SAN DIEGO -- During
my career, I've eaten my share of crow. Now I wonder how it will
taste to critics of Ambassador Tony Garza.
When Garza was tapped
by President Bush -- an old friend from Texas -- to be U.S. ambassador
to Mexico, the White House got angry letters from cranks who wanted
to know why Bush hadn't chosen a ``real American'' to represent
the country in Mexico.
For the bigoted and
narrow-minded, life is never complicated. Their complaint about
Garza: Americans of Mexican ancestry will always put Mexico's
interests before the interests of the United States.
These folks are clueless.
Studies show that Mexican-Americans are just as supportive of
protecting the nation's borders as any other group of Americans,
sometimes even more so. Yet, some continue to believe that Mexican-Americans
head to the U.S.-Mexico border after dark to try to wave in members
of their extended families.
That fear extends
to foreign diplomats. When Garza was confirmed by the Senate in
November 2002, a right-wing Web site that dabbles in nativism
and anti-Mexican rhetoric dubbed the new ambassador a ``cheerleader
for the Mexican invasion'' because he had said that he favored
``earned legalization'' for illegal immigrants.
Garza was simply
repeating the administration's line. In fact, this week during
an appearance at Kansas State University, President Bush again
made the case for a guest-worker program that would legalize,
at least temporarily, undocumented immigrants -- one that acknowledges
the reality that the United States is now home to perhaps as many
as 11 million illegal immigrants who aren't going anywhere, and
we might as well accept it.
Let me spell it out:
The reason that Bush and other administration officials can talk
about legalizing illegal immigrants without raising many eyebrows
is because they're not Mexican-American and thus in cahoots with
the Mexican government to retake the American Southwest. Not so
for Garza.
So imagine how surprised
some people are going to be now that Garza has come out swinging
on the immigration issue with a sharply worded, common-sense rebuttal
to criticism from Mexican politicians and journalists of efforts
in Congress to beef up U.S. border security.
In a recent ``newsletter''
intended to kick off the new year, the U.S. ambassador called
the Mexican criticism of recent immigration-reform measures passed
by Congress ``excessive, often irresponsible and almost always
inaccurate.'' He specifically mentioned House Bill 4437, passed
in December and now headed to the Senate. The bill calls for building
physical barriers in certain locations along the border, increasing
the number of Border Patrol agents, improving detention and deportation
policies, and other enforcement measures.
Seizing on the part
about building fences, Mexicans made comparisons to the Berlin
Wall. Comparing the two, said Garza, is ``not only disingenuous
and intellectually dishonest,'' but also ``personally offensive.''
While saying that neither he nor President Bush supports the loony
idea of building one big giant wall along the entire 2,000-mile
U.S.-Mexican border, the ambassador highlighted the difference
between a wall built by an authoritarian government to keep its
own people in, and what is being suggested now, in which a ``democratically
elected government has proposed methods of protecting its own
citizenry and enforcing our immigration laws.''
Garza also challenged
the idea advanced by some members of the Mexican elite that borders
mean little and that illegal immigrants have an inherent ``human
right'' to seek jobs in the United States, even if it means doing
so illegally. There is no such right, he said. Rather, it's the
right of every sovereign state -- including the United States
-- ``to control the entry of foreigners.''
Drawing a distinction
between legal and illegal immigration -- one which is often lost
on our friends to the south -- Garza called illegal immigration
a threat to the rule of law and an insult to the millions of immigrants
who ``play by the rules'' to come to the United States legally,
including those who come from Mexico.
Predictably, the
Mexicans hit the roof. One Mexican journalist called Garza's remarks
``offensive and defamatory.''
Nonsense. They're
neither. In fact, they are refreshingly truthful. Garza is simply
stating the obvious -- that those millions of immigrants who come
to the United States illegally each year from Mexico are breaking
the law, and that the government of Mexico is failing its own
people by not providing sufficient opportunity at home.
When it comes to
immigration issues, Mexicans need a reality check. Luckily for
the United States, there's a ``real American'' down there who
is willing to give it to them.
©
2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune
