Mexico's President- Elect Says Fence Will Hurt US Visit

President Bush signed legislation that will allow 700 miles of fence to be built along the US - Mexican border only two days ago, and already Mexican President-elect Filipe Calderon is saying building a fence to keep out illegal immigrants is a mistake and will complicate his visit to the White House next month. He claims the fence will cause more deaths along the border and will make US - Mexico relations more difficult.



Of course the Mexican government doesn't want a fence built, they'll have to re-write their pamphlets they put out that tell Mexicans how to "immigrate" to the US.

Seriously though, of course they don't want a fence, illegal immigrants send billions of dollars back to Mexico, they don't want that flow of money to slow down because of an obstacle that may deter illegal immigrants from entering the US.

He claims he is worried about an increase of deaths along the border, it's actually about the flow of US money entering his country from illegal immigrants. How is the fence going to cause deaths anyway? Is it going to be an electric fence?

[edit on 27-10-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Well, the Mexican gov't has been "complicating" things for years now, with their support of illegal immingrants and drug smuggling into the US.

Maybe Mr. Calderon should focus his attention on his own southern border and examine how "open" it is to illegal immigrants.

No need to worry here.

There wont be any wall. And if there is, it will have enough tunnels every few feet so that they will still come here- Its election time and this sounds good, doesnt it?

From another article

Mexico Angered Over US Border Fence

An estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants were arrested last year trying to cross into the US via the border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

There's the reason for the fence right there, imagine all the red tape that went along with all those illegal immigrants being caught sneaking into the US. Just imagine all the paper work that would have to be filled out, all the hours to fill out the paperwork, holding them in detention, and then having to send them back to Mexico. I would imagine it costs at least $500 per person (it's probably twice this amount) to catch, process, detain, and then send each illegal immigrant back to Mexico. That would mean these 1.2 million illegal immigrants are costing the US over half a billion dollars a year.

Who do you think pays for all this, you know it's not the illegal immigrant, US tax payers. The fence will save the US money in the long run (if it works).

Mr Calderon said he deplored the move because "the fence doesn't resolve anything".

The problem to resolve is the poverty level in Mexico, it is not the US who should resolve that problem, but the Mexican government themselves.

The fence IS helping to resolve our illegal immigrantion problem though (again, if the fence works).

Mexico has pledged to challenge the fence at the United Nations, having already appealed to the Organization of American States.

Can the UN actually tell us we can't build a fence on our border? I hope not. That is not the sort of thing that should be in the UN's power to pass judgment on.

"Humanity committed a grave mistake in building the Berlin Wall," he said.

The Berlin wall was built so that NOBODY could cross the border. You can still cross the border from US to Mexico, only hopefully now thru check points so immigrants can pass into both the countries legally.

And a quote from the article that I thought summed it up pretty good.

"Ours is a nation of immigrants - we're also a nation of law," Mr Bush said.

[edit on 28/10/06 by Keyhole]

The only thing the fence is going to hurt is Mexico's economy and Mexico Knows this.

Billions of dollars are sent back to Mexico instead of being spent in the US and helping the US economy. This is going to hurt their economy, illegal immigrants are probably the larger group of Mexican immigrants sending money to Mexico.

But then again, wouldn't that make it an "illegal economy"? Earning money illegally?