From an op-ed in the NYT entitled "What Mexico Wants" by former Mexican foreign minister Jorge G. Castaneda:
Fortunately, most of the [Kennedy-Bush] reform proposals represent a very good deal for
There are three Mexican objections to the bill as it stands.
First, it has unduly harsh enforcement provisions at the border and the workplace, which will undoubtedly generate abuses and mistreatment. Still, if every Mexican in the
A second objectionable feature is the steep fines and fees in the Senate bill: up to $5,000. While this is not cheap, it’s also not much more than the “coyote” charges to smuggle a migrant across the border.
The last objection is more substantive; it is, in fact, a potential deal breaker.
Uh, Mr. Castaneda, I was under the impression that the bill was under consideration by the United States Senate. Under the Constitution,
The Senate voted last week to cut the number of guest worker slots to 200,000 from 400,000. The earlier figure would have allowed roughly the same number of workers who now cross illegally to obtain guest status. But if the final law has too few slots, it will not end illegal immigration, but simply perpetuate the status quo.
What’s good for
What's good for
By the way, here are three more interesting things about Castañeda that I only learned last year from Fredo Arias-King even though I read almost everything about Castaneda published in English back in 2000-2001, when he became Vicente Fox's foreign minister.
1. He is known in Mexican newspapers "as 'El Guero' ('the Blond One') for his fair complexion."
2. His Soviet mother was an employee of Stalin's government when his father met her.
In 2002, Bianca Vazquez Toness wrote in the
"His father, PRI member Jorge Castañeda de la Rosa, was once foreign minister. His mother, a Russian Jew and naturalized Mexican, met her husband while working as a translator at the U.N. in
His doctorate gave him clout upon returning to
3. Castaneda's chief advisor while he was Foreign Minister was his Soviet-born older half-brother, Ambassador-at-Large Andres Rozental, who is his mother's son by a previous marriage. Rozental personally advised
Isn't it remarkable how little the American press tells us about the men who have run
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer