The Command Post - Politics & Elections - USDA helping Mexican citizens buy U.S. property

June 08, 2005

Immigration | USDA helping Mexican citizens buy U.S. property

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced a new program to give loans and grants to Mexican citizens who want to buy property in the United States. From "Pact Aims to Help Mexicans Living in Rural Parts of United States":

...The programs also support loans to businesses through banks and community-managed lending pools, and offer technical assistance and information to help agricultural and other cooperatives get started and improve the effectiveness of their member services...

This is a partnership between the Mexican government and the U.S., and it's apparently only open to legal residents from Mexico, not illegal aliens or those from other countries. The Mexican consulates in the U.S. will be deeply involved in these programs. According to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns:

"USDA looks forward to continuing to work with Mexican authorities to enhance outreach to the Mexican community," said Johanns. "USDA administers 43 rural development programs designed to assist rural residents and communities increase their economic opportunities and improve their quality of life. Expanding access to these programs in underserved communities in need, especially the Hispanic community, is a priority for the Bush Administration."

See also the long transcript of Johanns' remarks in Mexico City on May 13 for more, including the information that this is related to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

Note that the press releases alternate between the "Mexican community" and the "Hispanic community", presumably referring to U.S. citizens. Of course, those two are not the same thing.

Currently, most Democratic politicians would probably react to these programs by suggesting that the USDA wasn't giving enough breaks to citizens of another country. However, perhaps in the near future a Democrat will decide to do the right and the politically popular thing and vociferously oppose such programs. That could prove quite damaging to the Bush administration and the Republican party.

On a related note, the FDIC is working with the Mexican consulate in Chicago to give home loans to illegal aliens. And, for a long-running case involving the USDA, see "Racism In The Fields".

Posted by Lonewacko at June 8, 2005 01:48 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (Click here should you choose to sign out.)

As you post your comment, please mind our simple comment policy: we welcome all perspectives, but require that comments be both civil and respectful. We also ask that you avoid the extensive use of profanity, racist terms (neither of which we consider civil or respectful), and other boorish language.

We reserve the right to delete any comment, and to prohibit you from commenting on this site, if we feel you have broached this policy. As a courtesy, we will first send you an email noting a violation so you understand the boundaries. This will occur only once, however, and should we ban you from our comment forums we expect that ban to be permanent.

We also will frown upon those who suggest that we ban other individuals for voicing unpopular opinions, should those opinions be voiced in a civil and respectful manner. The point of our comment threads is to provide a forum for spirited though civil and respectful discourse � it is not to provide a forum in which everyone will agree with your point of view.

If you can live by these rules, welcome aboard. If not, then we�re sorry it didn�t work out, and thanks for visiting The Command Post.