Simog

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114485,00.html

Is Mexico Thwarting U.S. Immigration Enforcement?
Thursday, March 18, 2004
By Matt Hayes

Most people know that Usama bin Laden's terror group, Al Qaeda
(Arabic for "the base"), derives its name from the Mujahideen
database that bin Laden developed through the 1980s and 1990s.
Using "the base," bin Laden could call on a corps of operatives
to carry out missions.

There is growing evidence that the Mexican government, in similar
fashion, is working with a group called the Instituto de los
Mexicanos en el Exterior ("Institute of Mexicans Abroad") to use
its matricula consular database to deploy illegals to state
legislatures and city councils across America. There, the illegal
aliens -- Mexican nationals who have been provided a matricula
consular card -- pack the gallery and seek to apply pressure
against legislators who sponsor or intend to vote for bills that
enhance immigration law enforcement.

Not since America's mid-century experience with communism has
there been such an organized effort at subverting our country's
political institutions. As reported in the Washington Times,
local and statewide illegal immigrant advocacy groups and
Hispanic groups, whose memberships include illegal immigrants as
well as Mexicans who have become legal immigrants or citizens,
coordinate with the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior to
agitate for access to public services for illegal aliens in the
United States.

Where does the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior get its
instructions? From Vicente Fox. The Instituto was created by
presidential decree and reports to a group of Mexican government
officials who are posted to Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
which is Mexico's equivalent of our own State Department.

If the number of boisterous illegal aliens packing legislative
sessions is any indication, the two main goals of the Instituto's
efforts are to defeat efforts to stop adoption of the matricula
consular and driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

California Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy recalls the floor debate
on a California measure, SB 60, which would have allowed illegal
aliens in California to qualify for a state driver's license.
Referring to the former name of the territory ceded to the United
States by Mexico as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of
1848, Mountjoy took the floor and said, "This bill paves the road
to Aztlan."

"Then everyone in the gallery stood up and applauded," Mountjoy
said.

Last summer, a Mexican consulate in Michigan detected that the
small city of Holland might adopt the matricula consular as a
valid form of identification. Consul General Miguel Antonio Meza
Estrada traveled to Holland's city counsel meetings five times,
many times with what can only be described as a mob in tow, all
of whom Estrada held out to be beneficiaries of the matricula
consular. Holland finally postponed a decision on the issue
because the meetings had become so contentious.

Mountjoy recently sponsored the Secure and Verifiable ID bill
(Calif. AB 2576). The bill follows Colorado's secure
identification law, and mandates that when a California state
agency issues a license, permit, or other document to a person,
it first obtain from that person a previously issued secure and
verifiable identification document. The bill defines a secure and
verifiable identification document as one issued by a state of
federal agency, a foreign passport with a valid United States
entry stamp, or any other form of identification whose veracity
can be verified by law enforcement.

To most, this would seem a modest and common sense legislative
proposal aimed at better security, particularly after the events
of September 2001. But to Mexican consulates in America, it is an
attack on the rights of Mexican nationals illegally in the United
States, and grounds for a pitched battle. "It's a bill to make
America safer. If we are issuing identification or a benefit to
someone, we want to know who they are," says Mountjoy.

But the bill's simplicity couldn't prevent one Mexican consul from
running to the newspapers, apparently without any understanding of
the measure. "We have to realize that under international law,
Mexican consulates have the right to issue Mexican IDs to their
Mexican citizens," said Consul Giralt Cabrales to a Knight-Ridder
reporter. Mountjoy responds, "This bill does not prohibit Mexican
consulates from issuing whatever ID they choose."

When Mountjoy's secure identification bill comes up for a vote,
expect the matricula consular rolls to be pulled out, and the
balcony of the California legislature to be filled. As bin Laden
has shown, organization makes all the difference.