SWOPblogger

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March 3, 2008
The Bush administration's planned US-Mexico border wall continues inspiring growing international controversy, impassioned protest and intense political debate. In the Texas border city of Laredo last Saturday, both opponents and supporters of the wall, including well-known personalities, turned out to voice their opinions about the controversial project. On the opposition side, a protest march against the wall drew scores of human rights activists and elected officials who carried "No Wall" signs to a rally held at one of city's international bridges. Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas and Raul Reyes, the mayor of neighboring El Cenizo, were among the officials who attended the demonstration.

A former career FBI agent, Mayor Salinas said the wall was an affront to the close relations that exist between his city and Mexico.

"Laredo and Nuevo Laredo are sister cities which respect each other, which are family, and families work together for the improvement of things," Mayor Salinas said. "Walls do not work, and not even the one in Berlin did." Instead of building a wall to secure the border, Mayor Salinas advocated stationing additional law enforcement officers at border crossings and investing in border surveillance technology. The border mayor questioned the expenditure of billions of dollars in public funds on the wall: "My question is who's going to get rich off this?"

Other protest leaders took aim at the North American Free Agreement (NAFTA). "They need to replace the "F" in NAFTA with fair trade," said rally organizer Fabiola Flores. "They could fix it so people weren't forced to leave their homes."

While Mayor Salinas and other local officials spent Saturday marching and speaking out against the wall, a celebrity entourage toured the Laredo the same day in support of the construction of the barrier. Led by former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, the group included Chuck "Walker: Texas Ranger" Norris, Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist and California Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter. Surveying
the Rio Grande, the delegation also met with US Border Patrol agents. At one point in the trip, Huckabee's wife Janet asked Border Patrol agents the name of the river the group was observing. "I'm sorry, I'm not just familiar," she apologized.

Huckabee, who has assumed a hard-line stance against illegal immigration, supported the wall and called for tighter border security.

"Doing it right is capturing criminals at the border, and then designing a system were people can come into the country for the purposes of work, doing it the legal, responsible way and not creating what we have now, which is an absolutely uncontrolled situation," Huckabee said.

In the coming months, the border wall project is certain to be the source of more controversy. At a meeting held late last month in San Antonio, Texas, a network of anti-wall activists mapped out a series of planned actions for the next several months, including more marches and civil disobedience in Texas and California. Organizations involved in the campaign include the San Antonio-based Southwest Workers Union, PODER, American Friends Service Committee and the March 25 Coalition, among others.

Rejecting calls for a "virtual secure border" of more police and surveillance, the network blasted the border wall as part of a "neo-liberal" attack on the rights of indigenous people and workers as outlined by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the US and Mexico and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Citing environmental concerns over the construction of a border wall, network activists called for the restoration of the distressed Rio Grande. At the San Antonio conference, comparisons were drawn between the "exportation of US (border) enforcement strategies and the importation of Israeli occupation strategies."

Additional sources: El Sur/Agencia Reforma, March 2, 2008. Article by Martha Cazares. Laredo Morning Times, March 2, 2008. Articles by Ashley Richards and Nick Georgiou. Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

Labels: Immigration, US/Mexico Border