HispanicVista Columnists

In early December, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico made some unusual (for México) comments relating to the tone of the current political campaigns in regard to Mexicans in the US. He even used the phrase, "swaggering, macho and anti-Mexican" posturing of candidates from all parties. He followed up these comments with instructions to Mexican consulates in the US to "better inform" the US public the contributions of Mexicans in general to the US economy.
First of all, a president has every right to speak out about bad treatment of its citizens in a foreign country. Where this becomes blurred is when we talk about illegal Mexicans in the US. First, look at the Mexican side. It has long been an unwritten policy of just letting those who cannot gain meaningful employment in México just migrate and hopefully send "remittances" to support those families that the Mexican government won't. They called this their "safety valve". This has now risen to an over 20 billion dollar annual flow of cash not to the Mexican government, but to Mexican families. To try to put a happy face on this sad situation, our prior president Fox called these remittance senders "heroes of México". Rather than admit the mistreatment of Mexican citizens by México and literally driving them out of their country, he calls them heroes. But it would seem some of the US campaign rhetoric seeks to blame Mexican for all of the ills in the US today.
On the other hand, from the US side, we have a situation where there is an established system of ample employment for those illegals. And this is compounded by what would reasonably be assumed to be a government sponsored complicity in allowing the situation to continue. This goes back to prior US administrations. I remember the then INS head, Doris Meisner, under the Clinton administration. making a photo op on how well she was controlling the border near San Diego while in the background you could see immigrants climbing over the wall unheeded. That was a classic.
What is worse now is that the human smuggling industry in México seems to have been taken over by the drug gangs who have combined drug smuggling with human smuggling. Now we have the drug cartels regulating who enters the US! While the general flow northward seems to have been declining, more and more of the remaining flow is now drug cartel run. And the human abuse of these migrants has escalated.
Calderón has spoken frequently against the southern border fence. Whether or not the fence will actually work is not México's concern. The US has every right to build a fence on their own property as long that does not include mine fields or other inhuman features. If it is unpleasant to look at, México can plant trees on its property to hide it from view. A good idea south of San Diego to hide that ugly wall.
Whether or not the wall is effective is not México's concern. But we should remember that at least 50% of illegal residents in the US gained entry by simply overstaying their visas, not by swimming the Rio Bravo.
On 16 December, during a Spanish language Republican "debate", I was struck by an interesting comment by former governor Mike Huckabee. While supporting a much more effective border control system, he also addressed the complicity of the US government in this mess. He brought up the "earned pathway for legalization" for illegals to come out in the open that would require a "touch back" (returning to their country of origin and reentering legally). And, as Huckabee pointed out, the system, in order to work, requires a reasonable time for reentry, "a few days or weeks, but not years". I would rather see the DHS vetting the entrants than the drug cartels. And this is from a Republican candidate, no less.
Bottom line here is that if imported labor is beneficial to the US economy (and I believe that it is so), it should be regulated by an efficient system. This is a prime responsibility of any country: to regulate its own borders.
One final comment concerns the rhetoric against NAFTA. On both sides of the border, there are reactionary positions against the highly successful free trade agreement. Both sides complain about job losses. But these detractors ignore the job creation that has occurred. México has lost farm workers. But they have not made any moves internally to help farmers become more competitive and to help retrain them to get training for jobs that are opening up in México in more technical fields where there are openings. The US has lost industrial jobs, but these detractors ignore the other fields that have created a net gain of jobs.
And imported labor in the food sector has proved vital to US competitivity in those fields.
We will watch to see if this "new" immigrant position by some Republicans remains the same to non-Hispanic audiences. _____________________________________ Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at: R1041643422@aol.com