June 17, 2009 Memo From Middle America (Formerly Known As Memo From Mexico), By Allan WallOh No! – Not Another "Mexico-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Meeting"?
On Jun 5th-7th,
Seattle was the venue for the annual
"Mexico- U.S.
Interparliamentary Group Meeting".
It’s an annual
meeting, of
selected members
of the
U.S.
Congress
and the
Mexican Congress,
alternating
between the
The 2009 confab
was the 48th
Annual Interparliamentary.
A year ago
I
reported on the 47th Annual
Interparliamentary, held in
Hopefully, he’s
forgotten that by now.
At any rate, the
interparliamentaries, which receive more media attention
south of the border than they do here, frequently
include a fair amount of
gringo-bashing over
immigration or
drugs
or some other point of contention. And usually the
Americans wind up on the defensive.
So who attended
this event, you may ask?
This year, the
American delegation to attend the Interparliamentary
was announced by
Nancy Pelosi on May 5th (Cinco
de Mayo). That was supposed to be symbolic. Hmmm.
So who did
The chairman of
the U.S. delegation to the confab: Democratic
Congressman Ed Pastor of Arizona.
Congressman Ed’s
immigration-related voting record has been evaluated as
F- by Americans for Better Immigration.
Representative
Pastor’s sidekick was California Democrat
Linda Sanchez. ABI gives her a career grade of F-,
and a recent (2006-2009) grade of F.
(Representative
Sanchez, by the way, holds the distinction of being
the first unmarried congresswoman
to
become pregnant while serving in Congress.
Hispanic family values, you know.)
Other
representatives chosen for the Interparliamentary were:
California
Democratic Congresswoman
Zoe Lofgren wasn’t originally chosen, but she wound
up going. Her ABI rating is F.
Also accompanying
the group was
Jerry Weller, former Republican Illinois
representative, whose career ABI grade was a B.
Also selected for
the Seattle delegation was
Luis
Fortuno, the governor of Puerto Rico. Fortuno used
to the "Resident
Commissioner of Puerto Rico", (the non-voting
representative of the island territory to the U.S.
House), and head of the
Congressional Hispanic Conference
(a pale
Republican version of the Hispanic Caucus). Party
affiliation? Fortuno is both a Republican, and a member
of the Puerto Rican
Partido Nuevo Progresista, which advocates statehood
for Puerto Rico.
Predictably,
drugs, arms and immigration were on the
Interparliamentary meeting agenda.
It’s commonly
reported in the media, and in Mexico, that 90% of the
weapons used in the drug cartels come from the U.S.
That’s been
debunked, but it’s still accepted by many as an
article of faith.
So of course,
weapons were discussed at the Interparliamentary.
But to calm the Mexican delegation down, Representative
Pastor promised them that the U.S. Congress would
approve CIFTA, the
"Inter-American
Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and
Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and
Other Related Materials". (Here is a
critique
of CIFTA by Gun Owners of America.)
As for
immigration, Pastor also assured the Mexicans that
Obama, the U.S. Congress, and the Hispanic Caucus were
about to take care of the situation.
Oh, and that
Mexico would be consulted on the matter of a U.S.
"migratory
reform". [Prevén
en EU aval a pacto antiarmas,
Siglo
de Torreon, June 7, 2009]
Thanks,
Representative Pastor, for protecting our interests in
Seattle!
Upon conclusion of
the confab, a headline in Mexico’s
Jornada read
"Migratory
Reform in the U.S. is Now Nearer: Legislators" [La
Reforma Migratoria En EU Ya Está Más Cerca: Legisladores,
By Andrea Becerril,
Jornada, June 8th,
2009]. The subtitle read "Those
who attended the Interparliamentary return with ‘great
expectations’".
Here, for your
reading pleasure, is the opening paragraph of that
article (translated by yours truly):
"The ‘Obama Effect’ was felt at
the 48th Mexico-U.S. Interparliamentary
Meeting, now that for the first time in many years,
Mexican Legislators feel satisfied by the expectation
that this same year a comprehensive migratory reform
will take shape and that the additional resources for
the
Merida Initiative will soon be approved …"
The Mexican
delegation included representatives of
the
PAN, the PRI and the PRD, parties which are usually
at loggerheads but are on the
same sheet of music when it comes to the subject of
immigration.
Here’s what the
second paragraph said:
" The chief of the Mexican
delegation, the PAN senator Luis Alberto Villarreal, the
[PRI] president of the Foreign
Relations Commission of the Senate, [and former
foreign minister]
Rosario Green, and the PRD members Silvano Aureoles
y Raymundo Cardenas, were equally in agreement in
affirming that there are great expectations that now,
under the direction of Obama, the United States will
approve the legislation that will benefit the more than
12 million fellow Mexicans who are[illegally]
in the neighbor country of the north, but they added
that they will be prudent."
What does that
mean "they will
be prudent?"
Quoth the PAN
member Villarreal:
"The worst thing
we could do in these moments is to
make
noise, because that would help the
anti-immigrant groups."
Ah, so Villarreal
doesn’t want Americans who are opposed to open borders
to know what’s going on, eh?
Too late!
Rosario Green, in
an interview, said that
"What we said before my [American]
colleagues is that an eventual [U.S.]
migratory reform should include a paragraph in which it
says that ‘it is
an
obligation to respect the human rights of the migrants,
independently of their migratory status´."
In other words, a
permanent amnesty
is what they want.
The former foreign
minister had more to say on the subject. According to
the article
"The ex-Chancellor insisted that
the Mexican legislators do not want the
[U.S.] Constitution to be modified
nor to generate controversy, because the anti-immigrant
groups will take advantage of that."
What
"anti-immigrant"
groups?
Well, according to
Green, they are
"the ones that have always opposed reform and that are
now
hurling messages of hate."
Why do we even
have these Interparliamentary confabs anymore? It’s just
another opportunity for Mexican politicians to
demand—and for American politicians to make promises to
foreigners who aren’t even their constituents.
As I pointed out a
year ago, it’s time to bring them to an end.
Why can’t the 48th
annual Interparliamentary be the final
Interparliamentary? There’s just no valid reason for
American patriots to tolerate them anymore.
American citizen Allan Wall (email
him) recently moved back to the |
