Protests End Speech by Mexican Official at University of Arizona

What is it with Mexico? They seem to think we owe them the right to send their people here willy-nilly without a care. But I'm asking a rhetorical question. I know what they are thinking, they expect to get the Southwest of the USA back. So it's no wonder that a Mexican Official would come to Arizona to give a speech and do so in Spanish without an interpreter.

A high-ranking official with Mexico's National Human Rights Commission was forced to cancel a talk at the University of Arizona today after several Tucsonans who favor a crackdown on illegal immigration became disruptive because he was speaking in Spanish.

Mauricio Farah, a national inspector for the Mexican commission, walked out of a packed room at the University Services Annex after some audience members demanded an interpreter or that he discuss the scheduled topic, "Migration, Shared Responsibility," in English.

When their demands were not met, the group became loudly disruptive, accusing Farah and other Mexican officials of being disrespectful for speaking Spanish in a public meeting.

UA Police were called to the scene to restore order.

Now one thing I will give Mr. Farah, he complained that Mexico was hypocritical for expecting the US to not police its border while Mexico was even more tough on the illegal immigration at its southern border with Guatemala.

But officials of Mexico's federal Human Rights Commission acknowledged that Mexico already employs both tactics in its own territory.

"As a matter of fact, (Mexico's) population law does include prison terms for illegally entering the country … and this is something that has been the subject of constant complaints," said Mauricio Farah, a national inspector for the rights commission.

That's all well and good but it's beside the point. What is happening is a concerted effort to get Mexican nationals into the US to use the democratic process to cede the Southwest back to Mexico. One piece at a time if necessary.

The Maywood police dragnets enabled the city to impound the immigrant's vehicles and then auction them off after 30 days. Police Chief Leflar bragged that in one year his cops had confiscated over 1,800 vehicles and had made about $1, 000,000 dollars for the City of Maywood from their share of the vehicle auctions, fees and fines.

Maywood, a city with about 28,300 inhabitants, was founded in 1912 and up to about 1970 it was almost an exclusively "White Oakie" working class community. The demographics of the city started changing dramatically about twenty years ago and today its population is 96.3% Latino and only about 2.6% White. The 2.6% White population or about 739 people are mostly old folks who live in the city's rest homes.

Soon after the Los Angeles Times ran a story concerning the abuses of Maywood Police Chief Lefler, the Mexicano community started to organized politically and last November it elected three new councilmembers of Mexican descent. The new council wasted no time in making changes in how Maywood treated its immigrants. On Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to declare Maywood, an "Immigrant Sanctuary".

Felipe Aguirre, the newly elected Vice-Mayor of Maywood, said in Spanish, "Estamos creando un santuario para los inmigrantes, queremos que vengan. Si en otras partes los atacan, como en Costa Mesa y Cypress Park, queremos decirles que aquí pueden sentirse seguros". Vice-Mayor Aguirre also pronounced the city's unanimity against HR4437, federal legislation that seeks to criminalize undocumented immigrants.

It's about time that we recognize what is happening on the border and throughout the country with illegal immigration. Those who want to do our country harm make the spurious claim that we are against immigration and the people being targeted are immigrants, not illegal immigrants. There is a huge difference and they know it, otherwise they would not be so hard on illegal immigration at their own country's southern border.

The reaction at University of Arizona was entirely proper. This is still the United States so until the Mexican Government finishes annexing the Southwest they could at least communicate to us in English when they send officials here.