Don't Let Me Stop You: U.S. needs to watch extremists, Fox says

There are lots of reasons to be wary of extremists, with the hole in lower Manhattan being the most obvious. There is also the memorial at the site of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Those are not the kind of extremists that worry Mexico's President Vincente Fox, though. He's concerned with a different type of threat:

U.S. needs to watch extremists, Fox says: "MEXICO CITY - Anti-immigrant sentiment appears to be growing in the United States, Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday, and he urged U.S. officials to act quickly to control movements such as the 950-member-strong Minuteman Project on the Mexico-Arizona border.
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Mexico's National Human Rights Commission recently issued a warning about several new grass-roots movements inspired by Arizona's Proposition 200. Other Mexican officials have cited the Minuteman Project, a plan by activists to patrol the border during April, as a sign of rising extremism.
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'We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups,' Fox said. 'We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups, which are a minority . . . will not have any opportunity to progress.'

Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they have signed up more than 950 volunteers, including 30 pilots with aircraft, to patrol the border for 30 days beginning April 1. The activists say they will notify the Border Patrol if they see border crossers and will not confront them directly.

Minuteman co-organizer Chris Simcox said participants are exercising their constitutional rights.

'Vicente Fox can rant and rave all he wants, but he obviously doesn't understand what a democracy means,' Simcox said. 'We have been working within the law."

Fox has publicly stated that the illegal aliens passing daily across our southern border are "not illegal," based on the fact that they are seeking work and work is available. Perhaps he believes that, as long as Mexico gives permission for them to leave, the US has no right to refuse them entry.

The US needs to have a public discussion and debate about the ludicrous state of our border security. Among the general public there is wide, bipartisan support for improvement, but political leadership has been sorely lacking. The potential for political demagoguery is high, and no one wants to be labeled anti-immigrant or anti-Hispanic. Meanwhile, everyone ignores the elephant in the room.

The caravans bringing illegal migrants seeking work also provide a convenient opening for terrorists, now that legal entry has become more difficult. The networks here geared to serving the need of illegal migrants for false papers are also here to serve these new, deadly customers.

The key to breaking the political logjam may very well be someone like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the well-known "Northeastern Moderate from NY. " In her march toward the the 2008 presidential race she is seeking ways to demonstrate this new moderation, yet her leftist bona fides protect her from attack from the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party," as Howard Dean has named them. What better way than to get to the right of GWB on a critical, visible issue that crosses part lines like this?

Immigration is beneficial to the US and to the immigrants, but Americans have the right to demand sensible immigration laws and a policy that actually enforces them. The status quo is dangerous and makes a mockery of the legal immigration process.