10-14-06, 10:03 am
That is not to mention that he is leaving newly-elected Felipe Calderón with an agenda of confrontation, the least desirable thing for the new president after his precarious ascent to power in the midst of a questionable — although ratified — victory at the polls.
Mexican immigrants were utilized by the Congress and the administration as a bargaining chip for a Republican, conservative and racist electorate, which could deprive its fellow Republicans in the upcoming November 7 elections of the majority they enjoy in the Legislature if there was not an iron-fisted approach to closing off the borders with Mexico, thus losing the possibility of comprehensively organizing the migratory flow between the two countries. And this exposes once again the double standards of its hegemonic policy by admitting the existence of “good” walls and “bad” walls, “good” illegal immigrants and “bad” illegal immigrants.
It is worth recalling that for more than 40 years, the Berlin Wall was the favorite argument in campaigns of discredit against socialist systems in Eastern Europe and a media component of the Cold War.
Today, nevertheless, Washington and Tel Aviv are raising walls against Mexicans and Palestinians that are much larger than the 144 kilometers that separated West Berlin from East Berlin, without any Western leaders or transnational media corporations getting scandalized or making it a priority in their editorial pages.
There is even less analysis regarding the fact that Mexican immigrants who cross that border illegally are criminalized, while Cubans who often cross at the same point or by sea via person traffickers come under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which makes them legal and gives them the opportunity to be residents by the simple fact that they are utilized by the empire in its war against the Cuban Revolution.
The domestic juncture, once again, has become the motive for U.S. unreasonable foreign policy. No compromises or allies, just votes to satisfy the interests of the worst and most retrograde members of U.S. society.
George W. Bush’s bragging had to cede to those interests and shelve his own immigration policies, which continue to complicate the domestic political situation for him. On Sunday, September 8, Mexican immigrants — representing 12 million immigrants in total, half of them undocumented — took to the streets to protest the Wall of Shame, in an action that could be repeated and snowball.
From both sides, people are speaking out against the U.S. Congress and administration, including the Mexican Legislature itself, in which, unanimously — and virtually exceptionally — the eight parliamentary groups that comprise it harshly criticized the green light given to building the wall, qualifying it as unfortunate and wrong while at the same time arguing that it will not prevent illegal immigration, but instead encourage more complicated and deadly ways of crossing for those disposed to do so.
The Mexican government itself expressed its opposition because “of the resulting damage to bilateral relations.
Meanwhile, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, expressing his disagreement, wisely warned, “We can build the highest wall in the world, but it won’t fix our immigration system, which has failed.”
The Mexican Human Rights Commission emphasized that such a measure will encourage “more organized crime along the border, more insecurity, more sordid violence and more deaths of emigrants.”
In the just under six years of Fox’s rule, 3.5 million Mexicans illegally crossed the border, and 2,000 of them lost their lives, without counting deaths that were not officially reported.
The wall was approved. The emperor gave his stamp of approval to the legislators’ decision. Forty percent of the U.S.-Mexican border is to be heavily guarded, moreover, with the use of high technology, such as radar, infrared cameras, unmanned planes and a military patrol that will have no compassion.
The areas of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are to be reinforced, and $1.2 billion is the initial budget for the construction of the wall, which has an estimated total cost of $6 billion. Only unpopulated and inhospitable areas will not be fortified. That is where death will be inevitable.
Few, however, are talking about the crux of the matter. Undocumented Mexicans will be treated like criminals and terrorists because the wall will continue extending — 120 km already exist —, under the justification of U.S. national security, the same excuse used by Washington since that September 11 for its worst offenses around the world.
What the empire and regional governments like that of Vicente Fox guard silence over is that those undocumented immigrants are the concrete expression of economic inequality between the United States and its neighbors as the result of the imposition of a model that has historically impoverished and excluded Latin Americans in their own lands, and for whom, the territory north of the Río Grande has become their only option.
From Granma
