How is that for a novel idea? Doesn't quite fit your pictures of what should be or maybe could be done, right?
First of all, how many Mexican undocumented are here in the US? PEW research estimates that of the 11.1 million undocumented presently living in the US, 52% are from Mexico.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/interactives/unauthorized-immigrants/
Could these two governments meet at a table and discuss how to support each other in bringing these undocumented Mexicans home? I fear not. From my perspective the people calling the shots from both governments - despite what they say or plan to do - like it the way it is. Why?
First of all, Mexican undocumented workers make about 7 to 10 times more money per hour working here than they do at home. The Mexican Federal minimum wage is about $5 per eight hours worked. Not $5 an hour; about 62 CENTS per hour. You know what they make here.
Mexico gets billions of dollars pumped back into its economy by the undocumented who work and live here. Works great for Mexico but not so for the US middle class who absorbs the educational and medical costs of those same undocumented who send remittances back home to their families.
Who knows exactly how many undocumented work in US factories and businesses. Think of the agricultural, meat processing and construction industries. I know from my own experience as a retired US Border Patrol/ICE agent, ICE raids a few but does not do a thorough job of effectively keeping the undocumented out of the work force. Bottom line some American businesses thrive by hiring the undocumented. So do a lot of American home owners and families.
This Mexican merry-go-round has been in operation for decades. Enforcement (arrest, detention, removals, deportations) has always been Washington's response to the problem. Actually Reagan's 1985 Amnesty was new and touted as the answer to the problem. That did not work. Clinton's 1994 NAFTA with its border factories and border militarization were other ideas that did not solve illegal immigration. They actually increased it.
Think of the fight against illegal immigration as something very similar to the war on drugs. Both have been going on for at least forty years and to what effect? The problems are as bad as - or worse - than they have ever been.
So is pouring more money into enforcement going to help? Trump is doing that right now. Billions will be spend on his wall. Ten thousand more ICE agents and possibly five thousand more US Border Patrol Agents.
Mexican illegal immigration and illegal drugs are our Afghanistan. These Mexican wars can not be won through enforcement any more than a military war can be won in Afghanistan.
The needs of undocumented and American drug user needs are much more powerful than any enforcement efforts can contain. Very similar to the years of wars in Afghanistan. Russia started one in 1979 and was defeated. We jumped in there in 2001 and tried for 14 years. We are still involved in the region and stupidly continue to try to beat Afghanis who are much more motivated than any other soldiers will ever be.
Finally we need to look at the big picture of all of this. The US Military Industrial Complex (which I consider the Border/Drug enforcement industries to be subsets of ) need war, illegal immigration and illegal drugs in order to keep up the "good" fight for continual profit.
We have the largest prison population in the world. We make and sell more weapons than anyone else in the entire world. Customs and Border Protection, DHS and ICE combined are the largest police system in the world. We have the largest military budget in the entire world. Need I say more?
So the American narrative - or should I say - Washington's narrative - pertaining to illegal immigration does not allow for any other conversation except an ENFORCEMENT solution.
Here are these two supposedly democratic, friendly, neighboring nations dealing with a problem that financially affects and even kills their own and each other's citizens - yet dealing with it stupidly by more enforcement.
Do you know why they stick to the enforcement plan? They elite who run both countries have and always will profit by the enforcement approach (which by the way, never solves the problem). The drug money and guns going south and the laborers going north will always continue to fatten this bi-national elite's pockets.
This is why you won't hear any politician in the US or Mexico entertain the subject idea "Why Doesn't Trump Negotiate With Mexican President Pena-Nieto To Bring Mexico's Undocumented Home?".
There is simply to much money being made by continuing the tried and true insanity.
This Trump border "dust up" will be just another page in this insidiously insane saga. The undocumented will continue to come and die in the process. Some agents will die in the process. Americans will continue to use drugs as the designed to fail "war on drugs" continues this process. Neither the corrupt, corporate-run American government or the corrupt, cartel-run Mexican government will take responsibility for the welfare of its own citizens. We The People will foot the bills for their insanities and the disparities in wealth on both sides of the border (and world) will continue to grow.
Nothing will change until we clean our own (white) house and demand that Mexico does the same.
http://twopesos-protestfortheundocumented.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-doesnt-trump-negotiate-with-mexican.html
No comments:
Post a Comment