Posted on 03/21/2002 5:11:37 AM PST by Love America or move to ......
The specter of massive dual citizenship is haunting the upcoming Bush-Fox meeting. Mexico wants "regularization." This means "green cards" or legal work status for approximately three million illegal immigrants from Mexico leading to eventual American citizenship. However, under a 1998 Mexican law these new American citizens could retain "Mexican nationality" and even their children, who are born in the U.S., could claim Mexican dual citizenship.
Linda Chavez, a leading pro-immigration Hispanic Republican warned of the unique challenge of Mexican dual citizenship to American national cohesion. She said, "although some other countries…allow dual nationality — no other nation sends as many immigrants to the United States or shares a common border…for the first time millions of U.S. Citizens could declare their allegiance to a neighboring country."
America is the most successful immigrant country in the history of the world. Our success is based on what could be called "patriotic assimilation" in which immigrants transfer political allegiance from their birth country to the United States and become Americans as loyal as any descendants of the Mayflower. This core American principle should be at the heart of the current U.S.-Mexican negotiations on the status of illegal Mexican immigrants.
Today, American negotiators are focused on how best to help Mexican President Vincente Fox's reform policies while strengthening border security in the new post-9/11 world. The desire to help Fox makes sense. Fox is the first Mexican president since the revolution (1910-1920s) to seriously attempt free-market and democratic reforms. An economically stronger and more democratic Mexico is good for the U.S. as well as for the Mexican people, and would help alleviate the illegal immigration problem in the long run.
However, there are two points that American negotiators should keep in mind while they consider how best to help President Fox. First of all, President Fox's success will ultimately depend on how well he handles the intricacies of Mexican domestic politics. A knowledgeable pro-Fox American commentator, Michael Barone, notes that the new president's efforts to deal with the Chipas rebels, tax reform, official corruption, and the Mexican Congress (his party is in the minority) have stalled. In the end, there is only so much the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress realistically can do to help President Fox, as admirable as their motives may be.
Second, while working cooperatively on many issues, American negotiators must, at the same time, counter Mexican actions that challenge our core national interest in assimilating immigrants as patriotic Americans with undivided political loyalty to the United States. Writing in National Review (October 12, 1998) Jorge Amselle (like Linda Chavez, a pro-immigration Latino Republican) warned that, "The Mexican government through its promotion of bilingual education and of dual nationality and voting is actively subverting the assimilative process of Americanization…."
Amselle was referring to the official Mexican government policy of acercamiento ("getting closer" or "establishing a bond") to "Mexican communities abroad," meaning both Mexican citizens living in the United States and Mexican Americans who are U.S. citizens. This policy was started by the old PRI regime and has been considerably expanded by Fox. The spirit of this policy is exemplified by Juan Hernandez, a Texas-born Mexican-American dual citizen, who is Fox's cabinet minister for Mexicans Abroad.
Hernandez told Nightline that "we are betting" that Mexican-Americans who are American citizens (even after several generations) will "think Mexico First." Hernandez and other Mexican officials continually repeat the refrain that Fox is the leader of 120 million Mexicans, 100 million in Mexico and 20 million in the United States. Since this concept would, by definition, include not only Mexican migrants who sometimes work north of the Rio Grande, but also millions of American citizens of Mexican descent, many of whom were born in the United States — it is clearly in contradiction to traditional American principles of civic assimilation and immigrant loyalty.
Two years ago, before Fox became president, his current national-security adviser, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, advocated a policy in which the Mexican government would work politically with the "20 million Mexicans" in the U.S. to advance Mexican "national interests." In El Siglo de Torreon on May 5, 2000, Zinser attacked American attempts to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border. He declared that "Mexicans are subjected every day to mean-spirited acts and their rights are permanently threatened by ambitious politicians who are hunting for the Anglo vote." After disparaging the "reactionary Senator Jessie Helms," Zinser recommended that Mexico "find allies in the U.S. political system" particularly among "Liberal Democrats, labor unions, civil rights organizations, and social movements."
Last month The Californian (Salinas) reported on February 26 that the Mexican counsel general in San Jose, Marco Antonio Alcazar, told Mexican-American fifth and six graders at a school in Salinas that because of Mexico's dual-nationality law they have "the right to automatically obtain Mexican citizenship." Alcazar declared, "This is exciting because there are many children, who were born in the United States, whose parents are Mexican. And these children have the opportunity now to enjoy two different nationalities…" Alcazar gave the school "complete collections of educational books from the Mexican government, intended to help students understand Mexican history and culture."
How different the schools are today from those that educated the children whose parents came through Ellis Island. In those far off days, the children of Italian immigrants did not study the exploits of Garibaldi and Mazzini in American public schools with textbooks provided by the Italian government. Instead, the emphasis was on assimilating the children of immigrants by teaching them about American heroes such as Washington and Lincoln.
The words and actions of Hernandez, Zinser, and Alcazar tell us that some Mexican policies represent a challenge to America's interest in assimilating immigrants as loyal Americans. Even President Bush's point man in Congress on Mexican border issues, Congressman Chris Cannon (R., Utah) is concerned about Mexico's promotion of dual citizenship. Cannon told the National Journal (March 2) "You need to be clear about where your loyalties are."
Of course, despite these problems, it remains in America's interests to encourage economic and democratic reforms in Mexico. Thus, Brookings scholar Robert Leiken has suggested, in a report for the Center for Immigration Studies, that private sector development aid for Mexico focus on investment and infrastructure in those poor zones in the southern and central parts of the country where most immigrants originate.
In short, American negotiators with Mexico should be able "to walk and chew gum at the same time." They should defend American interests in post-9/11 border security and in the patriotic assimilation of new immigrants, while promoting trade and to the extent realistic helping to strengthen Fox's admirable economic and democratic reforms.
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I think we should offer Mexicans in the United States the same choice that was offered to immigrants previously: if you want American citizenship, and with it the right to vote, you must renounce any dual citizenship, and any exercise of another citizenship, or even such indicia of exercise as voting in the other country or holding its passport, will result in loss of American citizenship and deportation.
....I've been to Mexico and it scared the $hit out of me.
....I will never go back!!!!!!!!!
I didn't know there were a lot of Poles in Colombia, or vice versa.
I don't know many Mexicans, but have known many Poles and Colombians. Political interest in the old country is usually maintained among the first generation. The second generation doesn't give a sh-t and since they were born here, they would have to go through a long and burdensome process of getting recognized for dual citizenship in either country. Also remember that the USA does not recognize dual citizenship.
The only multigenerational ethnic groups that I have found take a strong interest in the "mother country" are the Jews and the Cubans, for reasons that I believe are perfectly understandable, by the way.
Mexicans in the U.S. live very much closer to whence they came than do most other immigrants to the U.S. Mexicans are commuter immigrants, that is they regularly travel back to Mexico. They maintain close familial ties to Mexico, They mostly live in areas of the U.S. that have huge Mexican / Latino populations. Their Mexican identity is encouraged and cultivated by a Mexican government that injects itself into American political debates. Approximately 25% of legal immigration to the U.S. is from Mexico.
You can't say all of the above about Polish or many other immigrant groups.
The border region has always been different. Hell, until the 1930s, people would travel back and forth without having to deal with the incompetants that are INS.
IMHO The issue of Dual Citizenship fades when one is referring to second generation immigrants. The issue is must more relevant when speaking of ten (?)million first generation immigrants from the same nation all of whom have Dual Citizenship. The issue becomes even more relevant when those ten million are Mexican immigrants. This voting bloc of persons with dual allegiences can have a substantial impact on American politics, "wooed" by politicians of every stripe and influencing American foreign policy towards Mexico including immigration, trade, amnesties for illegal aliens, welfare etc.
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