MAKING MIGRATION (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION) "safe, legal, orderly and dignified."

TRANSLATION: MERGE MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES.

See transcript of press conference

STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN DENIES EVERYTHING.

THAT IS HIS JOB

Listen to the audio of the press conference

Brownsville, TX

INS inspector arrested on immigrant smuggling charges
Federal agents on Thursday arrested U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service inspector Eduardo Rodriguez of Brownsville on suspicion of participating in a Brownsville-based immigrant smuggling ring. -- "Associates of Rodriguez would drive the aliens across the bridge when he was manning the vehicle inspection booth," U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Norma Estimbo Lacy said. "At other times, Rodriguez would provide INS entry permits to aliens who would pay his associates. Rodriguez would then receive cash payments and other items."

London Daily Telegraph

Fox models his vision of North America on EU
Vicente Fox of Mexico has a vision for North America that Europeans will find familiar: a vast borderless continent, stripped of trade barriers, where people, goods and services flow freely and a dollar is worth the same from the hot south to the icy north. -- In his first interview with a British newspaper, Fox laid out a vision that has already caused shivers in Washington and cold sweats in Ottawa. -- "In trying to see where we should go with NAFTA, one experience which has been very successful would be the European experience," he told The Telegraph...

We Get E-Mail

Re: Immigration and Gunner DeLay
To the Arkansas Demograt-Gazette: Editor Paul Greenberg recently defaulted on any claim to enjoy Pulitzer Prize standing. Recent offerings regarding the illegal alien invasion are punctuated with outright untruths, innuendos, distortions, and incendiary remarks. His background would indicate he would champion civility, truth and objectivity.  Not so. -- Comparing the illegal invasion with the civil disobedience at Central High in the 50's is bogus. Senator DeLay making illegal immigration the defining issue of the 3rd District's Congressional campaign has exposed an ugly side.

New York Press

Mexican Standoff
The Bush proposal to offer amnesty to some three million Mexicans living illegally in the United States (some estimate it at seven million) is motivated, we are told, by Republican determination to win the Hispanic vote. Hispanics are allegedly fast becoming the most important voting bloc in the U.S. Given the closeness of last year's vote, Republican strategists explain, Bush will need every Hispanic vote he can get in order to win in 2004. -- It is hard to believe the Bush people take such nonsense seriously. According to the Census Bureau, Hispanics are 12.5% of the population.

Insight Mag - Symposium

Q: Should Congress grant an amnesty to illegal immigrants?
Shiela Jackson Lee -- Yes: Make it easier for longtime, taxpaying, law- abiding residents to get legal status.

Tom Tancredo -- No: Don't reward lawbreakers, overburden social services and waste taxpayer monies.
[Discuss these viewpoints on The Free Republic forum]

Migration News/Free Republic

Mexican Immigrant Profile (Avg. Education Level 7th Grade)
.... The NPC estimated that 90 percent of Mexican-born workers in the US are employed in nonfarm jobs, which makes them more likely to establish permanent U.S. residency. According to the NPC, this means that Mexican migrants are changing from rural and unskilled workers toward urban and professional workers, a brain drain for Mexico. --- The NPC reported that the average years of schooling of migrants is seven years, compared to 7.8 years for all Mexican adults.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Editorial

Immigration and Gunner DeLay
Gunner DeLay, the state senator from Fort Smith, may have been more accurate than he ever suspected when he called illegal immigration the defining issue of the race to succeed Asa Hutchinson in Congress. It certainly seems to have defined him. Until he spoke about, or rather against, immigration, this contest had been marked only by the standard campaign fliers. Now everybody's started talking about an actual issue, one that might matter to voters. While he was at it, Gunner DeLay may also have defined himself right out of the contest by not only raising the question of illegal immigration but exploiting it. [Free registration required]

Orange County Register

Balance stressed in border approach
U.S. and Mexican officials said Thursday that they're making progress in the quest for a more liberal immigration policy between the two countries, but they downplayed expectations that when the two presidents meet next month they'll announce a plan to make that happen. -- Colin Powell made statements that could hearten both those who favor legalizing undocumented immigrants and those who oppose such a move. "Our most important obligation is to those who follow the rules and abide by the law," Powell said. "The only path must be the legal path."

Riverside Press-Enterprise

Ex-braceros keep pushing for lost wages
As Mexican and U.S. leaders hammer out an agreement on immigration and guest workers, dozens of Inland families gathered Thursday in San Bernardino to remind officials of a debt owed to previous "guest workers" -- the 2.5 million farm and railroad laborers the U.S. hired from Mexico between 1942 and 1964. -- Many of the former contract workers, known as braceros, claim they are owed millions of dollars withheld from their wages as part of a savings plan. -- Bracero organizers argue the U.S. and Mexico should hold off on any new guest- worker agreement.....

Glenn Spencer to Bush

Re: Amnesty program
I am extremely disappointed in the positions taken by Secretary of State Powell and Attorney General Ashcroft on the problem of illegal immigration. --- We face this serious problem because of eight years of deliberate neglect of immigration law enforcement by the Clinton Administration. Democrats benefit from adding millions of desperately poor to the voter rolls, Republicans do not. Allowing this corruption of the voter rolls through what can only be described as an amnesty program would be suicidal for the Republican Party and for America herself.

L.A. Times

Would-be ethnic powerbrokers angered by census results
Ethnic advocates for Hispanic nationals from Central and South America who live in the U.S. were upset by preliminary Census data that show stagnation or decline in the number of people who self- identified their national origin by specific country. 1.1 million people in California selected the category 'Other Hispanic / Latino,' which is viewed as a "catchall." The Census form, which had a write in box for nationality, is blamed by some ethnic advocates for harming their power base.

We Get E-Mail

Trouble in the Bronx
I am an African American who lives in the Bronx, a New York City borough, or county, with 1.3 million people. There are many Mexicans here in the Bronx. Many, perhaps at least 100,000. And from what I see on a daily basis, I fear that in opening the borders between Mexico and the U.S. President Bush and his inner circle are sowing the seeds for the destruction of the United States as we have known it and its ultimate (I can't believe I'm writing this, but I believe it) annexation to Mexico.

Chula Vista, CA

3 Mexican men, 1 a cop, are held in heroin sting
Three Mexican citizens, at least one of them a police officer, have been arrested for allegedly delivering black tar heroin to an undercover agent in Chula Vista, Drug Enforcement Agency officials said yesterday. The arrests follow an investigation, focusing on the Mexican state of Sinaloa, showing that heroin has been smuggled in vehicles with hidden compartments through border crossings, primarily into Arizona, according to DEA officials. The men face charges of possession of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for sale, and conspiracy, officials said.

Arizona Republic

EEOC suit unlikely to pay off Hispanic workers
A $3.5 million discrimination settlement against a defunct Gilbert art wholesaler probably will never reach the 35 Hispanic women, most undocumented, who won it. Under a settlement agreement reached in U.S. District Court, other creditors of the bankrupt Quality Art, Inc., get their money first. The judgment ends a lawsuit filed last year by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing the company of subjecting female employees of Mexican or Guatemalan origin to searches, deportation threats, harassment, lower wages and segregation.

Phoenix

Gov. Hull to call special session on illegal alien health care
Gov. Jane Hull expects to call the Legislature into special session next month to reinstate a $20 million emergency services program for illegal immigrants, covering the cost by shifting funds from other health care items in the state budget. The program was deleted from this fiscal year's state budget after the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services agreed to take over funding. The move came as state and federal officials worked together to expand the state's health- care program for the poor.

We Get E-Mail

Re: GOP Pandering to Hispanics
Hello Glenn, A few days ago I had a discussion with one of my many cousins about Mexicans. I made the statement that: "There is no way anyone can change the politics of a Mexican voter in time to save the Republican party." His reply was simply: "The Mexican people are hard workers and will make very good Republicans!" He wouldn't discuss the issue any further. My cousin is a big lawyer South Orange County. -- His teachings all through college were of the extreme liberal persuasion and he is 47 years old.

L.A. Times

Hernandez touts plan to head off illegals
Mexico's point man for migrants living abroad ended a three- day visit to California on Thursday, decrying deaths at the border and urging successful emigrants to invest in impoverished pockets of Mexico as a way to stem the exodus of job- seekers. Juan Hernandez, named by Vicente Fox to head the cabinet- level Office for Mexicans Abroad, said investment in 90 migrant- sending zones that have been targeted for special economic help could reverse the shortage of decent jobs that drives many to make their way illegally into the U.S......

El Paso Times

Mexican senators come to study border issues
Five Mexican senators will be in El Paso this weekend to learn more about U.S.- Mexico border issues, the U.S. immigration system and the U.S. justice system, said the visitors' host, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D- Texas. "President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox have committed to work with each other on issues like immigration, economic development and the environment. It is equally important that myself and my colleagues also develop a relationship with our Mexican colleagues," said Reyes....

Mexico/Guatemala Border

New border plan to cut repeat crossings
Mexico has unveiled a new plan to deport undocumented Guatemalan migrants to their hometowns instead of just dumping them at the border, in a bid to decrease repeat illegal crossings that can risk lives. "Safe repatriation to their places of origin is the new policy," Javier Moctezuma Barragan, an Interior Ministry undersecretary, said at a special ceremony. "[Reader comment: The US should follow Mexico's example. When we deport illegals we should ship them to the southern end of Mexico. It worked in the 50s.]

Overshadowed by Stem Cell News

Pentagon Settles on China Payment
Despite congressional opposition, the Pentagon is paying China about $34,000 to cover some costs incurred after a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet and the American crew was detained, officials said Thursday. -- A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the payment "covers a couple days" of the Navy EP-3 crew's stay on Hainan Island but not the entire 11 days they were held.China had asked for $1 million for plane- related expenses and lodging for the crew.

LewRockwell.com

Bush Amnesty Plan Will Bury Republicans Forever
Not many realize it yet, but immigration is the mother of all issues. Every political, economic, and social issue facing the country today and most importantly in the future depends on how we resolve the immigration issue. Other issues, such as taxes, education, government spending, judicial appointments, abortion, gun control, energy, and national defense, receive much more attention by the media and politicians. Yet national policy on all these issues and many more depend upon how the immigration issue is resolved.

Washington Post

Temporary Worker Plan Seen as Likely
Top U.S. and Mexican officials met yesterday to develop an immigration reform plan that they said would likely include a temporary guest worker program, but Mexican officials warned they might not reach agreement in time for President Vicente Fox's visit here next month. A temporary worker program that would include ways for some workers to gain permanent residency remains a possibility, State Colin L. Powell said after he, John D. Ashcroft and INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar met with Jorge Castaneda and Santiago Creel for about an hour.

Washington Post

Unions Lobby for Mexican Legalization
Organized labor is pressing for legalization of millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States, criticizing a temporary work program the Bush administration is considering. -- "It's a nonstarter and we have said as much to the United States Congress and the Mexican government," said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union. "Our first and second priority is making sure everyone here now is legalized."

Salt Lake Tribune

Immigrant Talks Progressing Slowly
Senior U.S. and Mexican officials exploring ways to legalize some of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States emerged from talks Thursday saying progress is being made on a variety of fronts. But they put the brakes on hopes that both countries will be ready to unveil a detailed plan during Mexican President Vicente Fox's state visit next month. -- "We're in no hurry," said Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The News - Mexico City

Legislators favor amnesty for Mexican migrants
Ranking members of congressional foreign relations committees on Thursday cautiously backed ongoing Mexico- U.S. talks to control immigration, saying any plan should give priority to the millions of undocumented Mexicans already living in the United States. -- "The most important thing should be legalizing those Mexicans already there. They're good citizens who contribute to their communities," Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Senator Silvia Hernandez told reporters at a Mexico City news conference.