Free Republic

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox's government has arrested more drug lords than any of his predecessors. Yet for all the dramatic captures, drug-trafficking murder and mayhem seem out of control along the Texas border and in southern cities like Acapulco, where gangs are fighting to control turf. The U.S. and Mexico are also skirmishing, with words, over who is to blame. A key reason for the Fox government's apparent reversal of fortune: Mexico's police, prisons and courts are still extremely weak institutions and are so corrupted or intimidated by drug gangs that criminals continue to do business behind bars....

Analysis of birth records shows that in 2002 almost one in four births in the United States was to an immigrant mother, legal and illegal, the highest level in American history. The enormous number and proportion of children from immigrant families may overwhelm the assimilation process, making it difficult to integrate these new second-generation Americans. At present, the U.S. government automatically gives American citizenship to all people born in the country, even the children of tourists and illegal aliens.1