HispanicVista Columnists
Mexico, hypocritical rhetoric is not the answer.
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By
Patrick Osio, Jr./HispanicVista.com - December 27, 2005
- Mexico don’t let your anger continue to make hypocrites of you. Either stop hypocritical rhetoric or allow the safe passage of Central Americans to the US border.
- Better still, have faith in the US and its people. Fair play and reason will prevail.
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- Patrick Osio, Jr is editor of HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) and writes The Connection for the San Diego Metropolitan Magazine. Contact at: posiojr@hispanicvista.com
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(The opinions expressed by Patrick Osio, Jr. are solely his and do not necessarily reflect those of HispanicVista.com, editorial board of advisors or it’s contributing writers.)
Mexico, your hypocrisy has been exposed by your own Human Rights commission. You have absolutely no moral grounds for accusing the US of wrongdoing or imposing the very same border protection laws as you do. Here you are telling the US that it’s wrong to deploy military personnel along the US-Mexico border while you have for some time now deployed soldiers along your Mexico-Guatemala border. You cry out that border enforcement has contributed to the death of over 3000 Mexican and Central Americans while crossing the US-Mexico border while hundreds if not thousands of Central Americans have died or been mutilated falling off Mexican trains after crossing into Mexico from Guatemala. You decry US Congress legislation calling for making illegal entry a felony, while you carry such laws in your books.
Because US authorities have been working with Mexican authorities at the Guatemala border for several years including the highly touted binational US financed “Operation Crossroads International” in 2001, wherein over 8000 Central Americans and 75 human smugglers were captured in a two week span, does not in any way excuse hypocrisy.
The US is aware that Central Americans are not illegally entering Mexico to take $5 dollar a day jobs from Mexicans. There is full awareness that they are in transit through Mexico to the US border for the $5+ an hour jobs. For the US it’s a matter of stopping the flow into its country and working with other countries to stop the flow far from its own border is both smart and cost-effective.
The then INS director, Hipolito Acosta, of the Mexico City office overseeing “Operation Crossroads International” pointed out, the US spent $600,000 on the operation. Acosta said INS estimates it spends about $4000 (2001 dollars) on arrest, detention, judicial process and deportation of non-Mexican illegal immigrants. Based on that, he said, the US would have spent $30 million had the people captured at the Mexico-Guatemala border made it to the US and been caught.
The US actions are thus not hypocritical, as Mexico’s were not in seeking a quid pro quo: Normalize the legal status of the 5 to 6 million undocumented Mexican nationals living in the US in return for cooperation and immigration enforcement at Mexico’s southern borders. You may recollect Mexico that you were instrumental in organizing the “Puebla Process” wherein immigration officials from various countries meet annually to review and implement plans to stop the northern flow of illegal immigrants from Central America.
And yes, the US has cajoled, insisted, pushed and pressured its southern neighbors into stemming illegal entries through their countries in transit to the US. And you, Mexico, instituted Plan Sur that has resulted in about 35 percent decrease in the number of illegal crossings at your southern borders that has in some years netted over 150,000 detentions. And yes, the US has paid for the detention centers in Guatemala and transportation back to the detainees’ country of origin. It should be clear that to the US this means a savings of over $500-million annually and a substantial decrease in the number of illegal immigrants within its territory.
Mexico, it’s understandable that you’re mad as hell at the malice of rhetoric and draconian measures proposed and legislated by extremists in the US Congress. The cooperation and measures you undertook to help the US, for your own self-interest, have been for naught. Instead of normalizing the legal status of your citizens in the US, and working out a realistic and organized guest worker program, Congress has approved building 700 miles of fences, further militarizing the border, and making felons of your citizens who have entered illegally into the US in search of work.
Some of the same Congress representatives voting for such measures are the same who vote to continue farm subsidies whose crops then unfairly compete with Mexican farmers who in turn go broke and scurry to cross into the US seeking jobs in the very farms subsidized. And that by any measure is hypocrisy.
Patrick
Osio, Jr. has written a short but intensive manual on the Mexican
perspective on numerous issues between our two countries. The manual is an
in depth primer on the culture and protocol for better understanding
Mexicans that in turn allows establishing personal and business
relationships, and how to avoid the most common faux pas that can ruin
relationships and business deals.
The manual is available through Electronic delivery for $9.95 making it possible to download the manual to save on your hard drive, printing its entirety or particular sections while reaping considerable savings over printed copies.