Mexico threatens immigration-control activists

Mexico has threatened to take legal action in the United States against American citizens trying to protect the US border:

Mexico says it may go to court in an attempt to stop the Minuteman Project, a plan by immigration-control activists to mount a civilian patrol on the Arizona-Mexico border in April.

The Mexican government has hired a Los Angeles law firm to study legal options to stop the effort, said Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez during a news conference.

He said he also planned to complain to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits Mexico City on March 10.

"We are going to attack by all legal means," Derbez said, according to a transcript released late Monday.

He called the Minuteman Project "incorrect and illegal from the point of view not only of our administration but also in view of the United States' own laws."

Organizers of the Minuteman Project have said the volunteers will notify the Border Patrol if they see border-crossers and will not confront the migrants directly.

But Mexican officials are worried the volunteers will take the law into their own hands.

"During the meeting with Secretary of State Rice, I would like to tell her about the actions that the Mexican government will undertake in defense of the rights of our fellow citizens in particular because of this concern about private-sector American groups committing actions that we see as illegal," Derbez said during the Monday news conference.

Mexico can't forcibly stop migrants from crossing because its constitution guarantees freedom of movement for all citizens, Derbez said.

He said Mexico would help Mexican-American groups challenging the project.

"There are a great number of legal measures at our disposal within the U.S. legal system, and we will make use of each and every one of them," Derbez said.

It is such a pity that Derbez is more interested in going after law-abiding Americans trying to protect the borders of their country than in pursuing the Mexican drug dealers that have made his country a hellhole to live in.

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