Mexican officials have opposed the fence, with outgoing President Vicente Fox calling it “shameful” and likening it to the Berlin Wall.About 10 million Mexicans are thought to live in the US, some four million of them illegally.
BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush signs Mexico fence into law
On Thursday, October 26, President Bush signed a bill proposing the construction of a 700-mile-long fence designed to “secure and modernize our Southern border”. Basically, the aim here is to keep the illegal immigrants who are trying to enter the country from Mexico from doing so. The response to this decision from the Mexican government was predictable — they condemned the move as “shameful”, and likened it to the Berlin Wall. Even politicians from the various Mexican political parties have temporarily put aside their disputes, uniting in opposition to the proposed security fence.
Clearly our government will have to deal with the issue of illegal immigrants in the USA sometime in the near future. Today there are at least four million who live here illegally, constituting (in most cases) a significant percent of the low-wage labor force, and the number is growing almost everyday. The issue that needs to be dealt with is the fact that there are a large number of people who are living unrecognized in our country, with no legal protection from abuse of any kind, or basic rights under the Constitution. However, simply attempting to block out future illegal immigrants with an elaborate, expensive structure (the fence will be funded from the $1.2bn set aside for “homeland security”), doesn’t seem to be a good long term solution. For one thing, it will certainly strain relations with our neighbor, Mexico, who has already made it clear that it is offended by this idea, and may therefore be hesitant to ‘do its part’ by patrolling the border on its side. Even many US Congressmen, while recognizing the need for some kind of action, don’t support the fence project, claiming that it will be ineffective.
In defense of the bill, President Bush has stated that this “tightening of the border” will be “balanced with a temporary guest worker program and moves to grant eventual citizenship to some of the illegal immigrants already in the US”. Maybe this kind of action would be the better thing to pursue…
I believe that something needs to be done about all of these immigrants illegally crossing into the United States. I feel like there is just too many of them, but i also feel that we need people like them to work our low waged jobs. If they aren’t, who will? Most Americans are not willing to work the kinds of jobs they do. So i am unsure about this whole fence thing.
I can view this with both ways. It is bad that the illegal immigrants are crossing because they are taking a lot of jobs away from actual citizens of America. There is a 5% unemployment rate of Americans, which is real bad when people who are here illegally can take them over. Also, many people would rather hire the immigrants because they will work for much less. On ther other hand, it is good when they take jobs that many people will not work and still work hard.
I agree totally, I think that it has been one of our country’s mottos to “Give us your poor, your hungry.” However, they should come over legally and not take the citizens jobs and tax dollars. My old teacher told me how they come here illegaly, without having paid taxes all their life (like most of us). And then they make money, doing the jobs that legal Americans should have, and then send itg home to their families.