Fox can go jump

What is an extremist?

Apparently anyone who believes that a nation's borders should be nothing more than a philosophical construct, if you believe Mexican president Vincente Fox.

Fox said he plans to push for U.S. immigration reform during a meeting with President Bush in Texas next week.

Yeah? What kind of reform? Perhaps regulations against the formation of groups like the Minutemen, the volunteers who will start patrolling the border in Arizona beginning April 1 with an eye toward reporting illegals entering from Mexico.

"There are signs of these kinds of problems present today, and (they are)progressing," Fox said during a news conference for foreign reporters. "We have to act quickly and on time to prevent these kinds of actions." He said Mexico is watching the Minuteman Project carefully and will take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any of the activists break the law.

"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."

You see, Fox does not like border restrictions. He does not like fences or walls. Especially the new triple fence being built near San Diego.

"We are convinced that walls don't work. They should be torn down," he said. "No country that is proud of itself should build walls. No one can isolate himself these days."

Fox said he understood Americans' concern about protecting their southern border. But he dismissed fears that terrorists have sneaked into the United States through Mexico. "We have absolutely no evidence of that," he said.

And we won't have evidence until we plug the leaks -- or when the first reports of terrorist casualties come in from the next 9-11 type event. Naturally Fox doesn't like walls when they conflict directly with his goal of flooding the former territories of Mexico -- now part of the United States -- with enough people to achieve reconquest through the ballot box.

Perhaps hoping that President Bush will not get wind of his pro-reconquista remarks intended for Mexican crowds, Fox is trotting out his own version of "Save Social Security."

Fox said he will push for action on a "guest worker" program in the United States. He said that the U.S. population is aging and will need Mexican labor in the future and that turning millions of undocumented Mexicans into legal, taxpaying workers could help keep the Social Security system afloat.

Of course these same workers would draw Social Security benefits too, and not necessarily commeasurate with years of service, etc.

We are, of course, not expecting much from Dubya on this issue: it is a serious blind spot for the president, for whatever reason. We hope that congressional Republicans will awaken to their responsibility for border security before Hillary and the liberal Democrats grab it as a faux issue to woo voters in 2006 and 2008. (We do not trust them to do border control right, but even a little bit of falsely sincere border control is better than totally sincere cluelessness.)

We like the response of the Minutemen Project leadership:

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."