There are many strange elements in the current debate over illegal immigration, but none stranger than the general failure to discuss the role of\u00a0Mexico.<\/p>\n
Are millions of Mexican citizens still trying to cross the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0border illegally because there is dismal economic growth and a shortage of jobs in\u00a0Mexico?![\"Border_patrol_car_patroling_on_border\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Border_patrol_car_patroling_on_border.jpg?resize=300%2C199&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
Not any more. In terms of the economy,\u00a0Mexico\u00a0has rarely done better, and the\u00a0United\u00a0States\u00a0rarely worse.<\/p>\n
The Mexican unemployment rate is currently below 5 percent. North of the border, it remains stuck at over 7 percent for the 53rd consecutive month of the Obama presidency. The American gross domestic product has been growing at a rate of less than 2 percent annually. In contrast, a booming\u00a0Mexico\u00a0almost doubled that in 2012, with its\u00a0GDP\u00a0growing at a robust clip of nearly 4 percent. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Is elemental hunger forcing millions of Mexicans to flee north, as it may have in the past?<\/p>\n
Not necessarily. According to a recent United Nations study, an estimated 70 percent of\u00a0Mexico\u2019s citizens are overweight and suffer from the same health problems caused by poor diet and lack of exercise shared by those in other, more affluent Western societies.<\/p>\n
Mexico\u00a0is a severe critic of\u00a0U.S.\u00a0immigration policy, often damning Americans as ruthlessly insensitive for trying to close our border. The Mexican government has gone so far as to join lawsuits against individual American states to force relaxation of our border enforcement. Former Mexican president Felipe Calder\u00f3n sharply criticized the\u00a0United States\u00a0for trying to \u201ccriminalize migration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is\u00a0Mexico, then, a model of immigration tolerance?<\/p>\n
Far from it.<\/p>\n
Until 2011, when it passed reforms,\u00a0Mexico\u00a0had among the most draconian immigration laws in the world.\u00a0Guatemala\u00a0has criticized\u00a0Mexico\u00a0for initiating construction of a fence along its southern border.<\/p>\n
Mexico\u00a0has zero tolerance for illegal immigrants who seek to work in\u00a0Mexico, happen to break Mexican law, or go on public assistance \u2014 and zero tolerance for any citizens who aid them.<\/p>\n
In Mexico, legal immigration is aimed at privileging new arrivals who have skill sets that will aid the Mexican economy and, according to the country\u2019s immigration law, who have the \u201cnecessary funds for their sustenance\u201d \u2014 while denying entry to those who are not healthy or would upset the \u201cequilibrium of the national demographics.\u201d Translated, this apparently means that\u00a0Mexico\u00a0tries to withhold legal residency from those who do not look like Mexicans or do not have the skills needed to make money.<\/p>\n
If the\u00a0United States\u00a0were to treat Mexican nationals in the same way that\u00a0Mexico\u00a0treats Central American nationals, there would be humanitarian outrage.<\/p>\n
In 2005, the Mexican government published a\u00a0Guide for the Mexican Migrant<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 in comic-book form. The pictographic manual instructed the country\u2019s own citizens on how best to cross illegally into, and stay within, the\u00a0United States. Did\u00a0Mexico\u00a0assume that its departing citizens were both largely illiterate and unworried about violating the laws of a foreign country?<\/p>\n
Yet\u00a0Mexico\u00a0counts on these expatriate poor to send back well over $20 billion in remittances annually\u00a0\u2013 currently the third-largest source of foreign exchange for\u00a0Mexico.<\/p>\n
Remittances from America fill a void that the Mexican government has created by not extending the sort of housing, education, or welfare help to its own citizens that America provides to foreign residents.<\/p>\n
In truth, many thousands of Mexicans flee northward not necessarily because there are no jobs at home, or because they are starving there.\u00a0America\u00a0offers them far more upward mobility and social justice than does their own homeland. And for all the immigration rhetoric about race and class, millions of Mexicans vote with their feet to enjoy the far greater cultural tolerance found in the\u00a0U.S.<\/p>\n
Indigenous people make up a large part of the most recent wave of Mexican arrivals. Those who leave provinces like\u00a0Oaxaca\u00a0or\u00a0Chiapas\u00a0apparently find the English-speaking, multi-racial\u00a0U.S.\u00a0a fairer place than the hierarchical and often racially stratified society of\u00a0Mexico.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People should be a nation\u2019s greatest resource. Fairly or not,\u00a0Mexico\u00a0has long been seen to view its own citizens in rather cynical terms as a valuable export commodity, akin to oil and food. When they are young and healthy, Mexican expatriates are expected to scrimp, save, and support their poorer relatives back in\u00a0Mexico. When these Mexican expats are ill and aged, then the U.S should pick up the tab for their care.<\/p>\n
The current problem for\u00a0Mexico\u00a0is that the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0might soon deal with illegal immigration in the wayMexico\u00a0does. But for now, to the extent that Mexican citizens can potentially make, rather than cost, Mexico money, there is little reason for our southern neighbor to discourage them from leaving the country \u2014 by hook, crook, or comic book.<\/p>\n