Mexico is neither our enemy nor our "friend and ally to the south."
Published in the Denver Post, October 7, 2001
Mexico has an explosive population growth rate it refuses to address, more than tripling its numbers the last 50 years and currently on a 32-year doubling course. Mexico will not educate its children, except of course the children of the Mexican elites. And why should Mexico do the right things when with the acquiescence, even encouragement, of a U.S. government driving under the drunken influence of the cheap-labor lobby, Mexico is allowed simply to export north its endless, uneducated numbers. Friends don't dump on friends.
When the Mexican foreign minister said the relatively innocuous, "The United States has every right and reason to seek revenge," he was immediately excoriated, with calls for his resignation by Mexican legislators screaming, "It isn't our fight" and "We don't support America's war of terrorism" - hardly the friendly persuasions of an ally.
This year the U.S.-Mexican border has seen a 20 percent increase in border crossing attempts by non-Mexican illegal aliens from around the world. On the infamous Sept. 11, 96 Iraqis along with the usual thousands of Mexicans were staging runs at our unnecessarily porous border. That's why when the U.S. House of Representatives, including not just Congressman Tom Tancredo but four of Colorado's six members, voted overwhelming to put our military on our borders, that vote called "xenophobic and racist" by our friends down south. Meanwhile, ABC News reported "Mexican street vendors do brisk "bin Laden is my hero' T-shirt sales."
Mexico is not our enemy, but with "friends" like that
MARLENE GUERRERO
MIKE McGARRY
LakewoodThe writers are spokespersons for the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform.