12/15/04: The Mexican Border (1994)
Dec. 14, 2004 — -- Almost 10 years ago, on our 15th anniversary, "Nightline" broadcasted from the Mexican border. It was one year after the NAFTA agreement. Congress had given the immigration service a huge budget increase in the belief that greater enforcement could control the flood of illegal immigrants.
From Nightline, Mar. 24, 1995:
TED KOPPEL: We rarely get tired of hearing our politicians tell us how good and generous and decent we are. For one thing, we like to believe it's true; for another, it requires a lot less thought than puzzling out what really lies behind our government's policies. Case in point: the flood of illegal immigrants that nightly pours across this and 100 other border crossings from Mexico into the United States. 'Surely,' we say, 'this great country has the resources and the power to close the border down. Call out the Marines, deploy the National Guard, build a fence the length of the entire 2,000-mile-long border if you have to, but close it down.' And, indeed, in the wake of rising public outrage and political pressure, the U.S. border patrol finds itself, these days, with more money and greater resources than at any time in recent memory. GLENN SPENCER: It is a threat. It is a threat to our culture, and I think it's a threat to our security that's unlike anything America's ever faced in its past. EZOLA FOSTER, teacher : I would hate to see us wait until we're backed up in a corner and too many more Americans will have to lose their lives in order to help this country to survive, and that is what it's coming to. ALFRED POWERS: They are here as invaders, they are not here as Americans. Talk about multiculturalism, they lie a lot. This is not multiculturalism in action, this is uniculturalism, it's a takeover bid by the third world. Since then, for all the money we've poured into border patrols, the number of illegal Mexican immigrants in the U.S. has grown significantly. Back then, I closed the broadcast saying: "consider how many hundreds of thousands of Mexicans would stay home ... if they merely had decent jobs to support themselves. Like it or not, we have no choice but to care what happens to Mexico's economy. It will be good for them. It'll be good for us." It was true then. It's true 10 years later.
