My first question to the City of Imperial Beach or any city in the U.S. wanting to be a sister city with any place in the World is WHY?
What are the social or economic benefits benefits to IB or any city in the U.S. by doing such a thing? From what I can see the only benefits will be to the Sister City in the other country. In almost every treaty with Mexico or any other country, our socialist left wing one world politicians only want to give away the kitchen sink to the other country. There is almost no social or economic benefit to the U.S. government or the American public.
Consider the treaty with the government of Mexico of 1983 pertaining to the recovery of stolen vehicles in either country. There was lots of talk, talk of how this would benefit everyone in both countries and the others where such similar treaties were ratified. The benefits to the U.S. were almost nil. The U.S. government made the treaty to be of more benefit to the government of Mexico than to the people of the U.S.
The accounting and reporting procedures are horrible for U.S. business people who aquire vehicles that are proved to be stolen in Mexico or other countries. The U.S. makes its stolen vehicle database available to Mexico to search it anytime they want to find stolen vehicles.
Our U.S. police and highway patrol officers if they do a routine traffic stop and locate a vehicle that has been reported through the U.S. Consulate as being stolen, they will in many cases arrest the United States citizen who was driving it, and return the vehicle to Mexico. That may seem fair on the outside, but consider that that vehicle most likely impounded in the U.S., performed a legal lien sale on the vehicle, and sold legally in the U.S. at a public auction.
This would not happen if the rude and selfish Mexican government officials allowed direct access to their stolen vehicle data base as we allow them. The government of Mexico does not allow any sharing of records like this. The only way you can find out if a vehicle is stolen in Mexico is to know some one who works in the Mexican police department and get them to check if the vehicle is stolen before you start a lien sale or sell at auction.
The only challenge to that is the Attorney General of Baja California has prohibited any Mexican law enforcement agency from giving stolen vehicle information to U.S. citizens. they do however allow the California Highway Patrol Mexican Liaison Unit to call or visit them to check on possible stolen vehicles. The down side to this is the establishment of this Liaison Unit costs the taxpayers in California hundreds of thousands of dollars to run and maintain.
Oh, but wait the Baja California Attorney General did have a computer program made up that would allow US.. tow companies to access the database and report vehicles impounded that either had no VIN number on record in the U.S. or the vehicle displayed plates from Mexico. The way it was to work was as follows: the U.S. tow company or U.S. law enforcement agency would be given permission to access the site after being given a User ID and Password. They then could access the site and put in the vehicle information.
The Mexican Attorney Generals office would review the data, and if the vehicle were found to be stolen in Mexico the would notify the local Mexican police department to inform them what tow company or U.S. Police agency in the U.S. was holding the stolen vehicle. The local Mexican police department then was supposed to fax the U.S. agency of the vehicle being stolen in Mexico. The Mexican police was then supposed to notify the vehicle owner in Mexico that the vehicle has been located in the US. The owner then was supposed to call the US to reclaim their vehicle (for a fee of course!).
This all never happened. The Government of Mexico literally pulled the plug on the program. There are literally hundreds of thousands of Mexican stolen vehicles operating in the U.S., with no way to detect if they are stolen in Mexico.
The government of Mexico should in the least allow direct access to the stolen vehicle database in Mexico by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Let's talk now about the NAFTA TREATY, NOT now. Late as that would take up another thirty pages.
So in conclusion I am against any Sister City programs with any other countries unless there is direct financial benefit to the U.S.
