Editorial: Mexico transforms into border enforcer

/The New York Times
A Honduran man and his son sleep by the tracks in Tierra Blanca, Mexico, while waiting for the next train north toward the United States.

Published: 23 September 2014 08:26 PM
Updated: 23 September 2014 08:26 PM

Mexico faces a thankless task as it grapples with competing immigration pressures to the north and south.

Central American migrants surged northward by the tens of thousands earlier this year in a quest to find jobs and refuge in the United States.

The crisis it produced here, including the arrival of roughly 60,000 unaccompanied Central American minors, led to a U.S. political backlash that continues to resonate from Washington to Chiapas.

Last week, Gov. Rick Perry drew a heated response from Mexican officials after suggesting that Mexico wasn’t doing its part to stem the flow, which he cited as justification for deploying hundreds of Texas National Guard troops to assist with border security.

The fact is, Mexico is stepping up admirably to help.

Americans might think, well, it’s about time! But it’s not that easy.

Mexico’s official policy has been not to impede the free transit of its own people.

If Mexicans want to migrate to other countries, the government doesn’t stop them, just as the U.S. government doesn’t stop its own citizens from traveling abroad.

Mexico has long extended that same philosophy in its handling of U.S.-bound migrants from Central America.

Its southern border often seems deliberately porous, with authorities watching passively from bridges as migrants cross southern rivers by raft and inner tube from Guatemala.

In fact, many Mexican officials see the migrant flow as a source of jobs and commerce. The government even posted a force of special police officers on northbound freight trains, known as “The Beast,” to protect Central American travelers from gang members.

So it’s asking a lot for Mexico’s government to reverse long-standing policy and clamp down on migrants who are doing nothing more than what millions of Mexicans have done for decades: heading to the United States for safety and economic opportunity.

This newspaper doesn’t condone illegal border crossings, regardless of the economic motivation. But it’s important to understand Mexico’s previous thinking in order to grasp the scale of the shift that has occurred.

According to a New York Times report this week, Mexican police have been patrolling freight trains and ordering migrants off. They’re raiding hotels and way stations that board migrants. They’re posting special vehicles along train routes to sweep away obstacles that are often placed on railroad tracks by migrants to slow locomotives so they can jump aboard.

Mexico also has established its own border patrol along popular routes near the Guatemalan border to turn back migrants. Those who are intercepted deeper into Mexican territory are deported; 38,000 have been sent home so far this year.

The effect has been impressive. At the U.S. border, there has been a 76 percent decline since June in crossings by unaccompanied Central American minors and adults with children.

The problem is far from fixed, and the U.S. Congress still needs to do its part by reforming our immigration laws. But Mexico deserves praise for its action — just one piece of a much bigger effort, including aggressive U.S. deportations, designed to send word back to Central America that undocumented mass migration is a route to a dead end.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/ed...r-enforcer.ece