Consider a couple of recent articles from the Mexico City press. The first is from Excelsior and was published a couple of days ago. According to the report the full assembly of the Chamber of Deputies has passed what they term a "Point of Accord" in which the sense of the Chamber is conveyed to the Foreign Minister.
To put the thrust of the Point of Accord bluntly but not unfairly, the Chamber wants the ForMin to work with dispatch toward the less-than-modest goal of convincing the US to "regularise" the status and "end human rights violations of migrants now living and working in the US." Unpacking this demand makes it read as a Mexican version of President Reagan's famed call at the Berlin Wall, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
Among those speaking in favor of the Point of Accord was Edmundo Ramirez Martinez, chairman of the Population, Borders and Migratory Affairs Committee. This politico is perturbed by the US attempts to control its own borders. Or at least that which is presumed to divide the US from Mexico.
He pulled out the rhetorical stops and put the tongue's pedal to the metal with a luscious rhetorical fusilade.
"We regard with concern some of the statements of Secretary Janet Napolitano, in which she sets forth that the militarization of the border would be to bring the end of organized crime on the border, because in these statements she continues to associate the issue of migration with that of security. The Mexicans who work there are not terrorists and for that reason we have stated this to North American congressmen with great concern"
A fine counterpoint to the Mexican position was reported the same day by El Universal. The leaders of several Central American countries were having a high level palaver in Managua. The president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was reported to have said, “to emigrate is a human right and not a crime and we’re going to ask him that the issue of migrants be removed from the security agenda and that it be moved to the development agenda.” By context it is evident that the "him" referred to was Vice-President Biden. Why the veep and not the Prexy, the Geek knoweth not.
If you put the two reports together you get a good view of the policy direction not only in Mexico but in the republics of Central American generally. The policy might be characterised as "Cross the line and you're home free, compadre."
The governments down south have some strange ideas about the nature and character of borders as well as a nation's right to control those borders. One cannot help but note the robustness of Mexico's efforts to prohibit, or at least limit, "undocumented" movement across its southern border. The same pattern can be noticed with each and every of the CentAm countries.
The Geek can well understand the internal forces at work in Mexico and the others. Honduras, for example, is a very poor country with an official exchange rate GDP for 2008 of 13.78 billion dollars which is significantly less than the same year's "GDP" of the Mexican drug rings which is conservatively estimated at twenty billion bucks. With a per capita income of less than four kilobucks, it is easy to see why the Honduran president would love to see wide open American borders.
Honduras' per capita income is less than Guatemala's $5,400 or El Salvador's $6,400 and far behind the $11,900 of Costa Rica. While the newspaper was silent on the matter, the Geek has to wonder whether President Daniel Ortega who presides over an economy so pathetic that the per capita GDP is even lower than that of Honduras seconds the opinion that the US must open its borders to all comers from down south.
The US has no obligation to become the hemispheric sump for all those millions who are economic refugees. That is a given. While any number of employers have been and continue to be eager for very low paid undocumented workers, this is no reason for the US to drop impediments to free flow "migration" (to use the term preferred by the Mexican and CentAm governmental elites.)
The basic concept of the nation-state depends upon two conditions being met: Defined borders is one. Control of movement across the borders is the other.
The nation-state is a political reality which has existed as a bulwark against the unrestricted movement of peoples. While many High Minded sorts in academia and other (usually) harmless enclaves have long decried the existence of the nation-state as the fount of all wars and related icky-poo aspects of the human experience, the nation-state is not dead. It isn't even on life support.
The representatives of the nation-states which signed and ratified the various international conventions which define the movement of people as a "human right" had as their stated intent the removal of all barriers to the exit of people from a country. The President of Honduras should have been aware of this. Honduras is a signatory to the relevant agreements.
Nowhere is there any reference to "free" or "unrestricted" entrance to any nation-state. The US along with Mexico or Honduras has an absolute right under international law and convention to place restrictions of whatsoever nature on the right of entrance. Indeed, any and every state has an affirmative duty to restrict entrance when that is in the best interests of the indigenous population.
Admission of foreigners to a nation-state is an act of national self-interest or, on occasion, an act of international mercy. If the political elites of Mexico or other CentAm states want to see more of their "surplus" citizens admitted into the US, it is necessary to demonstrate how this is in the American national interest or how it is a fit matter for mercy.
This implies that Mexico and others must engage in the usual game of diplomatic horse trading. There must be a quid for the pro quo of admitting or regularising the status of their citizens.
This means simply that it is up to Mexico and Honduras and the others to make an offer that we can't refuse. Give the US government and We the People a reason to let more and more inhabitants of the Lands Down South to come here, perhaps to stay.
The Geek has a suggestion to make to Mexico. Open your oil fields to American investment and development. Not only will that help Mexico's economy it will benefit the US. Benefits deserve a bit of reciprocity. Say, something like an easier course to regularization and a reduction of ICE raids in the workplace.
The Geek knows the suggestion won't fly with the ever-so-tetchy nationalists of Mexico. But, without something along the lines of the exchange of money for people, there will be no ready solution that is minimally acceptable on both sides of the Great Fence of the South.
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