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Mexican Invasion Title: Border killing inflames Illegal immigants(keyword Illegal) - Guillermo Martínez could see the promised land of Southern California from the cramped three-bedroom house he shared here with his mother, his wife and two small children. The smooth, dry hills of San Diego County lay just beyond the slum where he lived, past the cinder block shacks, the garbage-strewn streets and rusted-out cars, past the corrugated steel fence that marks the border, and past the taller metal-columned fence put up in the 1990's to stop people like him from crossing. It was in the no man's land between the fences that he was fatally shot by a United States border patrol agent just after dark on Dec. 30. His family says he was trying to get to Fresno, Calif., to take a job picking fruit. Investigators on each side, however, say he might have been trying to smuggle migrants across. "My boy did nothing, nothing, nothing for them to shoot him," said his mother, Ofelia Rodríguez. "He was trying to cross to take care of his children." Whatever his reasons for sneaking over the border, the shooting of Mr. Martínez, 20, has fanned the flames of anger in Mexico over what many here see as an increasingly hard line in the United States against illegal immigrants. His death has become a rallying point for politicians of all stripes, who have condemned the shooting as a racist violation of human rights. Mr. Martínez was killed two weeks after the House of Representatives passed a bill that, among other provisions, would build an additional 700 miles of tall double fences like the one here to stop illegal immigrants. The proposed "frontier wall," as the barrier is called here, and Mr. Martínez's death have become symbols of what many Mexicans see as the deteriorating relationship between the countries and a rising tide of xenophobia in the United States. The wall has prompted street protests in the capital and howls of criticism from Mexican politicians and editorialists, many of whom have likened the proposal to the Berlin Wall. Two Catholic bishops, in a statement, called the proposal "absurd, shameful and intolerable" and "an aspirin against cancer." President Vicente Fox has called the wall "a disgrace," and a "very bad sign" that "does not befit a country that prides itself on being democratic." He took the unusual step of ordering his government to investigate the Martínez shooting and sent a diplomatic note to Washington demanding a full investigation. Human rights advocates say that, in addition to Mr. Martínez, at least four migrants have died in the last 15 months in run-ins with Border Patrol agents. One man was fatally shot Oct. 4 near Otay Mesa as he struggled over a gun with an agent who was trying to arrest him. Three others drowned running away from the Border Patrol agents. In a sign of increasing tensions, it has become more common in the past year for migrants to throw rocks at the agents trying to corral them. In the last two weeks, United States border patrol agents have come under fire twice near the Veterans International Bridge over the Rio Grande between Matamoros and Brownsville, Tex. No one was injured. The outrage in Mexico over the House bill and the shooting death reflects a difference in how people on each side view the border. Conservatives in the United States see the 2,000-mile long frontier as a security problem, a leaky sieve through which all manner of evils can pass: drug smugglers, petty criminals and, possibly, terrorists. "It's a national security issue," said Representative Duncan Hunter, a San Diego Republican who sponsored the fence amendment. "The world understands that if you want to get into this country illegally, you come across the land border with Mexico. You have to know who's coming into the country." Other supporters of the measure say more fences are needed near urban areas to prevent crime and because Mexican law enforcement does nothing to stop people from crossing illegally. The fence in San Diego, a 14-mile pilot project started in 1994, has substantially reduced not only the smuggling of people and drugs, but crime in general in that region, its supporters say. "Mexico has not been serious about helping us control our border," said Representative Dan Lungren, a Republican from Long Beach, Calif., who supports the fences. "So this griping about what we are doing seems to be a little fatuous." Not everyone in the United States supports building fences. Big-city Democrats, Catholic leaders, advocates for immigrants and civil-rights groups have all criticized the idea. Even some Republicans with large Hispanic constituencies, among them Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, oppose it. Mr. Perry said recently that more fences would not be as effective as increased spending for law enforcement agencies on the border. Mexicans, rich and poor, see a relatively porous border as an essential part of their economy. It is lost on no one in power here that migration relieves Mexico of hundreds of thousands of its poor and unemployed every year, while bringing in more income. Migrants send about $20 billion a year home to relatives. At the same time, the view is widely held in Mexico that the United States could not function without cheap Mexican labor, and that efforts to more tightly regulate the flow of migrants are hypocritical and racist. Mexican politicians regularly depict the migrants as heroes, people seeking a better life and braving terrible conditions to get it. The frustration is also compounded by the failure of the Bush administration to push through a guest worker bill that would, in essence, legalize the status of millions of illegal Mexicans immigrants working in the United States. On Wednesday, President Bush expressed support for the fence, saying it would slow the flow of migrants and illegal drugs. The Fox administration has argued that a guest worker law would do more to regulate the flow of immigrants than building more walls. Mr. Martínez was typical of many of the 1.2 million migrants the Border Patrol intercepts every year - poor, with no job prospects. His mother had 18 children, 9 of whom died as infants. Of the surviving children, he was the youngest. His father died when he was a baby. Like his siblings, he never got more than a sixth-grade education. He married at 17 and had two children before he was 20. Three years ago, he moved with his mother and children to Tijuana, where he made a living washing cars and doing small construction jobs, his family said. He also tried to enter the United States to find work. Border Patrol officials have said that Mr. Martínez may have also worked as a pollero, someone immigrants paid to guide them across the border. He was arrested and deported at least 12 times trying to cross the border, though he was never charged with smuggling, they said. His brother Agustín Martínez, 33, was convicted of smuggling migrants in the United States and served time, authorities said. In an interview, Agustín said he was with Guillermo at the time of the shooting, but denied they were guiding others. He said at least three agents spotted them about 7:30 p.m. as they tried to cross the border. One fired a shot at the brothers as they ran away. The shot hit Guillermo Martínez in the back and left his body through his chest. He died the next day at Cruz Roja Hospital in Tijuana. Lt. Kevin Rooney, a homicide investigator in the San Diego Police Department, has pieced together a different account from interviews with the agent and other sources. He said one agent, who has been identified as Fausto Campos, was guarding a post along the second fence when he received a report of people crossing about 100 yards to the east. When he arrived there in his car, he saw a man with a ladder in the zone between the fences, Lieutenant Rooney said. The agent, who had been on the force eight years, opened a gate, drove his car through, then spotted the man running toward the open gate. The agent jumped out to cut the man off. The man scooped rocks from the ground and threw them, Lieutenant Rooney said. As a rock passed his head, the agent fired his pistol once at the man, who grabbed his arm, turned and sprinted out of sight along the first fence. "It is a one-on-one confrontation," Lieutenant Rooney said.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Stay in your own country or come over legally , this article is ridiculous and the mexicans show their utter disregard of our country,our rights, our loved ones. I don't give a rat's ass if they are punished for stealing jobs and land from legal and natural born citizens.
Schoolin Since Birth
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