Molehill or Mt Everest?

I apologize in advance, but I just can't get worked up over the "undocumented worker" crisis in this country. Yes, our borders should be secure. Yes, foreign citizens of any stripe should not be sneaking across our borders. Yes, "amnesty" is "not fair." I "kinda" agree with everybody and also disagree with everybody.

My take: First of all, this is not a law enforcement problem. It is an economic imbalance problem. If Mexico were a country with a real economy, a real government and real political parties, then it would most certainly solve its own problems. However, Mexico is none of those things. I remember a Senator (I believe it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan) opposing NAFTA because Mexican courts were neither impartial nor honest and getting a fair judgement relies heavily on how well the palms are greased.

My own impression (however uneducated) is that Mexico, along with much of Latin America has a stark "have/have not" problem. Enhancing that problem is the "haves" unwillingness or inability to figure out how to bring more of their population into the mainstream economic process. If you are born poor in Mexico, you are likely to remain poor unless you stumble on a very lucky break, are inordinately good looking/beautiful or are a frigging genius. Otherwise, get used to tortillas and beans and perhaps a couple of grains of rice on holidays. With prospects like those, who would want to stick around?

You can extrapolate that description to much of Central and even South America. An individual not "to the manor born" can either fall in love with manual labor (when they can find it), and enjoy the rigors of hunger and the challenge of disease without viable health care. It sounds like a regular paradise.

Now that might have flown 50 years ago, but now, whatever else the poor in Mexico may lack, they do see television and movies. Also, likely many of the same gringos now bleating loudest about the "illegal problem" have built resorts along the Mexican coasts. Now the Mexican poor may view the "other side" as they luxuriate within walking distance of desperate slums. Now the poor camposinos can clearly see what they're missing and want some of it too.

The answer to the US illegal immigration problem is not to erect an iron curtain between Mexico and the USA. That didn't even work too well for the USSR. And yes, the iron curtain was installed to keep their people in, our wall would be to keep the barbarians out. However you slice and dice, a wall will become a symbol of failure for both countries, for both societies. For Mexico it will symbolize a failed economy, a failed political system and a failed society which can't or won't provide for its citizens and from all appearances, doesn't care. For the US it will mean a failure of vision, a failure as a neighbor and perhaps worst of all, a triumph of mean-spiritedness.

The Right has shown us the ugliness of intolerance and xenophobia. It has shown us the triumph of hyper-chauvinism and the embarassment of affluent paranoia. I have heard numerous Anglos spitting nails over the "wetbacks" and not one that I've met can show any evidence that they have themselves been personally injured by an illegal alien.

What we're seeing, I believe, is what was historically called "know nothing-ism." This is a blanket hatred of the group du jour. It could be Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Irish, Italians, Poles and the list goes on. It's like the survivors in a lifeboat pulling in the life savers before anyone else can climb in. They made it, screw the rest.

Unfortunately, for a country with a very short event horizon, this will not be solved in a year. And it will not be solved ever with the steps being taken so far. The only solution I can see is for Mexican society to evolve to where it can take care of its own.

It is a total and complete disgrace for a country, as rich and as blessed by nature with resources as Mexico, to keep its citizens in such abject poverty. The US needs to start using some of its resources to help Mexico find its way toward being a viable modern state.

Short term, I don't think that anything will work. This problem has been long in the making and will likely take long to resolve.