leg·er·de·main [lej-er-duh-meyn] noun 1. sleight of hand. 2. trickery; deception. 3. any artful trick.

Do you believe that American immigration policy should be decided by American citizens?

You do? You’re behind the times! In recent years, foreign governments have taken a strong interest in our immigration policies and are actively meddling in them. That’s particularly true now with the current debate over “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” a.k.a. amnesty.

Mexico is the main culprit, of course. See my recent article Mexican Foreign Ministry Meddling In Amnesty Debate—Where Is U.S. Government (And GOP)?

But Mexico is not the only case of Latino legerdemain—light-fingered Latin American countries attempting to steal America from under our noses.

For example, three Central American countries—Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras—have teamed up to push for amnesty for their illegal aliens on U.S. soil.

Here at VDARE.COM we’ve been writing about foreign meddling for years. The Mainstream Media might catch up to us if it didn’t have another agenda. But we’re thankful for anything—this month The Hill ran a story headlined Foreign governments lobbying hard in favor of immigration reform (by Julian Pecquet, February 7 , 2013]:

Foreign governments are working hard to shape the debate on immigration reform as momentum for a comprehensive bill builds in Congress. While the issue routinely comes up in talks between foreign leaders and the executive branch, embassy officials are ramping up their outreach to Congress and the White House in order to take advantage of the best hope for reform in years. A number of countries with significant immigration ties to the United States—notably Mexico, Ireland and several Central American nations—have been making their concerns known while doing their best to avoid meddling in domestic affairs.

The Hill article reported that Mexico’s new ambassador Eduardo Medina-Mora (see my article linked above) is already in the thick of it, having had “a number of meetings with the administration” on immigration; and that the Mexican ambassador “is expected to meet with lawmakers shortly as legislation begins to take form.”

Of course, these foreign meddlers have allies in the U.S. Congress:

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), a leader on immigration reform [with an F- grade from Numbers USA , see VDARE.COM file here], said he’d had “conversations over time with a number” of ambassadors about immigration reform. He said he didn’t see any reason not to listen to anyone with “good ideas.” According to Becerra, “…it’s no hidden secret that it’s important for a lot of these ambassadors and their governments to see comprehensive immigration reform pass.”

No kidding!

But why would an “American” congressman be helping them?

Whose side is he on?

Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are three Central American, Spanish-speaking countries, southeast of Mexico and poorer than Mexico. (Here’s a map). Central American illegal aliens reach the U.S. by traversing Mexico, where they are treated very badly (see here).

The Salvadoran foreign minister, Hugo Martinez, recently announced a joint Project involving El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. According to the EFE news agency, the three countries “together will lobby American functionaries and lawmakers in search of achieving the migratory reform in that country. [Honduras, El Salvador y Guatemala cabildearán por reforma migratoria en EUA , La Prensa.hn, February 12, 2013]

In fact, the three foreign ministers (Martinez of El Salvador, Fernando Carrera of Guatemala, Arturo Corrales of Honduras) are planning to visit Washington during the last week of February to lobby for amnesty.

Martinez explained that “We have made an alliance with Guatemala, with Chancellor Carrera, and with Chancellor Corrales of Honduras” since their three countries would be “the most impacted by an eventual migratory reform in the United States.

Martinez went on:

…We are going to make a joint negotiation in Washington with representatives of the House of Representatives, with senators and with members of the executive of the United States to sensitize and raise awareness of the urgency of a comprehensive migratory reform.

According to their own governments, there are five million immigrants (legal and illegal) from the three countries in the U.S.: 1.5 million Guatemalans, 2.5 million Salvadorans, a little more than a million Hondurans.

As a consequence, there is a lot of interest in these countries about their fellow citizens way up in the United States. For example, in El Salvador there is a page on the website of the La Prensa Grafica newspaper entitled “Departamento 15”.

El Salvador is divided into 14 administrative divisions called departamentos. So the Salvadoran diaspora in the United States constitutes Departamento 15!

Get it?

Recently, the page featured a story about a Salvadoran candidate (Ana Cubas) running for the Los Angeles City Council (District 9) who was endorsed by the LA Spanish language newspaper La Opinion—and, of course, about the U.S. immigration debate.

Through the immigrants, there is a lot of remittance money flowing from the U.S. to these countries—accounting for an even bigger share of their economies than of Mexico’s. For Honduras, remittances constitute a whopping one-quarter of its entire economy.

So these three little countries’ governments are motivated to meddle. They want their illegals in our country to be able to stay. They don’t want them coming home.

We should not underestimate their motivation. Nor should we underestimate their capabilities. They have substantial diplomatic “boots on the ground” (Guccis on the ground?) on U.S. soil. I’ve written often about the Mexican diplomatic networks in the U.S., but these three Central American countries are nothing to ignore either.

Each has an embassy in Washington, D.C. In addition, they have quite a few consulates spread from coast to coast:

Guatemala has ten consulates, located in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Providence and San Francisco.

Honduras has eleven consulates, located in Washington, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, Houston, New York, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix.

El Salvador has no less than 16 consulates! They are located in Elizabeth (New Jersey), Long Island, Boston, Chicago, Coral Gables (Florida), Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nogales [on the border with Mexico], New York, San Francisco, Santa Ana (California), Washington (D.C.), Woodbridge (Virginia), Woodstock (Georgia).

The total population of El Salvador is 6,090,646, but there are supposed to be 1,978,000 Salvadoran-Americans.

On the other hand, only 19, 000 Americans live in El Salvador—because El Salvador apparently has much better immigration controls than we do.

So we can expect some heavy-duty lobbying from these countries and their Fifth Column of expatriates on U.S. soil.

Why do we allow this? Why are foreign politicians and diplomats allowed to openly meddle in our immigration policy?

And, as I’ve asked before: who in the GOP is standing up to this?

American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.