Thread: CO-EDITORIAL Mexican economy is part of immigration equation

EDITORIAL Mexican economy is part of immigration equation Mexico needs to create more opportunities — domestically and with foreign investors — to keep its workers at home.

The Denver Post
July 26, 2009 Sunday

If this country is ever going to get a handle on its illegal immigration problem, more than a secure border and a workable guest-worker program is needed.

Mexico's economy also needs to prosper.

In a visit with The Post's editorial board last week, Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States, detailed some of what's happening south of the border when it comes to immigration.

Despite the $23 billion in remittances that flow back into Mexico each year from workers already here, he said Mexico has every reason to work to create more opportunities to keep those workers at home, especially as ongoing demographic shifts reduce the country's workforce.

"How do we ensure these entrepreneurs are going to stay in Mexico?" he asked, while adding that an investment in education and infrastructure could begin to turn Mexico's fortunes.

The country's economy has grown by an average of 3 percent in recent years, he said.

That's a decent clip for an established power, but other emerging countries, such as India, are growing at more than twice that rate. Mexico, quite clearly, needs to do more to make its economy attractive to foreign investment and to local entrepreneurs.

He also indicated that if Congress ever approved a guest-worker program that allows Mexicans to safely cross the border, we wouldn't see dramatic year-to-year increases in immigrants.

"If Mexico grows \[its economy\] and it's safe to cross, you will see a spike at the beginning, but people who are already here would like to go back," he said.

The number of border crossers has remained relatively stable throughout this decade, he said, with about 300,000 to 400,000 people making the attempt each year.

But unlike in the 1990s, when immigrants dashed across on their first try, tougher border security now means it takes seven or eight tries to get across.

And once you're here, you're unlikely to go back, he said. And you're willing to pay the $3,000 to $5,000 necessary to help smuggle your family across the border, too.

It's a good argument for a guest-worker program that allows workers to return to their homeland when work is short or during the migrant farm workers offseason.

President George W. Bush understood the need for comprehensive immigration reform, Sarukhan said, as does President Obama. A new president may be able to breathe new life into the divisive issue, but passing anything of substance still will be a "slog."

We've long supported comprehensive immigration reform and hope that Obama can move a plan forward sometime soon.

However, it's also important that Mexico continue to push forward with reforms that will make its own economy more attractive to its citizens.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 13&start=3

So now that most of Mexico lives in our country we can all be poor.

Very nice, but most money sent to Mexico in the form of international aid ends up in the pockets of corrupt officials.