Mexico’s Contradictions Playing U.S. for Fools
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Conor Friedersdorf, San Bernadino County Sun (San Bernadino), Jan. 9, 2006
Since the 1910 Mexican Revolution, our neighbor to the south has chosen exactly one leader in a fair election, current President Vicente Fox.
He presides over a nation where disparities of wealth between the working poor and the politically connected corrupt are as disheartening as the 40 percent of citizens living below the poverty line a figure that excludes those millions of poor Mexicans who immigrated to the United States seeking a better life.
The U.S. dollars earned by expatriate Mexicans and sent home as remittances keep hungry families from starving and a dysfunctional country from collapse. It is thus no surprise that President Fox fears a crackdown on illegal immigration. If the United States succeeds in keeping out illegal immigrants, Mexico won’t benefit from a portion of their toil.
It is surprising, however, that Mexican government and media elites demonstrate their nation’s dependence on illegal immigrant-sent remittances not with appeals to good will, but with righteous indignation.
“Mexico is not going to bear, it is not going to permit, and it will not allow a stupid thing like this wall,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez warned.
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What I cannot abide is Mexico’s official pose open borders are a basic human right that only hardhearted, racist Americans would deny notwithstanding their own official policy of ruthlessly patrolling their southern border while maintaining an array of restrictions, and a dearth of free government benefits, for those foreigners who enter Mexico from the north or the south.
The contradiction between word and deed signifies a disingenuousness insult because it means they’re playing us for fools.
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(Posted on January 9, 2006)