Mexico: The Early Signs of a Failed State?

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | July 16, 2008 | Congressman Tom Tancredo

[SJackson]

Mexican law enforcement officials are walking into U.S. ports of entry in increasing numbers to seek political asylum, and the flow may soon become a flood as Mexico's battle with the drug cartels intensifies. Our first instinct is to welcome them, but there is more at stake than humanitarian sentiments.

The problem is that if our immigration laws are stretched to grant asylum to law enforcement personnel on the grounds that their own government cannot protect them, any Mexican threatened by these violent criminal gangs can claim the same right of asylum.

U.S. immigration law does not easily accommodate these law enforcement cases because they are fleeing threats from organized crime – the Mexican drug cartels – not political persecution by their government. If our laws are stretched to accept thousands of refugees from drug cartel violence, it will only exacerbate Mexico's problems.

We can sympathize with the Mexican police chief or prosecutor who lands on a cartel hit list because he will not play ball with them. The Mexican federal government seemingly cannot protect him and his family, so he flees to El Paso or Nogales and seeks asylum. The number of such asylum applications more than doubled in the first six months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007, but very few have been approved. What will happen if we do not accept these asylum applications as a humanitarian gesture? What will happen if we do?

The rising number of asylum seekers from Mexican law enforcement and the professional classes is a new phenomenon, not merely another facet of our open borders fiasco. These people are not swimming the Rio Grande or sneaking across the Sonora desert. They are walking into our border ports of entry from Texas to California and asking for protection. We must respect them for following our laws and doing it the right way. But we must also ask some hard questions before throwing open our gates. Humanitarian concerns must be balanced against other considerations – because the fate of Mexico hangs in that balance.

What happens to Mexico if all the good cops flee to the U.S. or Europe and the only ones left are working hand-in-glove with the criminals? What are the consequences if all the honest judges and prosecutors flee and only dishonest ones are left in charge of the courts? What happens if honest businessmen find it easy to flee to San Diego, Houston or Phoenix and only those who will do the cartels' money laundering are running the nation's trucking companies, farms, and banks?

The unpleasant truth is that this new refugee problem is the sign of a deep crisis not in the Mexican economy but in the Mexican political system itself. Mexico exhibits mounting signs of a "failed state," a political system that cannot satisfy the most basic conditions of civic order such as safety in one’s streets, home, school, and workplace. Failing states begin to hemorrhage people and their assets. The middle class begins to flee – doctors, lawyers, accountants, business owners, teachers, and of course, law enforcement officials, who are the first targets of criminal organizations.

These new "civic disorder refugees" are not like the millions of unemployed or underemployed who leave Mexico to a find a job and a better life. These middle class citizens have jobs – often good jobs by Mexican standards – but they do not have security for themselves or their families. They would much prefer to stay in Mexico but they cannot do so safely, so they flee.

If police chiefs and judges cannot be protected from the cartels, then how can ordinary citizens feel safe? If we open the gates to everyone who has a "credible fear" of the cartels, the Border Patrol will no longer have to worry only about people jumping the fence. Thousands will be waiting in line at one of over 300 ports of entry.

This new "emigration from fear" poses an urgent challenge for Mexico. If Mexico wants to win its battle against the drug cartels, it must begin by reforming its police and criminal justice systems so that honest cops, judges and mayors – and journalists – can do their jobs without undue fear of retaliation. To his credit, President Calderon has begun to tackle this problem.

Military operations against the cartel strongholds are probably necessary, but they can never be a substitute for a functioning criminal justice system. Mexican citizens must be able to trust the local police, and local police must be able to trust their government to protect them from gangster-terrorists.

The United States must not become an automatic escape valve for honest officials threatened by cartel violence. If that happens, Mexico will lose its most valued civil servants and become increasingly a militarized (and polarized) society.

Mexico is not yet a failed state, but if humanitarian sentiment and special interest pleadings in the U.S. block sound immigration policy – as happens all too often in American law and politics – we will hasten that tragic development.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The Mexican government is one of the biggest exporters of drugs now. Hogwash that they want to ‘fight’ the drug gangs, they want to wipe them out (using our money of course!) so the Mexican government can keep ALL the profits from the drug trade. I say they lie when they say they want to stop the fighting and slow down the drug trade. The fighting is just to cover up their involvement in the trade.

Yep.

[Will88]

You’ve provided many very interesting and insightful comments in our several exchanges. I have some understanding of Mexico and the nations further south, but it’s strange that the problems in those nations are seldom discussed openly by our politicians. It seems PCness requires that a pretense be maintained that all nations are equal and problems should seldom be pointed out.

I am aware of some of the revolutions that have taken place in Mexico, but not all. But if there’s any hope of real improvement, some day a revolution will have to usher in a recognition of individual rights, rule-of-law and fair elections. Some day, they will have to fight for the right causes, and not just a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. I have a few questions about things I often hear about Mexico and wonder if you consider them correct or incorrect.

1. Is it true that only thirty or forty extended families own most of the wealth of Mexico?

2. Is it true that it’s taught in the Mexican school system that Mexico’s failures are the fault of the USA?

3. Is it taught that the US southwest was stolen from Mexico and any Mexican has a right to enter the US and live here?

If the wealth is so controlled by a few, it seems there should be some type of land reform. When some measure their holdings in square miles, or hundreds of square miles, and others have owned nothing for generations, and there are few good paying jobs for workers, then that arrangement doesn’t provide much hope for the masses.

It seems the old Spanish aristocracy in Mexico is one of the most racist around, hanging onto their wealth while pushing the mestizos to the north to ease the social and economic problems. And the US economic interests and Democrat party base building interests have cooperated all along, as well various church groups and immigration advocates. There is a squeeze on portions of the US middle class and working class coming from the export of jobs as well as the import of cheap labor, and few Americans are yet looking at that for what it will likely lead to.

And too few are really thinking about what an amnesty of 12 - 20 million, and the 20 to 40 million more they’d be allowed to bring in within a few years, few are really thinking through what that will do to the US. It’s insane.

Of course, the Dems. will bring in as many potential voters as possible, and business interests will try to pressure Republicans to grant amnesty and more and more work visas to do all that work Americans won’t do. But I live in an area where few Hispanics live, and Americans are doing all the work Americans won’t do. We have lawn services offered by white and black citizens, construction work, garbage pick-up, etc., all done by the white and blacks who’ve lived here for generations, as well as a large chicken processing plant. But, if enough illegals move in and undercut the earnings, we’d see whites and blacks leaving those jobs.

LA is a place to watch. It might give those willing to open their eyes some glimpses into the future. And I think those three questions I posed are very relevant, because the attitudes people bring here will play a big role in determining what effect their presence will have on the US in the short and long run.

There’s that quote attributed to many different foreign visitors: “America will prosper until the citizens learn they can vote themselves largess for the federal treasury.”

Well, that’s been learned, and now we can add a new quote: “America will prosper until illegal aliens and foreign interests learns they can influence US elections and policies.”

[usurper]

If you were running for office I would vote for you.