Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MEXICO_MISTREATING_MIGRANTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-04-18-18-08-31" target="_blank">http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s tories/M/MEXICO_MISTREATING_MIGRANTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-04-18-18-08-31</a> >>TULTITLAN, Mexico (AP) -- Considered felons by the government, these migrants fear detention, rape and robbery. Police and soldiers hunt them down at railroads, bus stations and fleabag hotels. Sometimes they are deported; more often officers simply take their money. While migrants in the United States have held huge demonstrations in recent weeks, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central Americans in Mexico suffer mostly in silence. And though Mexico demands humane treatment for its citizens who migrate to the U.S., regardless of their legal status, Mexico provides few protections for migrants on its own soil. The issue simply isn't on the country's political agenda, perhaps because migrants make up only 0.5 percent of the population, or about 500,000 people - compared with 12 percent in the United States. The level of brutality Central American migrants face in Mexico was apparent Monday, when police conducting a raid for undocumented migrants near a rail yard outside Mexico City shot to death a local man, apparently because his dark skin and work clothes made officers think he was a migrant. Virginia Sanchez, who lives near the railroad tracks that carry Central Americans north to the U.S. border, said such shootings in Tultitlan are common. "At night, you hear the gunshots, and it's the judiciales (state police) chasing the migrants," she said. "It's not fair to kill these people. It's not fair in the United States and it's not fair here." Undocumented Central American migrants complain much more about how they are treated by Mexican officials than about authorities on the U.S. side of the border, where migrants may resent being caught but often praise the professionalism of the agents scouring the desert for their trail. "If you're carrying any money, they take it from you - federal, state, local police, all of them," said Carlos Lopez, a 28-year-old farmhand from Guatemala crouching in a field near the tracks in Tultitlan, waiting to climb onto a northbound freight train.<<
Originally Posted By cmpaley Please make your point? Do you want the United States to descend to this level? I always lived under the impression that we are supposed to be the better country and lead, not follow countries that do things like this.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer The Point, the Mexican Government keeps saying we should "Open" our borders, and allow more folks into our country, while they STRONGLY enforce their own immigration laws... Why shouldn't we enforce the laws we already have on the books... We shouldn't kill or torture anyone, but we should require our employers to verify that their employees are allowed to work in the US, and if not, the EMPLOYER should be fined, and if found guilty multiple times, the fines should get higher, plus prison time for the folks in charge after a few times found guilty....
Originally Posted By cmpaley It is irrelevant what other governments do. Our government should do the right thing at all times, not just what appeals to the lowest common denominator (which it has been doing for the past 6 or so years). The truth is, immigration is a highly complicated issue that cannot be "solved" once and for all. It is something that requires constant adjusting to meet the circumstances of the world we live in. By failing to make adjustments on a regular basis, the Congress has allowed the situation to become unmanageable. The Senate made great strides toward a solution but the whole thing was put on hold because the majority party used procedural tactics so as to not actually work toward solving it. I know, I saw it live on CSPAN-2 with my own eyes. I don't get my news from Drudge or other right-wing sources. I try to get my information from primary sources so as to be accurate. Now the Republicans will use immigration as the one of the big wedge issues for the 2006 election like they did gay "marriage" in the 2004 election. I don't like the use of cynical tactics in order to win elections. The Right says, "what are the Democrats FOR?" Well, they have said what they're for but it's not satisfactory to the Right, so they talk over their opposition saying, "that's not our solution, so it's no solution." Sorry, but that doesn't work for me and it shouldn't work for anyone.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Wasn't the entire Kerry campaign about "cynical tactics"? Geez, if they would have stayed on the up and up there wouldn't have been any needed recounts b/c they would have trounced Bush.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>The truth is, immigration is a highly complicated issue that cannot be "solved" once and for all.<< Well.... maybe if we didn't coddle illegals and if we made it a lot harder to sneak in and a lot easier to get caught and deported if they did sneak in, and if we punished employers who hire illegals (i.e enforcing the laws on the books) maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't be so many illegals. But, cheap labor trumps everything.
