Even though there is an absence of compelling let alone convincing evidence that many of the weapons captured from criminal gunslingers originated in the US, Sr Calderon averred that the US is as responsible for the guns in Mexican shootouts as it is for the drug demand which prompts them. There is no doubt about the latter. There is much doubt about the former.
Even if every firearm more modern than a Brown Bess were to be confiscated in the US, the Mexican pistoleros would be inconvenienced in no meaningful way. Given the number of captured weapons which originated in the Mideast, Northwest Asia, South America, and Asia, there seems to be no more difficulty obtaining heavy firepower in Mexico than in, say, Somalia or Yemen.
Presumably Sr Calderon was playing for the folks back in Buncomb County when he made his demand. If not, it shows that he is as badly served by his internal security chiefs as he was by his translator at yesterday's welcoming ceremony.
Sr Calderon may also be playing to the home folks with his whining reprise of we-gotta-get-migration-reform-now. The same may be true concerning his never ending invocations of Arizona as the fountainhead of all things anti-Hispanic.
Certainly Sr Calderon is aware that his country has laws defining citizenship, legal alien status, and the crime of being illegally present upon Mexican soil. He must know that Mexican police at all levels of jurisdiction regularly arrest and deport illegal aliens with the exception of those individuals who "regularize" their presence in Mexico by the payment of a "fee" to the arresting officer and/or his superiors. Sr Calderon may even be aware of the number of illegal aliens in Mexico who are robbed, beaten, raped, or killed by Mexicans. Even Mexican media report these incidents, if bloody enough.
Sr Calderon would be the first to defend Mexico's rights to define legal alien status, to control entry by foreigners into Mexico, and to secure Mexico's borders. It is unlikely in the extreme that Sr Calderon shares President Obama's post-modernist, we-are-all-passengers-on-spaceship-Earth mentality as represented by the American president's observation that "we are not defined by borders."
Sr Calderon is a firmly committed Mexican nationalist. This is precisely what he--or any other president--ought to be. He is in favor of "migratory reform" because it is in Mexico's national interest to use the US as a safety valve for its mobs of unemployed as well as a source of hard currency via remittances. He is in favor of restricting Americans access to certain categories of firearms because this is in his party's political interest even if flatly irrelevant to the stability of the country.
Indeed, his resolute offloading of ultimate responsibility for as many of Mexico's internal social, political, and economic problems onto the broad shoulders of Uncle Sam shows his wide, deep commitment to Mexican national interest--both real and mythic. To accept that responsibility for most of the many inequalities, injustices, which blemish Mexico would be to violate the strong central tenets of Mexico's defining mythology which holds that proximity to the US is at the root of all domestic evils.
Overall, one must congratulate Sr Calderon for acting as a good nationalist. Give him the credit he deserves for pursuing Mexican national interest as such is defined by the Mexican politically articulate elite. That is his job and he is doing it well.
Then there are some of Sr Calderon's fellow travelers. Particularly those who are card carrying members of the Open American Borders party.
The Open American Borders party is eclectic in its membership. In it are to be found assorted "migratory rights" folks and the non-governmental organizations which serve to amplify their voices, various and sundry "progressives," and last, but far from least important, numerous political and media personalities in Latin America.
A recurrent, unifying theme ties the diverse elements of the Open American Borders party. The theme has a major and a dependent component.
The major component is migratory freedom is a well-established human right enshrined in international conventions. The contingent component is that of equating the free movement of capital with a presumed freedom of worker movement.
The major premise is a carefully crafted misstatement. The several treaties and international agreements hazily mentioned all refer to prohibitions on a state's prevention of exit. These agreements are directed against Berlin Walls and similar efforts intended to hold a population captive. None are directed against a sovereign right to determine eligibility for admission or citizenship. In short, it is an international no-no to limit a person's right to leave but it is not a similar no-no to refuse a person admittance.
The minor premise is also a perversion of reality. States can and do limit the free movement of capital. Routinely states have limited how much cash a person can take out of a country, or bring into it. Laws which impinge on the movement of funds between countries dot the legal landscape. Indeed, such laws are at the heart of effective operations against transnational terrorism. They are part and parcel of the host of trading-with-the-enemy laws which have existed during every modern armed conflict as well as many of the unarmed sort.
Countries either inhibit or promote international capital flow on the basis of perceived national interest. If it is in a country's national interest to do so, capital flow will be encouraged by all available means. If the self-defined national interest requires inhibiting the movement of money, such will be the case.
Even the most capitalistic of countries, even the most vocal exponents of open, free trade will and have when national interest requires operate to restrict, even end the ability of money to cross the border. This sweeping statement applies to the US as much as to any other free trade oriented economy.
National interest should be the sole basis for a country's policies on immigration. If the self-defined national interest is best served by enhancing the in-migration of foreign workers of a given or even all categories of worker, then the borders should be opened accordingly. If the converse applies, the borders should--must--be closed.
National interest may include the admission of aliens for humanitarian reasons. Or because a person or group faces persecution at home. These non-economic considerations are a legitimate component of national interest as they reflect the values and ethical imperatives of the nation.
Importantly, there is no human right to enter any given country. The US is under no ethical or legal imperative to open its borders for any reason other than as a consequence of national interest. For this reason (as well as many others) no country has the right to demand that we admit their citizens. Likewise they have no standing to criticize efforts by the US or any of its several states to arrest and deport foreigners present without legal status.
The concept of criminal trespass exists not only as regards privately owned property but for nation-states as well. In a federal system of joint exercise of sovereignty the several states have as much right and duty as the central government to prevent or punish those who are criminal trespassers. This is what Arizona has done, effectively to place into a state context the already existing federal law.
Mexico and the several Mexican states already do the same. Sr Calderon knows this even if the majority of the Open American Borders party do not. It may be possible to forgive the Open American Borders party members for their ignorance and its consequences. It is not possible to do the same for Sr Calderon.
Sr Calderon needs to get a grip on the realities of life. He needs to go home and concentrate on forcing the Mexican elite to live up to their collective responsibility to act in a way calculated to so improve the lives of Mexicans generally that the need to enter the US without the benefit of law as well as the drive to join the criminals in their war for money are, if not obviated, at least lessened.
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