February 07, 2003
Bush
And Mexico: The End Of The Affair
By
Joe Guzzardi
Less than two years ago
Presidents Vicente Fox and
George W. Bush were
billing and cooing on the White House
front lawn. All but
holding hands, the two leaders promised
“migratory accords that would benefit both
Mexico and the U.S.”
Today, Fox and Bush are
kaput—at least formally. But they’re still carrying
on in a tawdry, back alley sort of way.
What’s different since the two left the limelight?
For one thing, everyone in Mexico has their dander up.
I wonder what Bush, who routinely referred to Mexico as
the U.S.’s
best friend, thinks of National Action Party (P.A.N.)
Congressman Felipe Calderon Hinojosa’s movement to delete
the words “United” and “States” out of Mexico’s official
name, the United Mexican States. (“Trying
to Put Mexico First, With No U.S. in the Way”, by Tim
Weiner, New York Times, January 26t,
2003.
Said Calderon, “People forget that the official
name is the United Mexican States. And when they
remember, a great sinking feeling, a great restlessness
washes over them.”
Ignacio Burgoa Orihuela, Mexico’s leading
constitutional scholar,
says that to include “United” and “States” as part of
Mexico is “fawning” and “wrong.”
And in an extraordinary statement, chemist Regina
Solis said “the U.S. invades us more and more in our
daily lives. The government… should be working to save
our culture, our customs, our identity.”
What a familiar ring!
Judging by the statements of Calderson, Orihuela and
Solis, Mexico must be smoking mad not to have gotten that
“migratory accord.”
As for our two star-crossed presidents, Fox is
embarrassed that, officially at least, he accomplished
none of the things that he promised Mexico.
And it is quite possible that Bush wishes he had never
heard Fox’s name. Bush’s Mexican agenda has cost him
hundreds of thousands of
loyal Republican votes that he will need badly come
November 2004.
While 9/11 was a major factor in killing amnesty, Fox
and Bush—and their lieutenants
Jorge Castañeda and
Karl Rove—made a series of strategic errors and
miscalculations that doomed their lofty plans from the
beginning.
Apparently unbeknownst to Bush and Rove,
immigration—especially illegal immigration from
Mexico—had reached the simmering point among Americans
during the 1990s. During the decade, as American’s looked
around their neighborhoods, they noticed a dramatic
demographic shift.
Suddenly, schools and other public facilities were
overcrowded with
Spanish-speakers. And when the Census 2000 results
confirmed the gigantic percentage increases in
Hispanic residents, people everywhere said, “I knew it!”
{See Center for Immigration Studies,
“The New Ellis Island: Examining Non-Traditional Areas of
Immigrant Settlement in the 1990s.”)
As the nation changed before our very eyes, the timing
for amnesty could not have been worse. But
Juan Hernandez, Fox-appointed director of the
Presidential Office For Mexicans Abroad, made multiple
trips throughout the U.S. demanding
“the whole enchilada.” Mexican expectations grew;
Americans felt betrayed.
Late in the summer of 2001 Fox, fluent in English,
addressed the U.S. Congress in
Spanish, an arrogant and stupid ploy.
Bush encouraged Fox by hosting a state dinner in
September 2001. At the evening’s end, the White House set
off enough
fireworks to illuminate all of Virginia.
Viva Mexico! Viva Fox!
Only weeks after 9/11, Hernandez declared that the
tragedy was only a “diversion” and a “detour” to Mexican
amnesty. Every time Hernandez opened his mouth, American
ire rose.
The road Bush and Fox charted for themselves had
plenty of other bumps. Americans noticed two
well-publicized nose-thumbings:
