In 1821, at the invitation of Mexico, Stephen Austin established the first American settlement in Texas (Tejas). The land was cheap, about ten cents an acre, compared to $1.25 in other frontier areas. Americans flowed in but they continued to speak English and avoided any assimilation into the Mexican culture.
A mere fifteen years later in April 1836, following the fall of the Alamo a month earlier, a Texas army at the Battle of San Jacinto defeated the Mexican army, thus ending a brief war. On October 22, Gen. Sam Houston was sworn in as the first president of the Republic of Texas. A decade later, after having lost Texas, the US negotiated a treaty that secured most of the Southwest as well. That´s how we ended up with Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Flash forward to 2004. Today in America, 58% of America´s Hispanic population are Mexican, surpassing African-Americans as the largest minority. Latinos make up 30% of California´s population and now account for more than half of all the births in the Golden State. Do the math. There are 37 million Hispanic Americans. As far as the Mexican government is concerned, their Mexican-Americans are Mexican-Mexicans. Like the Americans that poured into Texas and refused to assimilate, the same holds true for a large portion of the Mexican-American population, both legal and illegal.
This has major implications for American politics. It accounts in large part for why Bush43 and his administration are eager to grant an amnesty for the current and growing population of illegal aliens. His own brother, Jeb, is Governor of Florida, speaks Spanish fluently, and is married to an Hispanic.
News that the Bush administration will propose "sweeping changes to US immigration policy that would allow a portion of the eight million illegal aliens in this country to move toward legal status without a penalty" ignores the fact that Mexico has set upon a plan to repopulate the lands it lost to the US and to, in effect, alter the political structure of America by flooding its citizens into the US while retaining their allegiance to Mexico.
To put it bluntly, Mexico has hit upon a plan to solve its own Third World poverty by reacquiring the land Santa Ana gave away. The lines between being a Mexican citizen and an American one are being deliberately blurred. Don´t believe it? Manuel de la Cruz is the first US citizen ever to win a seat in Mexico´s Congress. His platform was to make the United States into a Mexican electoral district! Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, de la Cruz has been a longtime resident of Norwalk, Connecticut. He was one of six Mexican-Americans who ran for office in Mexico in the last elections there!
Little wonder the slogan of the Mexican Department of Tourism is "Mexico: Closer Than Ever." If it was any closer, the minute you crossed the Mississippi, you´d be in Mexico!
An expert on this, Allan Wall, noted in November 2003 that "Mexicans who have become American citizens—by taking an oath to renounce all allegiance to Mexico---may soon be able to regain their Mexican ‘nationality´, according to recent Mexican federal legislation, now in the process of being ratified by the states of Mexico." In 1997, Articles 30,32,and 37 of the Mexican Constitution were amended to make dual nationality possible. This will give any Mexican who wants it, to be a citizen of both nations.
This is nothing less than a sneak attack on the sovereignty of the United States of America.
Mexico has lots of reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that the estimated $14.5 to $17 billion Mexicans send home represents the second-largest source of foreign income for Mexico after oil. Pundits like Lowell Ponte who watch what the Mexicans are doing note that the enormous cash Mexican immigrants to America, legal and illegal, send home relieves much of the pressure on the Mexican government to fix that nation´s economy. By encouraging immigration, noted Ponte, "if this pressure release valve were closed, Mexico would explode into violent revolution within five years."
Meanwhile, American taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab for the millions of illegal Mexican and other immigrants in this nation. Ponte notes that "by one estimate, the average illegal immigrant family in California consumes about $7,000 more each year in government benefits than it pays in taxes." When then-Governor of California, Pete Wilson, backed Proposition 187, that would have cut off taxpayer-funded programs and other benefits to illegal immigrants, the measure passed overwhelmingly. It was, however, struck down by a federal judge. When former-Governor Gray Davis attempted to give California to its illegal immigrant population, the voters tossed him out and voted in Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger.
It remains for Americans to avoid any cockamamie legislation that would, one way or the other, grant citizenship to illegal Mexican and other immigrants. US population, as of January 1, 2004, was 292,287,454. That´s an increase of 2,816,586 from the year before and it does not take into account the eight to twelve million illegals living among us and using our schools, our hospitals, our highways, and filling up our jails. Given the birthrate of Mexicans in America, it would not take long for them to acquire so much political power that it would alter our system dramatically. For too many of them, their first allegiance would be to Mexico.
This issue is NOT about being anti-Mexican. It´s about protecting the longest border on the planet between a wealthy First World nation and a very poor Third World one. That border, 1,951 miles long, is as porous as Swiss cheese. And, beyond the Mexicans crossing it illegal, there´s the threat of infiltration by Islamic Jihadists. On November 12, 2003, Imelda Ortiz Abdala, the former Mexican consul in Lebanon, was arrested in Mexico on charges of helping a smuggling ring that specialized in moving Arab immigrants into the United States from Mexico. The terror war isn´t just being fought in the Middle East, it is on our border and inside our nation.
The current US policy of tolerating large-scale illegal immigration is not just wrong, it is putting this nation at risk from our sworn enemies and from a nation, Mexico, bent on reclaiming its "lost" territories and, through sheer force of numbers, taking over this nation.
President Bush is famous for having said, "You´re either with us or you´re against us." Well, Mr. President, if you are looking for an enemy of this nation, look south to Mexico.
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This article appeared in the January 5, 2004 issue of MichNews.com.
Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.
