Thread: UT-Dyer: Poor Mexico and those wicked Americans

Dyer: Poor Mexico and those wicked Americans
By Gwynne Dyer

Updated: 04/30/2010 07:43:42 AM MDT


The president of Mexico was furious. "Criminalizing immigration, which is a social and economic phenomena, opens the door to intolerance, hate and discrimination," Felipe Calderon told a meeting of Mexican immigrant groups. The state of Arizona had gone too far.

Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, was equally angry. "We consider the bill clearly discriminatory against immigrants, and especially against immigrants from Latin America." His point seemed to be that by treating illegal Mexican immigrants as a police matter, the new Arizona law is attacking their human rights.

The new law that is causing such outrage requires Arizona police to question people about their immigration status if they suspect they are there illegally. Day laborers face arrest for soliciting work if they are in the U.S. illegally, and police departments can be sued if they fail to enforce the law. The flow of illegal migrants to the United States is important for Mexico. It provides a vital safety valve for the Mexican state, which would otherwise face the discontent of millions of Mexicans who cannot find decent jobs at home, and their remittances are a great help to the Mexican balance of payments. But the widely held Mexican belief that illegal immigrants have rights in the United States is most peculiar.

It arises from the fact that for a long time the United States has deliberately kept the border with Mexico porous, so that large numbers of Mexican illegals can enter the United States to provide cheap stoop labor for American agribusiness. In the cities along the American side of the frontier, the border defenses are quite impressive, but out in the desert they are frequently no more than three strands of barbed wire and a dirt patrol track.

Some argue that illegal Mexican immigrants are doing jobs nobody else wants, but that is only a possible reason for letting them stay. It certainly does not give them the right to stay.

Yet the Mexican government reacts with outraged indignation whenever the U.S. government, or in this case an American state, talks about enforcing the law against illegal immigrants. It has come to think of the nod-and-a-wink arrangement that allows large numbers of illegal immigrants to cross the border each year as the natural state of things.

Arizona is calling time on that system, and actually intends to seek out and send home people who are in the state illegally. In most parts of the world, that would not be regarded as unreasonable. What is different in Arizona's case?

The implicit charge is racism. The assumption is that American citizens of Mexican origin, and legitimate Mexican visitors, will also be stopped and asked to prove that they are legally in the United States -- and that they will be chosen for questioning on the grounds that they simply look "Mexican."

President Calderon himself would never be inconvenienced by such a policy, because he does not look "Mexican." He looks like your average white American, as does a large majority of the Mexican upper class. But it is true that most poorer Mexicans, including both legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States, are mestizos of mixed white and Indian ancestry.

They look "Mexican," in other words, and the concern is that they will face constant demands from the police to prove they are legally in the United States. But the solution for this is simple. Simply enforce the same rules that apply in airport security queues to ensure that nobody feels they are being "profiled" because of their ethnicity.

In the airports, they make sure that heavily bearded young men who look "Middle Eastern" face no greater risk of being selected for special examination than paraplegic grandmothers. The Arizona police should be instructed to stop 13 white, black and Asian people and check that they are legally in the state for every person they stop who looks "Mexican."

Then nobody will have anything to complain about.

http://www.sltrib.com/personalfinance/ci_14983562

Look at mexicos treatment of south american immigrants trying to get to this country.
The mexican government is dependent on the billions from the illegals within this country, so you may now understand their outrage. These THIEVES, here illegally and stealing a job from a US citizen, then not putting the moneys to work here in the US, they send it down to mexico and they love these ill gotten gains, and that is why they are screaming now.
The US needs to cut any ties to mexico, and let those thieves fend for themselves.
LW