Mexico's failure ought to stop at its own border rather than be exported
Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2006
OUR VIEW

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, who will be chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee again shortly, was blunt about Mexico's corruption and economic ineptitude during a talk in South Carolina Monday. Sen. Biden's presidential ambitions added heft to the points he hammered about Mexico's chronic poverty, border security and drug trafficking.

It was a good red-meat speech in an important '08 primary state. But this past summer when immigration legislation actually went through Congress, Sen. Biden voted with the Senate majority for a multifaceted approach of security enhancements, foreign worker adjustments, and some path to legalization for unauthorized immigrants.

Still, Sen. Biden's emphasis Monday on Mexico's own failures was important. It cut through both Democratic and Republican courtship of Latino interests. The larger point, of course, is to bear down on governments in this hemisphere so they take care of their own -- so fewer migrants trek to our borders.

If Sen. Biden is willing to do that as a foreign policy leader, the dead-end immigration argument in Congress might actually yield visible results.

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