The Dallas Morning News reports yet another Mexican meddling plan in its article Mexico To Bolster Immigrant Defense [by Alfredo Corchado and Dianne Solis, October 4th, 2007].

Quoth the article:

“The Mexican government is giving its consulates in the U.S. wide latitude to ramp up a campaign to toughen their defense of immigrants and plans to give them more resources as well, officials familiar with the strategy said.”

The article continues,

” The move comes as deportations reach an all-time high in the toughest crackdown in decades by the U.S. government and police authorities. Among the actions under discussion are the creation of an anti-defamation league similar to that focused on protecting Jews; budget increases for some of the 47 consulates, especially in regions such as North Texas, where Mexican migration has been swift and plentiful; and a media campaign aimed at counteracting groups opposed to illegal immigration and sometimes legal immigration.”

What they’re talking about is not the legitimate exercise of diplomatic functions, but meddling in U.S. internal affairs. Of course, our own government allows this to go on without any reprimand. The article quotes a “senior Mexican official” who spoke on condition of anonymity, and said that “Our fight is no longer inside the Beltway. We have been forced to change our strategy.”

The article also reported a September 15th meeting in Mexico City:

” Nearly two dozen U.S.-based immigrant leaders, including North Texans, flew to Mexico City recently to meet with senior officials of the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry to discuss the strategy. The Foreign Ministry and its Institute for Mexicans Abroad, or IME, is carrying out the government’s plan. ”

The IME is another Mexican vehicle designed for meddling in the U.S. and would be expelled by a prudent American government. Anyway, one of the meeting’s Texas attendees stated the obvious:

” Mario Ramírez, a Dallas businessman and Mexican immigrant who attended the meeting, said he knows his loyalty to the U.S., as a naturalized citizen, will be questioned. ”

Uh, Mario, didn’t you take an oath of allegiance to the United States when you became a citizen? Mario’s excuse is that

“as descendants of Mexicans and citizens of the United States, we feel it is our responsibility to create bridges of understanding because the anti-Mexican mood in the United States is causing us - and both countries - much harm . What do we have to lose anymore? We’ve been beaten up to the point that all we can do is fight back. … Things will get worse before they get better.”

So Mario, do you want to identify as a Mexican or an American?

” In Mexico, the meeting is being orchestrated from the top: Foreign Ministry officials called the meeting part of a strategy by President Felipe Calderón to “reinforce consultations and communications with organizations dedicated to the defense of the rights of migrants.” Quiet diplomacy has failed, said those at the Mexico City meeting. As evidence, they pointed to what they call the “venomous” immigration debate and the death of legislation this summer to overhaul U.S. immigration laws. ”

The article also includes a quote from Mexican high-roller and former diplomat Andres Rozental:

“There is a sense that nothing will happen in the next two years in the U.S. Congress, so Mexican immigrants are determined to keep the issue alive and defend themselves with efforts like funding their own anti-defamation league. That in itself is quite an impressive statement.”

Rozental, by the way, is a half-brother of Jorge Castaneda, former Mexican foreign minister and erstwhile Mexican meddler.

The article also revealed that Mexicans in Dallas, celebrating Mexican Independence Day on the night of September 15th, viewed a taped message from Mexican president Felipe Calderon, who

“… boldly expressed his disappointment over the “lack of political goodwill” that led to the failure of an immigration overhaul. “

So the Mexican president is using Mexican Independence Day to stir up resentment among Mexican illegal aliens in the U.S.
On the bright side, the more that Mexico’s leaders and diplomats openly meddle in U.S. immigration policy, the more ordinary Americans wake up to what is really going on. In other words, they may be over-extending themselves and shooting themselves in the foot.

Fifth column. Noun. A clandestine subversive organization working with a country to further an invading enemy’s military and political aims.

Question: Why is At Large Kansas City Councilwoman Beth Gottstein so supportive of the National Council of La Raza’s (The Race) demand that Park Board member Frances Semler be removed from her post because of her membership in the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps?

Answer: Ms. Gottstein is up to her eyeballs supporting efforts that would “positively contribute to the quality of life for Latinos in Kansas City.” And she’s getting paid to do it.

Ms. Gottstein (e-mail), who said she will “stand” with her La Raza amigos if they decide to cancel their 2009 national convention in Kansas City unless the 73-year-old Semler is given the boot by Mayor Mark Funkhouser, is manager-resource development and administration for the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation (HEDC), a La Raza affiliate. Her duties include fund raising, event planning, public affairs and financial management.. She also does volunteer work for the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations in the city.

Last month the Kansas City Star’s Lynn Franey (e-mail) did a lengthy piece on the Minutemen and their mission, “Minuteman controversy centers in Kansas City,” Sept. 22. One reader, Paul Newhouse, has suggested that perhaps Ms. Franey devote at least the same space to a La Raza profile.

Not a bad idea. But any such profile must include an interview with Ms. Gottstein (a side bar, perhaps?) that asks her to explain in detail her HEDC duties and how they may have influenced the way she thinks about related issues such as, oh, you know, the rule of law as it applies to illegal aliens living in her city.
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Here’s the latest Ramesh Ponnuru blog, part of a continuing series:

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 Peter Brimelow Misses the Point   [Ramesh Ponnuru] I'm not whining about the hate mail that Vdare generated against me (the way Brimelow regularly whines about his justly stalled career). I'm gloating about how Vdare failed in its attempt to generate hate mail, as it regularly fails. 10/03 02:49 PM

When we add a link that says “[Send him mail]“ after a writer’s name in an article, we are not trying to generate “hate mail.” We are providing a service for our readers who might want to email him, if he thinks he’s important. And we do deprecate emailing pointlessly rude messages saying “go back where you came from.”These don’t help, and since Ponnuru is from Prairie Village, KS, they’re particularly pointless.No one goes back to Prairie Village.

Of course, his presence in the US is a part of the modern immigration phenomenon. .Here’s his description of his Road to Damascus conversion to really, really, moderate restrictionism, at the 2007 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration (which was won by Stephen Dinan):

MARK KRIKORIAN:Ramesh has actually, he can talk about it a little more, but he’s actually had a kind of a migration of his views, moved from much more kind of expansionist view of immigration toward a more skeptical or critical view of immigration. I don’t want to ascribe any specific positions, but his views on this have changed as he’s seen how the issue works and how it’s covered, and I thought it would be interesting to hear from him some of his thoughts on what he thinks the quality and the nature and the reasons are for the way immigration is covered. Ramesh?

(Applause.)

RAMESH PONNURU: [Send him mail] Well, the sea change was when I realized that I actually had enough relatives in the country and —

(Laughter.)

— and was having too much trouble keeping track of birthday cards as it was, so that was my sort of Damascene moment. [Panel Discussion Transcript, Center for Immigration Studies, June 8, 2007]

Looking at my UPI article of October 23, 2000, “Arab and Armenian Immigrants Gain Clout,” I noticed something that you might think would have been considered relevant after 9/11, less than a year later, but simply never ever has entered the public conversation:

To gratify Arab-American voters in the swing state of Michigan, in the October 11th Presidential debate Republican nominee George W. Bush called for weakening two counter-terrorism policies. “Arab-Americans are [racially] profiled in what’s called secret evidence. People are stopped, and we got to do something about that,” Governor Bush said. “My friend, Sen. Spence Abraham [the Arab-American Republic Senator from Michigan], is pushing a law to make sure that . . . Arab-Americans are treated with real respect.”

Although Governor Bush conflated two issues, Arab Americans appreciated the gesture. According to a spokesperson for a leading Arab-American organization, their highest domestic priority is the repeal of the “secret evidence” section of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act. To prevent terrorist gangs from murdering U.S. government secret informants, this law allows the government to provide evidence from unidentified moles in the immigration hearings of foreigners suspected of terrorist links. The government has deported or detained a number of Arabs hoping to immigrate to the U.S. due to testimony by witnesses they were never allowed to confront.

Similarly, people of Arab descent are stopped and searched at airports more often than many other ethnic groups. This is because the secret “profiles” given security workers advising them whom to watch most closely are believed to refer to the fact that a disproportionate number of hijackers and bombers have been Arabs.

The day after Governor Bush’s remarks, 17 American sailors died in a terrorist attack in the Arab nation of Yemen. The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, however, did not stop Vice President Al Gore from echoing Bush’s calls to end these two anti-terrorist techniques in a meeting with Arab-American leaders on October 14th. Ironically, on October 20th an Egyptian-born immigrant Ali A. Mohamed plead guilty in Federal District Court to helping Osama Bin Laden plan the 1998 bombing of the America Embassy in Kenya. …

The success of Arab-Americans this year in rallying heavyweight politicians against “secret evidence” may mark a turning point in the long, previously one-sided political struggle between Arabs and Jews in the U.S. Arab-Americans seem to be on the verge of wining on an issue opposed by leading Jewish powerhouses. On May 23, the Anti-Defamation League gave testimony before Congress, co-signed by the American Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith, in favor of keeping some version of secret evidence.

There is some room for compromise on secret evidence and airport profiling. A Jewish counter-terrorism researcher suggested, for example, that airport security personnel should be trained to be more courteous. Nonetheless, anti-terrorism policy remains essentially a zero-sum contest between Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans. The stronger the measures, the more innocent Arabs who will be harassed. The weaker the measures, the more Jews who are threatened by political violence.

Besides their ever-increasing numbers, Arab-Americans are gaining power because they’ve now mastered the traditional liberal Jewish vocabulary that elevates what might seem like practical clashes in power politics into tests of moral principle. On secret evidence and airport profiling, Arab lobbies have put Jewish organizations in the uncomfortable position of championing law and order over civil liberties, racial equality, and immigrants’ rights.

The Bush Administration conducted a study in June 2001 to ascertain whether airport personnel had stopped subjecting Arabs to more security scrutiny.

We now know that the airport ticket agent who checked in Mohammed Atta on the morning of 9/11/2001 said to himself, as he told Oprah in 2005:

“I got an instant chill when I looked at [Atta]. I got this grip in my stomach and then, of course, I gave myself a political correct slap.”

Michael Touhey told a reporter:

Then Tuohey went through an internal debate that still haunts him.

“I said to myself, ‘If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does.’ Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it’s not nice to say things like this,” he said. “You’ve checked in hundreds of Arabs and Hindus and Sikhs, and you’ve never done that. I felt kind of embarrassed.”

It wasn’t just Atta’s demeanor that caught Tuohey’s attention.

“When I looked at their tickets, they had first-class, one-way tickets - $2,500 tickets. Very unusual,” he said. “I guess they’re not coming back. Maybe this is the end of their trip.”

Indeed, it was.