By Allan Wall
05/16/2017
Texas finally prohibited sanctuary cities, meaning cities can no longer refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and make their own immigration law. Greg Abbott signed the law, live on Facebook (!), on May 7.The very next day, the Mexican government began its efforts to undermine the law.
Mexico always pays close attention to immigration developments in the United States and is quite vocal about its views on our laws.The Mexican Foreign Ministry (SRE, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores) issued a stern communique condemning the Texas law entitled Lamenta la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores la promulgación de la ley SB4 de Texas [The Foreign Secretary laments the enactment of The SB4 Law of Texas, Comunicado #188, SRE website May 8, 2017].
It states:
The Secretary of Foreign Relations laments the enactment of the SB4 law, for the negative effects that it could have on the Mexican and Mexican-origin community that lives in and visits the state of Texas.Typically, this “lamentation” of the Texas anti-sanctuary city law vaguely refers to “negative effects,” many of which are simply invented. The authors simply hope readers will imbibe the sense of moral outrage without really analyzing what it has to say. That’s typical of American Open Borders promoters as well.
The SRE document speaks of “the Mexican and Mexican-origin community that lives in and visits the state of Texas” (la comunidad mexicana y de origen mexicano que vive y visita el Estado de Texas), thus combining at least three distinct demographics into one. Of those three demographics, only a subset of one is going to be affected.
The three groups are :
The foreign ministry manifests its concern about the SB4 law because it contains elements that can be harmful for the rights of Mexican and Mexican-origin persons who live in that state [Texas], and who represent a third of its total population.Yet contrary to fantasies of Texas police randomly harassing dark-skinned people demanding papers, even the SRE document concedes that’s not how the law functions.
In the moment that it takes effect, scheduled for the 1st of September of 2017, any law enforcement agent will be authorized to question the migratory status of any person during an arrest, detention or routine operation.In other words, this isn’t a general “show me your papers” law, but it applies to people who are arrested or detained for other things. So what’s wrong with police running ID and criminal records checks on them? They routinely do the same to Americans. Are Mexican and Mexican-descended people exempt from this?
The article also mentions “routine operation”, meaning routine traffic stops. Once again, American citizens are subject to this all the time. (See my experience of getting stopped by a Sheriff’s Deputy). In Mexico however, police are required by law to cooperate with immigration authorities, and I myself have been asked to show my papers by an INM inspector at a checkpoint.
Let’s face it. It’s not that the detractors of this law are really concerned about civil liberties. It’s that they don’t want illegal aliens detained and deported.
Of course, the SRE is also against Texas punishing government entities who don’t obey immigration law.
…the state government [of Texas] can impose sanctions on local authorities and universities that do not collaborate with federal ICE agents. This type of measure criminalizes even more the migratory phenomenon, encourages acts of racial discrimination and reduces the collaboration of the migrant community with local authorities.Yeah, we’ve heard this argument again and again. It’s just another excuse for making illegal aliens exempt from the law.
So, what does the Mexican Foreign Ministry plan to do about the Texas law? Oh, they’ve got plans….
The SRE will closely follow the implementation of the SB4 law. Also, through the 11 Mexican consulates in Texas, it will keep the community informed the scope [of the law] and will continue taking the necessary actions to watch out that their rights are respected, regardless of their migratory status.Note that, out of 50 Mexican consulates in the United States, eleven are located in the border state of Texas.
Where are these eleven consulates? Here’s the list:
Well, there are eleven centers of subversion that can be used to sabotage our immigration law.And notice another detail. Of those eleven Mexican consulates, seven of the consulates (Brownsville, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and Presidio) are located in U.S. border towns that is, right across the border from Mexico [!].
Wow, so Mexicans cross the border and they already need help from Mexico? Can’t they just cross the border and go back if they need help?
So, expect opposition from Mexico to the new Texas law. Given their eleven consulates in Texas, the Mexican foreign service can easily meddle and make common cause with Latino and open border activists.
And to date, the Trump administration has done or said nothing about Mexican meddling. How I wish that the Trump Administration had somebody who was paying attention to the activities of Mexican consulates on U.S. soil.
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008after many years residing in Mexico. Allan’s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.