say? The words are all two syllables or less. Granted, there are forged documents going around, but the typical wetback can't afford them.

The courts and law enforcement would be much less overwhelmed if they went after the law breakers in THIS country - all those flag waving Americans who KNOWINGLY hire illegals. :eyebrow:

Sound reasoning Urbane Guerrilla. Not only can you recognize propaganda embedded in a deluge of benign facts, you have also acquired useful character assessment skills. tw could pass as an intellectual high school or college student due to that apparent "emotional immaturity." (and tw's profile is skeletonized). This begs the question: is it immaturity; or, something else?

tw is not unlike many second worlders that I've met (I've met quite a few in my time, including the President of one Central American country). They have second world ethics. Among these ethics is that whenever one group has a problem, they instinctively look for another group to blame it on. Another second world ethic is that other groups alway owe your group something. Note tw's virtual motto: ask not what the Mexicans can do for themselves, ask what you can do for the Mexicans. I also found it interesting that in a thread about immigration, tw's focus is on Mexicans. tw isn't campaigning for other nationalities; or, the improvement of their homelands. This reflects yet another second world ethic: common ethnicity, nationality, religion ... etc. trumps common situation (like the American Revolutionaries had). This analogy could go on and on ...

Your analysis is roughly in line with Tonchi's. Besides working in Central America, I've written an area study on one Central American country and read US Government area study handbooks on others; also, Mexico. All of these sources support the conclusion that there is little to be gained by pouring resources into such countries until they achieve more significant internal reform.

Amusingly, tw still hasn't quite figured out that I never intended to engage in the immigration debate. I recognized early on that tw is a fanatic on this subject who is simply proselytizing in the Cellar. My only purpose was to moderate tw's definitiveness so that other Cellarites would be aware of tw's use of propaganda technique.

Well, thank you for your insight Urbane Guerrilla. While I haven't been here long enough to make a definitive diagnosis of tw, I'm hoping that rehabilitation will be somewhere in the treatment plan. The prognosis is guarded.

No, the only thing you've slapped is your keyboard. Sitting there basking in your own witty repartee doesn't make you any more credible to the reader.
You draw on your opinion and the opinion of US government experts on Latin America for your conclusions. We the readers, have no basis to judge your opinion and the government experts on Latin America have been, historically, obscenely wrong.

TW, long winded and abrasive, at least cites his sources and gives the reasoning behind his views, beyond opinion. I don't believe he was advocating dumping resources into Latin America, only leveling the playing field so they can compete with us(US). I don't agree we have the responsibility to help them compete against us but that's just my opinion.
I do respect the fact that he never claims, Well, trust me, because I know shit you don't. :2cents:

Also, UG... I personally find it pretty immature to assume that everyone under the age of what, twenty? twenty-five? is immature and incapable of engaging in a reasonable debate. I know freshmen who are better at debating than many here, and smarter than... some people here. I'm not much over fourteen, UG, and here I am, holding my own, for the most part, with a bunch of people twice my age. I don't presume to have near the experience or knowledge some of you have, but I know what I know. tw is a lot more mature than a lot of people I know, just somewhat long-winded and entrenched in his views.

xoxoxoBruce, did you miss this part of my previous post?

Your statement, "You draw on your opinion and the opinion of US government experts on Latin America for your conclusions.", was completely irresponsible. An area study resource that I've used [one of many resources], previously adopted for use and distributed by the US government, was prepared by Foreign Area Studies, The American University, under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program (note the paragraphs titled Academics and School of International Service (SIS).

In one C.A. country area study handbook, with only a few hundred pages, the bibliography is 18 pages long and cites many in-country sources (civilian and government) in addition to both kinds of US sources. There is even a disclaimer to the effect that it should not be construed as an official government position, policy, or decision. Might the US government ultimately somehow exercise editorial control? Possibly, just as tw selects what information he presents to you.

Keep in mind that area studies are only base documents. They can; however, be useful in putting todays events into perspective. There are continuing area assessments to be researched which are used to revise the published area studies every decade or two. All of this may not even include classified information not available to the authors. If you want to scrutinize a basic foreign country study prepared by a "government" agency, you can order your own from Uncle Sam. They are currently prepared by Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under their Country Studies/Area Handbook Program. They contain enough information (especially historical) to expand one's perspective on contemporary issues just as having access to classified information expands one's perspective. tw has presented neither of these concepts. tw selects and presents only chronological bites which support his agenda.

xoxoxoBruce, I realize that you are just trying to do what's right (fair and equitable) from your perspective. I'm not convinced that tw is just trying to do the same. tw gives the me the impression that to him, the end always justifies the means. When perspectives differ, methodologies take on increasing importance. We have to avoid falling into the same trap that tw has (i.e. presenting our own conclusions as infallible).

BTW, first you say "We the readers, have no basis to judge your opinion ..."; then, turn right around say "Well, trust me, because I know shit you don't." Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black? :lol2:

No. I didn't miss your speech about not wanting to enter the immigration debate but couldn't pass up a chance to dump on TW.

That's very funny when you edit out and replace it with; Oh, I see. I'm irresponsible for pointing out you were using government information that has been historically, obscenely wrong, but you're not irresponsible for using it. :rolleyes: Well OK, at least you cited some sources.

xoB,

I knew you would enjoy the humor and the paradox; because, THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT (I've made no secret about that being what I'm here for). Sometimes, I may even do the entertaining! Turnabout is fair play. ;)

NB

Sure, NB. That's why we don't take you seriously. ;)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/wo...th&oref=slogin
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...co.xlarge1.jpg
Migrants from Guatemala cross a stream into southern Mexico, a common route for those seeking jobs in Mexico or passage to the United States.

By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: June 18, 2006

TAPACHULA, Mexico, June 11 — Quiet as it is kept in political circles, Mexico, so much the focus of the United States' immigration debate, has its own set of immigration problems. And as elected officials from President Vicente Fox on down denounce Washington's plans to deploy troops and build more walls along the United States border, Mexico has begun a re-examination of its own policies and prejudices.

Here at Mexico's own southern edge, Guatemalans cross legally and illegally to do jobs that Mexicans departing for the north no longer want. And hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from nearly two dozen other countries, including China, Ecuador, Cuba and Somalia, pass through on their way to the United States.

Dense jungle makes establishing an effective law enforcement presence along the line impossible. Crossing the border is often as easy as hopping a fence or rafting for 10 minutes. But, under pressure from the United States, Mexico has steadily increased checkpoints along highways at the border including several posts with military forces.

The Mexican authorities report that detentions and deportations have risen in the past four years by an estimated 74 percent, to 240,000, nearly half along the southern border. But they acknowledged there had also been a boom in immigrant smuggling and increased incidents of abuses and attacks by corrupt law enforcement officials, vigilantes and bandits. Meanwhile, the waves of migrants continue to grow.

Few politicians have made public speeches about such matters. But Deputy Foreign Minister Gerónimo Gutiérrez recently acknowledged that Mexico's immigration laws were "tougher than those being contemplated by the United States," where the authorities caught 1.5 million people illegally crossing the Mexican border last year. He spoke before a congressional panel to discuss "Mexico in the Face of the Migratory Phenomenon."

In an interview, Mr. Gutiérrez said Mexico needed to "review its laws in order to have more legitimacy when we present our points of view to the United States."

Another high-level official in the Foreign Ministry was more blunt, but spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as undermining Mexico in its dealings with the United States.

"Are we where we should be in the treatment of migrants?" the official said. "No we are not. But is the Mexican government aware of that? Yes, and it is something we are trying to correct."

Unlike the immigration debate in the United States, where immigration opponents and proponents bandy about estimated costs and benefits for everything from the agriculture industry to suburban horticulture, hard numbers on the effects of illegal migration on Mexico are rare. A trip to Chiapas raises questions about whether Mexico practices at home what it preaches abroad.

If the major characters in the migration drama unfolding in Chiapas could be captured in a collage, it would include a burly, white-haired farmer named Eusebio Ortega Contreras, who did not hide that most of the workers who picked mangos in his fields for $6 a day were underage, undocumented Guatemalans. Indians from Chiapas used to do these jobs, Mr. Ortega said. But in the past five years, they have been migrating to the United States. And lately, he said, he has begun to worry that he is going to lose the Guatemalans, too.

"We know that the conditions we provide our workers are not adequate," said Mr. Ortega, president of the local fruit growers' association, who showed a reporter the meager shelter he can offer: an awning off a hay shed for a roof and lined-up milk crates for beds. "But costs are going up. Production is going down. We barely earn enough money to maintain our orchards, much less improve conditions for the workers."

Joaquín Aguilar Vásquez, a 22-year-old father of two, would be standing with his knapsack in front of a passenger bus for the northern border, because jobs here at home barely kept his family fed. He said he started migrating two years ago to work in an electronics factory in Tijuana, where he earned $12 a day and saved enough to build a house. When he reaches Tijuana this time, he said, he will hire a smuggler to sneak him to a construction job in New Orleans.

There would be a skinny unidentified Chinese citizen, chain-smoking in the new migration detention center after being caught with more than 50 of his countrymen stowed away among banana crates in the back of a tractor-trailer. Next to him would be a group of Cuban rafters who floated to Mexico because of the increased United States Coast Guard presence around Florida. And there would be a flock of Central Americans, so scruffy and tough they seemed right out of "Oliver Twist," hopping a freight train north.

In the collage, Edwin Godoy, a 21-year-old Honduran who said he was deported last year from Miami and separated from his wife and two children, would be posing in front.

"They call this train the beast," Mr. Godoy shouted in English to get attention. "Do you want to know why? Because it can either take you where you want to go, or it can kill you. Some of us won't make it out of here alive."

At the start of his presidency nearly six years ago, Mr. Fox pledged that, as part of negotiations with the United States for legal status for illegal Mexican immigrants, this country would crack down on the flow of illegal immigrants crossing from Guatemala. He talked of a so-called Southern Plan that was to be an "unprecedented effort," and the United States offered an estimated $2 million a year to help Mexico deport illegal Central American immigrants.

George Grayson, an expert on Mexico at the College of William and Mary who has made several research trips to Mexico's southern border, said little had come of those efforts. He described this border as an "open sesame for illegal migrants, drug traffickers, exotic animals and Mayan artifacts."

And Mr. Grayson said the United States ended its support for deportation after the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, which instead provides some technical aid and training to increase security at Mexico's southern border checkpoints.

Mexican migration officials acknowledged that they had fewer than 450 agents patrolling the five states along this frontier, which has some 200 official and unofficial crossing points.

The rains came recently and flooded most rivers, making parts of this border as treacherous as the Sonora Desert, the deadly Arizona gateway where more than 460 migrants died of exposure and dehydration last year. But human rights advocates and government migration officials say nature does not do as much harm here as crime and corruption.

The Rev. Ademar Barilli, a human rights advocate who, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, runs a shelter for migrants in Tecún Umán, a Guatemalan border city, said that unlike crossing patterns at the northern border, migrants here did not typically go far into remote areas, hoping to avoid the authorities. Instead, he said, the migrants try to bribe their way through.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ico.large2.jpg
Luis J. Jimenez for The New York Times
Mexico has its own immigration problems. An illegal immigrant from Cuba, center, in a cell in Tapachula, is among those awaiting deportation.

"A migrant with money can make it across Mexico with no problems," Father Barilli said. "A migrant with no money gets nowhere."

Mexican law authorizes only federal migration agents and federal preventive police officers to inspect cars for illegal migrants and to demand proof of legal status. But Mexican authorities acknowledge that migrants face run-ins with every level of law enforcement.

Migrants are also routinely detained by machete-wielding farmers, who extort their money by threatening to turn them over to the police. So many female migrants have been raped or coerced into sex, the authorities said, that some begin taking birth control pills a few months before embarking on the journey north.

Few are punished for such crimes, the authorities added, because the migrants rarely report them.

"This society does not see migrants as human beings, it sees them as criminals," said Lucía del Carmen Bermúdez, coordinator for a government migration agency called Grupo Beta. "The majority of the attacks against migrants are not committed by authorities, although there is still a big problem with corruption in Mexico. Most violence against migrants comes from civilians."

Grupo Beta is a uniquely Mexican creation; established 16 years ago in Tijuana to protect migrants. It was a time, said Pedro Espíndola, the director of Grupo Beta, when Mexican migration to the United States began to soar, and smuggling groups evolved from small-time, community-based operations into transnational criminal cartels.

Grupo Beta was expanded to the southern border in 1996, Mr. Espíndola said, when throngs of Central American migrants, aiming for the United States, began hopping freight trains in Tapachula. Train stations became easy staging areas for gangs to ambush migrants. Hospitals became overwhelmed with men and women who had fallen beneath moving locomotives, often losing limbs to their wheels.

Last year, Grupo Beta reported, 72 migrants died crossing the southern border, mostly in accidents on trains or highways. Human rights groups say the real figure is more than twice as high. And in the 16 years since one woman, Olga Sánchez Martínez, began selling bread and embroidery to operate a shelter and then a clinic for migrants, she said, she has treated more than 2,500 migrants with machete and gunshot wounds or severed limbs.

Last year's rains did so much damage to the bridges and roads around Tapachula that the train does not stop here anymore. But that has not stopped the migrants.

Some detour north of here, the authorities said, to train stations that run through the state of Tabasco. But migrants like Mr. Godoy, the Honduran, have so far refused to abandon this route. He walked eight days along the tracks that run from here to the station in Arriaga, about 120 miles away. Then he, along with at least 300 others, hopped a freight train that leaves there almost nightly, in plain view of evening traffic, the local police and the train's engineer.

It was Mr. Godoy's third attempt in three months. He said he had been caught by United States Border Patrol officers in Laredo, Tex., on each of his previous trips.

"I am not going to give up," he said. "I had a good life in Miami. I got no criminal record. I never hurt nobody. I'm just trying to be with my kids, you know? That's all I need."

Correction: June 20, 2006

An article on Sunday about the difficulties Mexico faces in policing its southern border referred imprecisely to a southern state where Mexico has immigration agents. Yucatán is near the border but not on it.

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Luis J. Jimenez. for The New York Times
Eduardo Esobar, a Salvadoran migrant, hopped a train in Arriaga, Chiapas. He said he was headed to the United States to search for work.

BTW... http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/wa...html?th&emc=th

:lol: :drunk: :biglaugha :tinfoil:
http://www.spp.gov/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060331.html
Meximericanida!

Nauseating.

The only time I ever thought Bush made any sense at all was when he said, "It's just not practical," in regards to the rounding up of 11 million people. I think (hope) this supposed insider was just talking out of his butt when he said that the path to citizenship idea would eventually be abandoned. It would be such a bad move all around--expensive for the U.S. in terms of deportation costs and loss of productive potential citizens, and outright shameful treatment of people who work hard and ought to be allowed the same opportunities as other immigrant groups before them.

He's not up for reelection so he has to do what is best for the party members that are. He must be getting signals from somewhere.:eyebrow:

Except he's already warned them that this will screw their chances for getting more Hispanics into the GOP.

They don't care if their home district doesn't have hispanics, they just worry about their own election. :)

And here was li'l ole me thinking that the white Americans were the illegal immigrants who wrongfully took over a whole continent by theft , violence , and deliberate spread of disease !
Trawling through this thread , I finally see the truth . I see that the Mexicans for example are the real baddies ! Thank you for opening my eyes .

Hmmmm, kind of hard to call European immigrants 'illegal' when that term is dependant on a preexisting structure of laws and an actual country to make them, neither of which were here when they arrived.

So , am I right in thinking that one should win ( by whatever means possible) and THEN write the rules , 9th Engineer ?

And if a rule is inconvenient (ie a treaty giving the natives some land that turns out to be valuable after all), you just ignore it.

Hey , Happy Monkey ! If it works , don't fix it !