Thread: Focus on your side of border, hombre

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OrlandoSentinel.com
OPINION
Focus on your side of border, hombre
Calder�n should make Mexico his No. 1 job
George Diaz

COMMENTARY

February 10, 2008

Mexican President Felip� Calder�n is a tough-talking hombre.

His visit to the United States this week will include meetings with community leaders of immigrants and huddling with U.S. lawmakers to discuss the 800-pound gorilla in the room: immigration reform.

Calder�n has understandably stood up for his people by blasting U.S. immigration policies, calling the border wall medieval and an environmental hazard, and promising to protect the rights of undocumented workers.

But what plays well in Tijuana often gets lost in translation in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, the cities he is scheduled to visit. And just about anywhere else in the U.S.

The prickly immigration crisis in the United States is a function of the economic disparity in Mexico, which is where the focus of Calder�n's attention needs to be. If more people can find a livable wage there, fewer people will be apt to try to cross the border illegally.

Putting up walls along the border isn't the catch-all answer to dealing with the immigration problem, just like it's silly for Calder�n to expect the U.S. to have an hola amigo welcome mat for everybody wanting to leave Mexico.

Calder�n has spent the early months of his new administration focused on the drug cartels, which obviously should have been a high priority. But dealing with illegal immigration practically is another challenge that needs to be met on his side of the border.

It's a formidable agenda. There is a middle-class void in Mexico, driving many people to the U.S. border. Although Mexican immigrants earn a measly median income of only $300 a week, the Pew Hispanic Center notes that's about four times more than they would make in a similar job at home.

Calder�n has mostly focused on humanitarian efforts to deal with the immigration crisis. A couple of days before Christmas, he announced the Humane Repatriation Program, which will provide help and services such as food, clean water, medical care and temporary shelter for Mexicans who have been deported.

All worthwhile initiatives, but it's a quintessential Band-Aid approach. What Mexicans need most are jobs and opportunities.

The "what-part-of-illegal-don't you understand" crowd may consider this preposterous, but the truth is that Calder�n is losing some of his best people when they cross the border. They are arguably the cr�me of the lower middle class because they are willing to leave the familiarity of home and family to try to make a better life for themselves. The lazy ones simply stay in Mexico and dig themselves deeper into despair.

Calder�n understands this dynamic from a personal level: He told Diane Sawyer of ABC News last year that some of his own relatives live and work in the United States, "some of them in the vegetable fields, others in restaurants and others in construction."

Economic pick-me-ups are critical. It's a greater challenge because of a global market in which Mexican workers are getting squeezed out by China, where labor costs are cheaper and production volumes high.

Calder�n needs to ratchet up his call for significant investments in infrastructure, education, agriculture, telecommunications and energy. A bigger challenge will be the buy-in, which involves placing a greater tax burden on Mexico's biggest companies and the upper class.

The idea is to cut into the gaping difference between Mexico's wealthy and poor.

Otherwise, Calder�n will remain an ineffective voice in the immigration debate. He can rant all he wants about U.S. xenophobia. He can even press one for English, and two for Espa�ol. It simply translates into empty political rhetoric if he can't deliver the goods on a more prosperous economy.



George D�az can be reached at 407-420-5533 or gdiaz@orlandosentinel.com.



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Calderon needs to tend his OWN garden and leave OURS to US!