Stewart A. Alexander
Socialist Party USA- Nominee for U.S. Vice President,
and candidate for nomination by the Peace and Freedom Party

December 12, 2007

As the 2008 Election year moves into high gear, most of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have adopted an anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican strategy for their campaigns. The message of the candidates is outlining an agenda that will increase border enforcement and supporting legislation that will restrict the rights of millions of immigrants.

This anti-immigrant rhetoric, coming from the two corporate parties, is helping to drive an anti-immigrant public phobia across America and is straining our political ties with Mexico. Just last week President Felipe Calderon of Mexico accused these candidates of being “swaggering, macho and anti-Mexican,” according to the Associated Press.

President Calderon also sharply criticized the U.S. Congress and government for taking measures to persecute, mistreat and restrict the rights of immigrant workers. Calderon has strongly denounced the U.S. immigration policy. The president has charged, “The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle…for their rights,” according to the Washington Post.

Within the past decade, the general attitude of millions of Americans have become worst toward Mexico and Mexicans in the U.S., in large part due to a weakening U.S. economy and the failure of U.S. trade agreements, such as NAFTA.

U.S. trade agreements in general do not benefited working-class people on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border; these trade agreements only benefit the billionaires and capitalists in both countries. What has been evident is the basic standard of living has been lowered in Mexico due to these flawed trade agreements and poverty is ravishing that entire nation.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans are seeking work in the U.S. only as a means of survival and to feed their families. Many Mexicans are braving treacherous borders and are risking rape, starvation, threats and death only to improve the well-being for their families.

The Bush administration and Congress are now constructing a 700-mile U.S.-Mexico border fence that is only exacerbating the immigration issues between the two neighboring countries and straining relations; the border fence is also a senseless approach to deal with a complexity of issues that are rooted in solving the needs of working people.

The Peace and Freedom Party and Socialist Party USA are opposed to the direction that the Democrats and Republicans are leading millions of American; the presidential candidates, along with their parties are fueling a national attitude of ill-will and resentment toward Mexicans and Mexicans-Americans.

Socialist leaders understand that the two corporate parties are only using the issues of immigration as a means of diverting public attention from the Iraq War; a war that has caused over one million deaths. The two corporate parties want to divert public attention from an expanding national debt that is now approaching $10 trillion and a massive trade deficit that has become a burden on every working class family. The failing policies, of the two parties, has produced out of control inflation, a national recession, soaring gasoline prices, a crumbling housing market, unaffordable health care, failing senior care, smaller paychecks, and a fail foreign policy that has revealed that the Democrats and Republicans have failed in their responsibilities to the American people.

In the grand scheme of American politics, the immigration issue will exist until the needs of working-class people are met. Until the needs of working people are addressed, building political walls and border walls will ultimately prove futile and will cause more human suffering and deaths.

Peace and Freedom Party and Socialist Party USA fully support protecting the rights of working class people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and both socialist parties oppose building border walls. All the 2008 candidates, from the two socialist parties, favor strengthening ties with Mexico and developing policy that will benefit working people in both countries and worldwide.

For more information search the Web for: Stewart A. Alexander; Immigrants are Lost in American Politics; Border Fence- the Cost is Far too High; Iraq War, Many Diversions; Independent Voters Rejecting Democrats and Republicans.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/02/AR2007090200958.html
www.banderasnews.com/0702/eded-borderfence.htm

StewartAlexanderCares.com
www.vote-socialist.org/
peaceandfreedom-sjv.org/home/
www.dcpoliticalreport.com/pres08.htm
www.politics1.com/p2008.htm