27 March 2006

Latin leaders balk at US 'wall' | CSMonitor.com

If I were the leader of a Latin American country that was a recipient of some of the $45 billion (yes, that's a 'B', not an 'M'. Money that isn't taxed in cases of illegal immigrants) that was sent back home (Read: removed from our economy) from immigrants in the U.S. (legal and otherwise), I would be concerned as well about the potential for loss of economic capital, and highly motivated to do something about it.

But I'm still fuzzy on the whole "America wants to stop MY people from entering THEIR country illegally, so that makes them 'Bad Neighbors'", and the obvious guilt that some countries are attempting to ladle upon the U.S. for desiring to protect our borders (since clearly, they've no interest in doing so...)

"No country that is proud of itself should build walls," Mexican President Vicente Fox told reporters when he last met Bush one year ago, and a month after the House began talks on approving a fence. "[I]t doesn't make any sense."

Since then, as the debate has continued in the US over what kind of fence is needed and where, Fox has called the proposal everything from "stupid" and "discriminatory" to "shameful," and heralded illegal migrants as "heroes" who will in any event find ways to cross the border.

Heroes? I don't f'ing think so. And as long as this is the kind of rhetoric that Mexico is pushing, I don't think they're likely to find much support outside the Latino community.

Except maybe at the Vatican. With Latinos comprising a significant proportion of U.S. Catholics, if the church loses as much revenue from the U.S. as Latin American countries are likely to due to such a policy, they certainly will possess significantly less clout with the GOP. And there's sure as hell likely to be fewer Catholic priests around to be molesting children, eh? In either case, certainly nothing to lose sleep over.

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