Posted on 06/12/2006 6:23:16 AM PDT by conservativecorner
Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.
Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.
As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.
Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.
NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.
Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”
The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road. The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.
A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
Looks like the longshoreman's union is going to be outsourcing to Kansas.
please God kill this superhighway.
It is the highway of death for the USA
Let's distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. I have, like most all Americans, no problem with legal immigration. I have a big problem with illegal immigration. It's "illegal" for a reason, and just because it's good for business doesn't make it good for America. Clearly, for 20 years the Federal Government has turned a blind eye on the laws that were written in 1986 and beyond. Now we have 10 to 12 million illegals in this country. History shows amnesty doesn't stop the flow of illegal aliens.
Jorge's at it again. Enriching the Mexican entrepreneurs, that Americans won't.
A couple of questions.
- How do the goods get from the Mexican port to the US border? Do they have good roads?
- Who runs the Port? Is Dubai Ports World involved?
- Why would China abandon the terminals it owns on the West Coast of the US and go to Mexico?
North American Union.
The writing on the wall is getting clearer and clearer everyday. ruh-roh..
Not as sinister as this:
Congress has passed 7 amnesties for illegal aliens, starting in 1986.
1. Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), 1986: A blanket amnesty for some 2.7 million illegal aliens
2. Section 245(i) Amnesty, 1994: A temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens
3. Section 245(i) Extension Amnesty, 1997: An extension of the rolling amnesty created in 1994
4. Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) Amnesty, 1997: An amnesty for close to one million illegal aliens from Central America
5. Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act Amnesty (HRIFA), 1998: An amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti
6. Late Amnesty, 2000: An amnesty for some illegal aliens who claim they should have been amnestied under the 1986 IRCA amnesty, an estimated 400,000 illegal aliens
7. LIFE Act Amnesty, 2000: A reinstatement of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty, an estimated 900,000 illegal aliens
8. Nine current bills are vying to be Amnesty No. 8
Perhaps, too, landlords will lower the rents they charge, home owners will be willing to sell for less, medical services will become more affordable, and utilities will lower their rates to bring the cost of living in line with the new Mexican wages.
The U.S. must've been the test case for morphing a republic into a democracy.. Well thats pretty much accomplished, NOW..
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." — Lily Tomlin
I completely understand the difference between illegal and legal.
Amnesty will not stop illegals, but I argue that a giant fricken' wall will not stop them, either. We must endeavor to understand why they come here, and then address that.
If our Conservative leader, Stephen Harper was involved in the planning,
then the jokes on Bush as the NAFTA Highway appears to enter Canada near
Thunder Bay, where there nothing, nada.
The 50 Canadians living within the 1000 sq miles up there will not present
many export/import opportunities.
I suspect that this story is a pile of horseshit..
I wouldn't call it "mexican wages," I would call it somewhere in between what Mexican dock workers currently make and the price controlled-wages that American unionized dock workers currently make.
And I think everyone knows that if no one is buying, the free market forces you to lower your price.
You sound liberal with your refusal to investigate cause and effect. Respond to the effect, ignore what causes it.
Send them back, yes, but we will be wasting our time sending a lot of people back, most likely, the same people over and over again, unless we work to create real change.
I'm on my first cup of coffee so please tell me you forgot your sarcasm tag.
I remember leftist after 9-11 wanted us to 'endeaver' to understand why people wanted to fly planes into our buildings and murder us. Are you one of those?
I was merely remarking on the fact that it's a bit of a stretch to call this a "quiet plan." And if you think that illegal immigration is a problem, as do I, it'd be better to allocate your resources in that direction, instead of protesting a toll road.
I understand perfectly why people want to fly planes into our buildings. Because they hate America, Americans, and everything we stand for. Because they hate democracy, human rights, treating everyone as equals, and freedom of religion.
Libs wanted us to "understand" some made up reason.
This article is the Mexican reason why illegals come here. Try reading it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1646958/posts
Are we so naieve to think that Mexico won't have a union for the ports?
Yet, you cannot see a bloodless(for now)invasion of our country?
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