Mexico and Guatemala Agree to Subvert American Sovereignty

Countless times I’ve heard U.S. presidents refer to Mexico as America’s friend. Dating back to 1981 when President Ronald Reagan in a statement on U.S. immigration and refugee policy referred to “our Mexican friends,” presidents have repeatedly heaped praise on Mexico and its leaders.

Some of the effusiveness can be attributed to diplomacy. And naturally, the U.S. would like to have a good relationship with its neighbors, Mexico and Canada. Unfortunately, there’s an ever-growing body of evidence that Mexico is not our friend, but rather our enemy.

Mexico’s resentment toward the U.S. has been continuously confirmed by its ongoing subversion of U.S. immigration law. In 2003, Mexico began a sustained and ultimately successful campaign to get U.S. institutions to accept as identification its worthless matricula consular card. The card, which U.S.-based Mexican consulates often issued without its nationals providing ID, was so easily obtained that I got one for $15 through the mail within days of applying.

During his administration from 2000 through 2006, President Vicente Fox repeatedly visited the U.S., especially California, to lobby for immigration reform. And in 2010 President Felipe Calderon addressed Congress to blast Arizona for AB 1070.

Disrespect for American sovereignty reached a new low last week when Mexico announced its new initiative with Guatemala, the “Southern Border Program to Improve Passage.” The agreement between Presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Otto Pérez Molina grants Guatemalans a Regional Visitors Card, valid for 72 hours of legal status, enough time to cross through Mexico en route to the U.S.

The program will also increase the number of checkpoints along the Mexico-Guatemala border, and provide protection, medical care and financial assistance. While the program’s language refers only to aliens from Guatemala and Belize, it’s probable that aliens who get to Mexico from Honduras or El Salvador will be provided the same comforts.

After his mid-June meeting with leaders from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, Vice President Joe Biden embarrassingly referred to the session as “very constructive,” and was reassured when “all agreed to take on specific responsibilities that will help us solve this problem. We anticipate they will keep those responsibilities because we’re devoting significant resources to this effort.”

Less than a month after Biden’s naive evaluation, Guatemala and Mexico are escalating their effort to get as many aliens into the U.S. as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

Critics wonder if the Mexican-Guatemalan accord is the latest smoking gun in the theory that collusion among the Central American governments and the U.S. drives the surge.

The Mexican government knows that the aliens will be allowed in and processed, and most will remain in the U.S. indefinitely either through an official amnesty or an executive order that exempts them from deportation. For his part, Obama is angry that one of his major goals, amnesty, isn’t happening this year. The surge and Obama’s unwillingness to end it could be his payback to Americans unwilling to support comprehensive immigration reform.

Please go to the CAPS Action Alert page here to insist that President Obama expedite Central American deportations.