May 08

NAFTA compliance, finally / Obama will end 17-year ban on Mexican trucks

By PMC Cross Border Program, Editorial Comment, Guest Bloggers, NAFTA, Nafta Op View Comments

Mexican Truck Hwy 2

Safe Mexican carriers such as this one will soon be seen on US highways as the Obama administration does the right thing and fulfills our promises under NAFTA. The time for the lies, fear mongering and hysteria is over with.

BY UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BOARD

The North American Free Trade Agreement was ratified by Congress almost 17 years ago. It’s about time the United States began honoring a key part of it. A sticking point in the treaty has been the provision allowing truckers from Mexico, Canada and the United States cross-border access to each nation’s highways.

The United States allowed Canadian truckers access, but kept out Mexican trucks. Democratic lawmakers claimed they were worried about “safety concerns” related to the Mexican trucks. But what they were really worried about was how best to cater to labor unions and address the Teamsters’ concerns that Mexican truckers represented unwelcome competition.
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May 07

Resolution to Mexican Truck issue “very close” according to LaHood

By PMC Cross Border Program, Issues View Comments

Mexican trucks traveling north on Mexico 85 from Monterrey into Nuevo Laredo in this photo taken on Cinco de Mayo 2010

Mexican trucks traveling north on Mexico 85 from Monterrey into Nuevo Laredo in this photo taken on Cinco de Mayo 2010

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood Thursday told a Senate subcommittee than the Obama administration’s intention was to restart the Cross Border Demonstration Project with Mexico and that a new proposal would be presented to senators “very soon” and that it was even “very close.”

Two months ago, LaHood told the same panel that a new proposal was “very near.”
LaHood’s comments Thursday came during questioning from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

LaHood and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan were testifying before a subcommittee on an Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
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Apr 30

Nativism & Mexenophobia taking over Trucking Radio

By PMC Opinions, Trucking Opinions View Comments

Dave Nemo and XM-171

Dave Nemo, one of the more respected voices in Trucking Radio seems ready to abandon principles and feature leaders of bona fide hate groups on his daily program on XM-171

One of the most vile, racist and unconstitutional laws was passed and signed by Arizona governor Jan Brewer in the form of SB-1070, a law that has spawned a firestorm of protest.

It’s a law that usurps federal authority for immigration enforcement and puts it in the hands of local and state authorities. The fear is, it will lead to racial profiling as it is targeted towards Hispanics.

Governor Brewer claims it specifically prohibits racial profiling, and that claim is still to be determined, but one can’t overlook human nature, especially in Arizona where this law legitimizes the actions of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his masked goon squads that have been terrorizing Hispanics for several years now.

Jesus Serrano, and independent owner operator for a Los Angeles based carrier, who hauls fresh produce from the warehouses in Nogales to the distribution centers in Los Angeles is putting together a boycott of more than 100 truckers who make the Arizona to California haul in protest of this bill which he believes will put himself and others of Mexican-American descent at risk of harassment and/or arrest by overzealous enforcement officers. Serrano is a naturalized US citizen born in Mexico.

Serrano was interviewed yesterday on The Lockridge Report and as usual when someone does a neutral well though out interview, the hate mongers and know nothings immediately filled the phone lines with their negative and totally untrue rants against Mexicans. Kudos to Lockridge for putting the over the top morons in their places are simply hanging up on them.

But the hate and bigotry against Mexicans and Mexican truckers being pushed by OOIDA and others has gotten out of hand.
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Apr 24

Some truckers plan boycott over Arizona immigration law SB-1070

By PMC Border News, Immigration Reform, The Border View Comments

Some Mexican American truckers plan boycott of Arizona in protest to the passage of SB-1070, a draconian and illegal law that sets civil rights back 50 years.

Some Mexican American truckers plan boycott of Arizona in protest to the passage of SB-1070, a draconian and illegal law that sets civil rights back 50 years.

WASHINGTON — Two or three times a week, truck driver Jesus Serrano hauls loads of Mexican-grown produce from warehouses in Nogales, Ariz. , which is just across the U.S.- Mexico border, to distribution centers in Los Angeles .

Serrano plans to stop making the trip now that Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a stringent anti-illegal immigration bill into law, however, and he’s recruited other truckers to join him.

Serrano, the independent owner-operator of a Los Angeles -based trucking company, said that about 70 drivers based in California and Arizona had agreed to stop moving loads into or out of Arizona in protest of the new law. He hopes to get 200 truckers on board for a five-day boycott that will start within 48 hours of the bill’s signing.
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Mar 15

Rumors of expanded tariff’s to target Beef, Pork and Chicken processors

By PMC American Politics, Cross Border Program, NAFTA Comments Off

A new week and more misinformation coming from OOIDA as they push their lemmings to urge their Congresspeople to sign on to Rep. Peter DeFazio’s silly little letter calling for the Obama Administration to discriminate once more, against Mexico, by renegotiating the provision that allows Mexican trucks access to the United States.

It’s also the eve of the first anniversary of the legal tariff’s that Mexico instituted in retaliation for the closure of the Cross Border Demonstration Project.

Our sources confirm that the rumors circulating that the Mexican government may update a trade retaliation list against U.S. products is true. This new list is very likely to include tariff’s on beef, pork and chicken products exported to Mexico.
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Mar 15

Each year, Mexico honors Irish-American Saint Patrick’s Brigade (San Patricios)

By PMC General View Comments

Plaque commemorating the San PatriciosFrom behind the bullet-scarred walls of an ancient fortress, the wail of bagpipes and a thundering bass drum echoed through a plaza in the center of Mexico City.

Passers-by stopped in their tracks. Children craned for a look as a platoon of Mexican bagpipers marched through the gates in tribute to a strange and divisive chapter of Irish-American history.

The bagpipers play each month in honor of the St. Patrick Battalion, a group of 600 Irish-American soldiers who switched sides to fight for Mexico in the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War. Mexico lost half its territory to the United States as a result of the war.
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