FTAA: forced to accept aliens: despite one opinion poll after another showing that Americans overwhelmingly support tighter immigration policies, FTAA proponents intend to erase our nation's borders.

When it comes to accepting immigrants, the United States of America has been more generous than any other nation in the world. In fact, for many years we have accepted more immigrants than have all other countries of the world combined. In addition to opening our doors to this steady influx of immigrants and refugees, we also have been extremely casual about allowing millions of aliens to violate our borders and settle here illegally. This is now causing us major economic, social, political and national security problems.

Imagine then the catastrophic consequences of further swamping our already overwhelmed borders with five, ten or twenty times the number of aliens--legal and illegal--that now annually flood our shores. That is precisely what awaits us, if Congress adopts the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

If the American voters had the barest inkling of the immigration avalanche that the FTAA would start, they would be sweeping from office every politician who breathed even the slightest hint of support for this misnamed and misbegotten scheme. Over the past three decades, opinion poll after opinion poll has shown that Americans overwhelmingly support stronger border security and greater restrictions on immigration.

A national RoperASW poll released in April 2003 reported that 85 percent of American saw illegal immigration as a "serious problem." The same poll found similar percentages favoring stronger border enforcement and an overall reduction of U.S. immigration levels. Even Hispanics lean strongly in this direction. The Hispanic business magazine Poder reported in its January 2004 issue that a recent poll it had commissioned found 56 percent of U.S. Hispanics favoring "tougher immigration [controls] in light of security concerns."

Pro FTAA politicians in both major parties know that security concerns heightened by the 9-11 terrorist attacks have combined with the U.S. economic downturn and rising unemployment to make immigration--both legal and illegal--an even hotter topic than ever. That is why they are doing everything possible to keep the "open borders" feature of the FTAA as hidden as possible.

The dirty secret that the FTAA proponents can't afford to leak out too soon is this: A fully implemented FTAA would eliminate sovereign borders between the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA architects call for full economic and political "integration and convergence," along the lines already adopted by the countries of the European Union.

In case you haven't noticed, even our legal terminology is gradually being changed to resemble the EU model. Increasingly, government officials, academics and the media are using the terms "migrant" and "migration" rather than "immigrant" and "immigration." As a U.S. citizen, you have the right to migrate freely to any part of our country, from, say, Ohio to Florida, Oregon or Alaska.

Similarly, if we allow the FTAA to be put into effect, we should soon expect tens of millions of people--from Canada to Mexico to Haiti to Brazil and Argentina--to "migrate" here. And they would claim a legal right to do so. In fact, the Latin American Solidarity Coalition charges that "current U.S. anti-immigration policies and laws violate many of the provisions of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

The Elephant Under the Doily

The immigration/migration juggernaut headed our way was the great unspoken issue at the November 2003 Summit of the Americas in Miami. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel noted in an article about the summit that "immigration policy is strictly off the menu." "Nobody's lobbying [on immigration] mainly because most people realize that it's something that should be brought in at least gradually," Max Castro, a left-wing writer and researcher at the University of Miami's North-South Center, told the Sun-Sentinel. "If you made that the first item on the agenda it would probably torpedo the whole thing," said Dr. Castro, an avid supporter of open borders.

We can thank Mexican President Vicente Fox for (inadvertently) blowing the seam. Soon after his upset election victory in 2000, Mr. Fox shocked American audiences with his audacious demands that the U.S., in essence, abolish our southern border and allow as many Mexicans as are inclined to come here to do so.

While some FTAA advocates appeared worried that Fox would stir up opposition before sufficient momentum could be built for the scheme, other's were clearly thrilled. An August 25, 2000 News Hour segment on PBS focused on the Fox "vision" and the sensation it was causing. "Mexico's president-elect, Vicente Fox, has spent the past week in Canada and the U.S. outlining his vision for a more integrated North America," reported News Hour's Elizabeth Farnsworth. "Perhaps most provocative was his proposal to open the U.S.-Mexican border...." Farnsworth then refereed a panel discussion by three academicians--one Mexican, two U.S.--all of whom enthusiastically applauded Fox's daring proposals.

The Wall Street Journal joined in the kudos pile-on. The July 2, 2001 issue of the Journal carried an outrageous editorial endorsing the Fox vision of hemispheric merger. Entitled "Open Nafta Borders? Why Not?," it declared:

   Reformist Mexican President Vicente
   Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion
   that over a decade or two Nafta
   should evolve into something like the
   European Union, with
   open borders for not only
   goods and investment but
   also people. He can rest assured
   that there is one
   voice north of the Rio
   Grande that supports his
   vision. To wit, this newspaper....

"Indeed," it acknowledged, "during the immigration debate of 1984 we suggested an ultimate goal to guide passing policies--a constitutional amendment: 'There shall be open borders.'"

The Wall Street Journal, which is heavily larded with officers and staff who are Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) members, shares this "open border" vision with an interesting cadre of assorted revolutionaries. Until a few years ago, it was primarily hard-core leftists who called for such things: Communists, socialists, anarchists. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)--a violent Maoist organization openly allied with the Shining Path terrorists of Peru--sponsored a number of "Break Down the Border" conferences in California during the 1980s and '90s. Like the Wall Street Journal, the RCP Reds proclaimed the "right" of all peoples to migrate, and called for an end to national borders.

Open Borders Lobby

It must seem odd to many observers to see the Wall Street elites joining with the street militants to break down the borders. Actually, there is a little-known but longstanding relationship between these two seemingly opposite forces that is just now coming out more into the open. The militant "open borders" lobby would barely exist except for the massive infusions of cash from major tax-exempt foundations --particularly the Ford Foundation. William R. Hawkins amply documents in his important 1994 book, Importing Revolution: Open Borders and the Radical Agenda, that the militant "immigrant rights" lobby is almost a wholly owned subsidiary of the CFR-laden Ford Foundation.

The Ford Foundation has been infamous for decades for funding almost every subversive, revolutionary group and movement imaginable. Half a century ago, Ford's affinity for bankrolling Communist, pro-Communist and anti-American outfits caused it to be a prime target of a congressional investigation headed by Rep. Carroll Reece of Tennessee. But the foundation's influential friends succeeded in squashing the Reece investigation, and the Ford revolutionaries have gone merrily on their way ever since, brazenly pouring financial support into the most radical causes.

One of the major Ford-funded operations advancing the FTAA open borders agenda is the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute (MPI). As the organization's literature explains, "MPI grew out of the International Migration Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." That certainly fits. The folks at Carnegie, like the Ford Foundation, were also main targets of the 1953 Reece investigation, and for the same good reasons.

Only one week prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Migration Policy Institute's co-director, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, penned an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times entitled, "We Need a Fresh Start on Immigration." The Carnegie-funded and -created immigration expert called upon Presidents Bush and Fox to consider an "integrated policy package" on migration. "The first element," be said, "should be to allow as many of the Mexicans who are illegally here--if they wish to do so to earn 'green cards,' or permanent resident status."

What's more, insisted Dr. Papademetriou, "we must issue many more legal visas than we do now." And we should "exempt both Canada and Mexico from our worldwide migration formulas." That's a "fresh start"? More accurately, it would be a vast and dangerous expansion of the treasonous policies that already threaten our national survival.

The MPI's Web site tells us this concerning its North American Borders and Migration Agenda: "The project emphasizes practical problem-solving ... and the gradual re-alignment of border relations toward cooperative and joint management rather than unilateral enforcement efforts."

In other words, we will no longer have sovereign borders that we control; our borders will be jointly, cooperatively "managed" under what MPI calls "international legal norms for migration."

MPI was started at Carnegie by Doris Meissner (CFR), the ultra-left-wing activist whom President Clinton appointed as INS commissioner to oversee his disastrous immigration policies. In a July 27, 2001 Washington Post interview, Moises Naim, editor of the Carnegie Endowment's journal, Foreign Policy, had this to say about the newly "independent" MPI, which was then about to split off formally from Carnegie: "One of the most influential institutions will be born next month voicing its opinion around the world, not just to Capitol Hill."

Papademetriou and MPI have indeed been influential, putting their stamp on much of the current immigration policy worldwide. But the influence stems directly from the generous funding and official contacts provided by the Ford, Carnegie and Soros Foundations (among others) and the priceless promotional boosts provided by media giants like the Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, etc. It is thanks to these factors that MPI has had a major role in developing the Mexico-U.S. "migration" policies embraced by Presidents Bush and Fox.

The July 27, 2001 adulatory profile on Papademetriou noted that his big breakthrough on this score had come about due to "four years of biannual secret meetings" he had undergone with U.S. and Mexican leaders. Three of the Mexican participants ended up as key figures in the new Fox administration. That's not surprising. Vicente Fox came out charging for open borders and amnesty for illegal Mexican aliens in the United States. President Bush was more equivocal, pandering to both sides, but sending plenty of signals that he was headed for open borders.

Amnesty Betrayal

The sobering events of 9-11 put a damper on that for a while. However, in January of this year, Bush stunned loyal Republican supporters with his announcement that the amnesty for illegals was back on track. In his January 7 White House address, Bush declared: "This program will offer legal status, as temporary workers, to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States and to those in foreign countries who seek to participate in the program...."

President Bush's announcement started an immediate rush for the border. According to a confidential Border Patrol report to a Senate committee, apprehensions of aliens along the entire U.S.-Mexico border increased by more than 11 percent and in some sectors by 100 to 200 percent. The report also noted that more than a third of those apprehended said they were trying to take advantage of the Bush amnesty.

In a case of word twisting that invites comparisons to Bill Clinton, President Bush insists that his amnesty is "not an amnesty." The Clintonesque weaseling notwithstanding, the proposed Bush-Fox-Ford-Carnegie-CFR "non-amnesty" would legalize millions of aliens now here illegally. But that will be as nothing compared to the migration landslide we can expect if we fail to stop the FTAA.