How might you fare as an immigrant in Mexico?

By Dick Tunison

My last column on ignoring the law, and immigration laws in particular, brought more responses from readers than any column I’ve written. Comments ranged wide and far, and some proposed tentative solutions to our current immigration problems that have sent hundreds of thousands of Mexicans into the streets protesting the machinations of congress. Other comments have carped at me for my own views.

One reader sent extracts from the Mexican Constitution (1917 As Amended) to illustrate the constraints under which an American immigrant to Mexico would fare in that country. I found the email quite intriguing and decided to research the Mexican Constitution to verify the facts. It was an eye opening experience. You may check it out for yourself by accessing the full document on the internet by entering the following address: (www.ilstu.edu/class/hist263/docs/1917const.html)

Dr. J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington DC, has written a tight summary of salient points in his article titled, Mexico’s Glass House: How the Mexican constitution treats foreign residents, workers and naturalized citizens. He says, “In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that: Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse. Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights. Immigrants are denied equal employment rights, Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens. Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service. Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy. Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.
Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process."

Others accuse those of us who want a viable solution to the immigration problem as racists because of the current focus on Hispanic immigrants, fearing that a solution will be too exclusionary. To be sure, there are many isolationists in our society who harbor ill-feelings toward all foreigners. But I don’t believe they represent the masses of Americans who are just fed up with the social cost, complexity of the problem and our political leaders in congress who cannot come to an accommodation, mainly for selfish political reasons.

I read the other day that one in ten native-born Mexicans are now living in the United States. Although I can’t verify that number anywhere, it rings as quite likely. The best estimate is that there are 11 million Mexicans living in this country illegally. There are at least that many more living here legally. We know and understand the attraction. Although we have our own poor and disadvantaged citizens, poverty and the underclass in Mexico is beneath comparison. It is no wonder people who must live such meager lives want to follow their dreams. Yet, Mexicans and other Hispanics are not the poster children for the lowest rung of the world’s poverty ladder – one only need look at Central Africa, Myanmar or Bangladesh, whose per capita income is 1/17 that of Mexico, to find poverty. If it is simply compassion that drives us to open our gates to anybody who wants to come, we should look around for the genuinely disadvantaged.

The desire of foreigners to “become” Americans cannot be satisfied simply because they want what the rest of us have and are willing to undergo the dangers of tramping across the desert to get it. The world is full of people who would feel that motivation. Indeed, some poor souls cross oceans in the holds of stinking rust-buckets and cargo containers for that breath of freedom and opportunity. But we cannot be the benefactors of all in need. Compassion may be the outpouring of the heart, but sometimes there must be clear thinking from the brain.

Therefore, requirements for entering America must be fair and rigorously met, and a means of separating the worthy from the unworthy must be put in place. We should not forget the impact of the Mariel Boat Lift, in the spring of 1980 that allowed Cuban criminals to escape to Florida. After all, national security is a major factor to consider. It should not be too much to expect Hispanic immigrants who are demonstrating in our streets to follow new rules, even if that means starting a legitimate immigration process from scratch.

But there is something beyond that for every American to learn and digest. If the situation were reversed, an American in Mexico could not engage in political demonstrations or even express his contrary political opinions in public. An American in Mexico would be virtually unable to find employment because the preference would always be in favor of Mexicans. An American could not become a parish priest even though he spoke faultless Spanish. An American could not become Attorney General of Mexico. An American could not own a house along the Stand at Redondo Beach. An American could be expelled from Mexico for any reason, without due process.

To a large extent, this is a mess of our own doing. The growing magnitude of foreign immigration has been observable for years, and we have made only half-hearted attempts to remedy it. Now, one of the options talked about loudly is to build a seven hundred mile wall to keep aliens from crossing our southern border. Unless we dot it with observation towers, searchlights and soldiers with high powered rifles, people with the desire to get through will crawl over, dig under or cut the fences. Shades of the separation of East and West Germany! Some soft-minded Americans lean toward amnesty for all comers. To me, that’s rewarding the lawbreakers and presents a slippery slope. Another idea is to offer citizenship to an alien after exacting a heavy fine. Millions of American workers refuse to pay income taxes with impunity, why would this be any different? Another “brilliant” idea is to levy a $50,000 fine against an employer who hires an illegal alien. The government can’t even determine who the illegals are, how is the owner of the local muffler shop supposed to know?

Wending its way among these concerns is the matter of economic impact. I’ll attempt to review some of that in a future essay. I’m sure that part of the problem won’t go away soon, so stay tuned.