In my column of April 8 concerning illegal immigration, I stated
that one of the reasons for my personal opposition was that I could
not understand the position of Washington politicians that want
open borders. Why would George Bush and Karl Rove want desperately
to leave our borders with Mexico and Canada open for illegals to
enter the U.S. unimpeded? It simply made no sense.
In my column of April 8 concerning illegal immigration, I stated that one of the reasons for my personal opposition was that I could not understand the position of Washington politicians that want open borders. Why would George Bush and Karl Rove want desperately to leave our borders with Mexico and Canada open for illegals to enter the U.S. unimpeded? It simply made no sense.
A partial answer is emerging in the form of an under-the-radar initiative owned by the Department of Commerce. George Bush’s Republican administration is pushing forward a program through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that leads to elimination of the U.S. southern border with Mexico and the U.S. northern border with Canada. The new initiative is deemed NAFTA Plus. “A “trinational merger” is under way that leaps beyond the single market that NAFTA envisioned and, in many ways, would constitute a single state, called simply, “North America.”
“The American security perimeter extends from Canada’s far north, the Arctic Ocean, to Mexico’s extreme south, bordering with Guatemala and Belize.” So writes Miguel Picard of IRC Americas at www.americaspolicy.org.
In March of 2005, U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, at a meeting in Waco, Texas, committed their governments to a path that leads to the perimeter definition mentioned above. An outcome of this meeting was the formation of ministerial level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America. The umbrella initiative is entitled the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.” There is a website with summary information at www.spp.gov.
The drivers behind this sovereignty-destroying framework are not people elected by the citizens of any of the three countries. Out in front on this issue is an umbrella task force calling itself the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America (ITF). In each of the three countries there is a sponsoring organization. The three coordinating agencies are, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Mexican Council of International Affairs, and in the U.S., the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The work of this task force has been orchestrated to exactly coincide with the overall timing agreed to by the three heads of state.
The linkages from this group to officials within the governmental structure are numerous. For example, Jorge G. Casteneda, who was Vicente Fox’s foreign relations secretary when Fox was making Mexico’s bold NAFTA proposals in 2001, has a close relationship with Robert A. Pastor. Mr. Pastor, a National Security Council member in the Carter Administration, is a U.S. member of the ITF task force and is himself a member of CFR. Another member is Doris Meisner, Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1993-2000. The CFR is an elite and exclusive behind-the-scenes club that has had a definitive effect on U.S. policy for several decades. The blueprint for the future of the citizens of the three countries is detailed in a summary document entitled “Building a North American Community.”
Bush Presidents No.s 41 and 43 are identified with the Internationalist wing of the Republican Party. George H. W. Bush was also a member of the CFR, the U.S. sponsoring agency for the ITF. Bush Sr. was a consistent Internationalist, and Bush Jr. is a strong supporter of the regional concept behind NAFTA.
The linkage of the NAFTA Plus movement and President Bush’s support of illegal immigration and open borders is obvious. George Bush and the Congressional Republicans that support open borders and the free movement of people within the North American outer perimeter do so because they are Internationalists. It would be senseless from the viewpoint of the North American expanded perimeter concept to be concerned about border enforcement at the U.S. Mexican-border. George Bush, the Internationalist Republicans, and the Congressional Democrats are on a path to covertly gravitate all of us from being citizens of one of the three sovereign nations – United States, Mexico, and Canada – to being citizens of North America. Mexican citizens are likewise outraged at Mr. Fox’s abandonment of the rest of Central and South America in favor of a linkage to the North.
Mr. Bush: 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War to preserve the sovereignty of the United States. We will not allow it to be stolen from the citizens in the dark of night without a full national debate.
Al Kelsch is a Hollister resident who writes a weekly column for the Free Lance that runs on Fridays.
