Ay Caramba! Another Way to Think About Mexican Immigration into the U.S.

Immigration has been a hot political topic for some time now. So what. A lot of topics have become political fodder, and it almost never means that intelligent discussion will result. A media watcher only gets the impression that politicians want to use a given topic as a platform to show their resolve; in some ways, it doesn't even really matter what side of the issue they come down on. It's just important that they express a view.

That being the case, the topic itself never gets examined. Immigration becomes a bifurcated issue, and all subtleties are lost. In the case of cross-border immigration from Mexico, the debate has tended to circle around the issue of undocumented aliens crossing the border. Some say that they should be given amnesty, and allowed to enter the workforce legally. Others say that they should be sent back home and that our laws concerning entry into the U.S. and residency should be more strictly enforced.

In fact, neither of these two positions are relevant. That's right — they have totally missed the point. It astounds me that in all the debate about immigration from Mexico, almost no one has talked about what this is really all about: the poverty of our southern NAFTA partner. The most fundamental question — the one the media should be asking, and the one politicians should be talking about — is this:

Why is a member of NAFTA, and a country that is right at the border of the U.S., so poor and dysfunctional that thousands of its citizens will risk their lives to flee?

Canadians are not pouring over our northern border, and we know why: Canada is a prosperous country, with a reasonably equitable society. That fact makes us not have to worry about illegal Canadian immigration into the U.S. So, it's simple (at least, articulating the problem is simple): If Mexico were a more prosperous country, without a huge underclass, we wouldn't have the current situation of illegal immigration. U.S. citizens should ask their politicians what we're going to do to make life better for Mexicans in Mexico. That's the only way to keep people from fleeing their country. Unless, of course, we have some vested interest in wanting them to flee...