WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Jim Kouri
Date:  January 3, 2006

Topic category:  Other/General

Will Bush Tell Mexico's Fox to Take a Hike (but not across our border)?

by Jim Kouri, CPP

The Mexican government is initiating a far-reaching investigation. It's not an investigation into the rampant corruption within all levels of its government. And it's not an investigation into the Mexican crime gangs, drug traffickers and human smugglers. No, the target of this intense investigation -- one that's being trumpeted by the usual anti-Americans in the US news media -- is the killing of an illegal alien by a US Border Patrol agent defending himself.

A former Bush advisor, Rob Allyn, is helping Presidente Vincente Fox to use the illegal alien's death to again draw attention to what Mexicans believe is an unfair US anti-immigration policy. Fox knows that if the US gets serious about border security, he will not only have to deal with a reduction in Mexico's revenue -- money illegal workers send back to his country -- but he will actually have to deal with the tens of thousands of violent criminals who enter the US illegally everyday.

The killing of an 18-year-old illegal immigrant near the security wall on the San Diego-Mexican border comes at a time when Mexico's government continues its vocal campaign against the border security and illegal immigration bill approved by the US House of Representatives in December. Many Mexicans oppose the US measure, which would build more border fences, make illegal entry a felony and enlist military and local police to help stop undocumented migrants.

Quite simply, the Mexican government believes that its people have an inalienable right to enter and leave the United States at will. But US legal scholars can't seem to find that elusive clause in the US Constitution.

While the Mexicans oppose the US building of security walls, in the same breath they claim security walls will not curb illegal immigration. Don't you get a warm feeling all over knowing the Mexicans don't want us to waste money on a security wall that doesn't work?

The illegal alien, Guillermo Martinez, died on New Year's Eve in a Tijuana hospital, the Baja California state attorney general's office said. He died one day after he was shot by a US Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San Diego, according to witnesses cited by Mexican officials. However, those witnesses didn't mention that Martinez was using deadly physical force against the US agent.

Raul Martinez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol said the agent had been "assaulted by an individual who threw a large size rock."

"The agent, fearing for his life at that time, fired one round at the individual, who fled back to Mexico," Martinez said Monday.

The Border Patrol spokesperson, who is not related to the dead 18-year-old, said US investigators were unsure if the victim had been struck by the bullet because he crossed back into Mexican territory.

The Mexican government over the years has become more and more brazen in their rhetoric towards the US. But nothing surpasses a recent quote by Mexico's federal Attorney General's Office. They said the probe was opened against "whomever is found to have been responsible," but they didn't name whom they suspect. They also said that Mexico generally does not try to apply its laws to events that occurred in other nations.

(Gee thanks, Mexico. I was getting worried for a moment. I thought a US federal judge hallucinated when reading the Constitution and created a Mexican right to disregard US sovereignty.)

According to the Mexican version of the shooting, Martinez was with four other people when he was shot. He was from the western city of Guadalajara but was living in Tijuana with his older brother, who apparently witnessed the shooting, said Luis Cabrera, Mexico's consul general in San Diego. Cabrera stated that "Mexican officials were collecting reports from him and other witnesses."

Mexican officials have grown increasingly vocal in their opposition to the House bill passed on December 16, which Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez branded as "stupid and underhanded." Fox has called it "shameful." But Americans cheered the bill as a good beginning.

In a recent New York Times article, officials from Mexico's Human Rights Commission admitted that Mexico employs some of the same methods to protect their southern border. Some reports indicate that the Mexican border officers use far more draconian methods than their US counterparts to keep Latinos from other countries out of Mexico.

In 2004, Mexican migrants in the United States sent home more than $16 billion in remittances, according to Mexico's central bank, giving the nation its second biggest source of foreign currency after oil exports. But that's not the biggest benefit to the Mexican government and economy. The biggest benefit is their exporting of murders, rapists, robbers, burglars, child predators and other perpetrators into the US.

In Mexico, billions of dollars are saved by not having to incarcerate dangerous criminals. Local, state and the federal governments in the US, however, do spend enormous amounts of taxpayers' money on imprisoning criminal aliens.

A recent study by the Government Accounting Office revealed that in the sample of criminal aliens they examined -- 55,000 inmates -- they were responsible for over 700,000 criminal acts and over 400,000 arrests. In Los Angeles, 95% of the outstanding arrest warrants for homicide are for illegal aliens, while 65% of the overall felony warrants are for criminal aliens, according to Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute.

So now the Mexicans are investigating a US Border Patrol agent's use of force to prevent injury or worse to himself. This from a country that still refuses to extradite over 350 killers who escaped back into Mexico after killing US citizens, including police officers. It's time for our President George W. Bush to tell their President Vincente Fox to go take a hike -- and not across our border.    

Jim Kouri
Chief of Police Magazine (Contributing Editor)


Biography - Jim Kouri

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for a number of organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. He writes for many police and crime magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer, Campus Law Enforcement Journal, and others. He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com, Booksamillion.com, and can be ordered at local bookstores. Kouri holds a bachelor of science in criminal justice and master of arts in public administration and he's a board certified protection professional.


Copyright © 2006 by Jim Kouri
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