How the heck do you end the mexican corruption? Annex mexico, and send generals to run it for awhile?
I believe we have met the enemy, and he is us.
That's essentially along the lines of an answer that will offer long term solutions. But simply annexing the area leaves some other matters that we would need to address. We would need a quick and dramatic increase in US Marshals to help bring law and order to this area. The Mexican states would have to adopt constitutions that adhere to our federal constitution, and our existing Congress would have to approve each of these. Programs like Social Security would have to be altered so the new citizens would pay according to established law, but benefits are slowly integrated over a period of 25 years or more. This must be so we do not repeat the problems encountered when East and West Germany were reunited.
There would be other benefits too. Mexican fugitives from justice would suddenly find themselves unable to elude justice by simply walking across a border. The southern border we would have to defend would shrink to barely half our present southern border, and with no major southern cities outside our jurisdiction. We had ample time to teach many of the illegal immigrants our American way of life, and they would be eager to return home and help instill these ways in their communities. Our nation would be much less dependant on oil from the Middle East. Our economy would expand beyond anything we've ever dreamed. We would uncover the truths of which of our citizens have willingly participated with the corrupt Mexican elite in such treasonous ways that have wrought great ill upon our society. Family issues like abortion and marriage would be decided with a Congressional determination that no court could overturn. We would crush the drug cartels. NAFTA and more recent proposed accords would become non-existent.
I don't believe our Manifest Destiny ended at the Pacific shores. I don't know that we are a people of such fortitude that brought expansion when Manifest Destiny was embraced in the youth of our nation.