Felipe Calderon: Hypocrite

Felipe Calderon is the president of MEXICO.

He has no authority in the United States, yet he thinks he should determine our immigration policies. I think he should butt out and focus on bettering his country.

In September 2007, Calderon spoke out against the Bush administration and U.S. immigration LAW.

In his speech, Mr. Calderón, who has acknowledged that he has relatives who migrated to the United States, suggested that the deportation of undocumented immigrants bordered on a violation of human rights, and he vowed to help illegal migrants.

“I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico,” he said. “And, for this reason, the government action on behalf of our countrymen is guided by principles, for the defense and protection of their rights.”

"Wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

That's nuts.

It's also incredibly hypocritical. Calderon applies a completely different standard when it comes to his country and immigration.

J. Michael Waller offers details on Mexico's immigration law.

Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.

That's too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.

At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, it’s noteworthy that nobody has argued that the U.S. look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve our illegal immigration problem. Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

---in the country legally;

---have the means to sustain themselves economically;

---not destined to be burdens on society;

---of economic and social benefit to society;

---of good character and have no criminal records; and

---contributors to the general well-being of the nation.

The law also ensures that:

---immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;

---foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;

---foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;

---foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;

---foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;

---those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.

Who could disagree with such a law? It makes perfect sense. The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens -- and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, illegal and illegal. Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or General Law on Population, spells out specifically the country's immigration policy.

It is an interesting law -- and one that should cause us all to ask, Why is our great southern neighbor pushing us to water down our own immigration laws and policies, when its own immigration restrictions are the toughest on the continent?

If a felony is a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, then Mexican law makes it a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.

Knowing Mexico's immigration policy, Calderon's remarks about human rights and the United States are especially disturbing.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday condemned Arizona's tough new immigration law as discriminatory and warned that relations with the U.S. border state will suffer.

The measure, which will make it a crime under state law to be an illegal immigrant, "opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement," Calderon said.

Calderon said he had instructed the Foreign Relations Department to double its efforts to protect the rights of Mexicans living in the United States and seek help from lawyers and immigration experts.

"Nobody can sit around with their arms crossed in the face of decisions that so clearly affect our countrymen," Calderon said in a speech at the Institute for Mexicans Abroad.

This is such a goofy sentence: The Arizona law "will make it a crime under state law to be an illegal immigrant."

Yeah. I would hope so.

ILLEGAL.

Ignoring the law is not fair to the many legal immigrants to America. It's not fair to American citizens.

Calderon is making demands of the United States, outraged over Arizona's treatment of ILLEGAL immigrants; yet when it comes to immigrants in his country, he fails to grant them the sort of privileges he expects us to offer Mexicans.

Hypocrite.