Dave Gibson
The Inter-Press Sevice (IPS) is reporting that the head administrator of the Mexican Superintendency of Tax Administration, Raul Diaz, has confirmed that his government is building a wall in the state of Chiapas, along the Mexican/Guatemalan border.
The official reason is to stop contraband from coming into Mexico, but as Diaz admitted: “It could also prevent the free passage of illegal immigrants.”
According to Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights, 500,000 people from Central America cross into Mexico illegally every year.
Just as Mexican authorities have opposed the construction of a fence by the U.S., along our border with their country, Mexico is now receiving a great deal of criticism from the Guatemalan government.
The executive coordinator of the National Bureau for Migration in Guatemala, Marila de Prince, told a local newspaper: “It is not a correct measure being taken by the Mexican government.”
Erick Maldonado, executive secretary of Guatemala's National Council on Migrants said: “We are watching the Mexican government's initiative with concern because the migrants are in a situation of highest vulnerability, as demonstrated by the massacre in Tamaulipas, where five Guatemalans died.”
Maldonado said the wall “is going to make the migrants' situation worse, because to meet their needs they are always going to find blind points where there are no migration or security controls, which implies greater risks."
Vice-President of Guatemala, Rafael Espada, said: “The walls are not the solution to the problems.”
The Catholic Church has been highly critical of U.S. treatment of illegal aliens, and one priest in Central America used the news of the Mexican wall to take another shot at the American people.
Father Francisco Pellizari, of the Casa del Migrante told IPS: “The dramatic increase in the cost of 'polleros' (human traffickers) and the corruption of the authorities is the result of the walls the United States plans to build and has built along the border. We can transpose the Guatemala case to this situation and the results will be the same.”
Peliizari said border walls “are supposedly intended to halt migration, but that hasn't happened. Instead they have triggered an economic hemorrhage and a shift in the migratory flow to inhospitable routes that lead to thousands of deaths.”
Of course, the U.S. press has completely ignored the story…They excoriate Americans for their desire to simply defend their own borders, but give Mexico a pass for building a wall to keep out illegal aliens.
Examiner
