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My Informed Commentary about Donald Trump and Mexico
Listening to Donald Trump verbally assault Mexico disgusts me to the point of illness. There are problems with and in Mexico, but his characterization of it is a grotesque parody of the real situation. His rants are nonsense, and he is a vile man.
My comments are informed because I am a retired Foreign Service Consular officer who spent two tours — four years — at our Embassy in Mexico City. Unlike Trump, I have first-hand knowledge of Mexico, its immigration patterns and economics, and have travelled extensively through the country.
I am in no way in favor of illegal immigration (most consular officers aren’t) and do not turn a blind eye to the problems that mass immigration brings. But I understand why Jeb Bush says that these people are motivated by love. They are in a difficult position in Mexico and want to improve themselves by working in the United States. Leaving to work in another country is difficult. (But that doesn’t mean that we should let them; we have no need for more unskilled laborers, and Scott Walker is spot-on on this point.)
Trump’s accusation that the Mexican government is actively sending criminals to the United States is a filthy lie. There is no evidence to support that. (If they had been, I think that the United States Embassy would have noticed.) It is true that there are posters, especially in border areas, cautioning migrants about the dangers crossing the border (and it is dangerous). But they are not encouraging people to leave, and Mexican politicians know that the strong push to leave is a failing, their failing. Mexico isn’t going to build a wall to keep people in; only Communist countries do that.
This is of course not to deny the huge amount of remittances that Mexicans send from the United States and the importance of it to their economy. But Mexico is not alone; there are few underdeveloped countries in world that don’t get money sent from the United States. This is a much bigger part of the economy in Central America, for example.
The vast number of Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, are hard-working and are coming for economic opportunities. There are bad elements in that population, of course. he fact that it is often unmarried men that go is part of the reason why there is criminal activity in that population. This is not a Mexican-only phenomenon; look at any mining town anywhere, where you have large numbers of young men unconstrained by family responsibilities. Or in some of our own cities, for that matter.) Crime happens in this atmosphere.
Mexican illegals would not come here if there were no jobs. I recall that in the mid-1980s, there were no Mexicans applying for visas to go to visit families in North Carolina, but in the mid-2000s there were, because so many Mexicans went there to work, to do jobs that many Americans didn’t want to do for lower wages. Remove the opportunity to work and illegal immigration will go away.
Remember when that awful Mitt Romney said that we could solve the illegal immigration problem by self-deportation, and remember how he was lambasted for it? Everybody thought he was an idiot? Well … self-deportation is exactly what happened several years ago. Mexicans, unable to find jobs in the United States, started going home. And this is not the first time that this has happened. If you want to stop illegal immigration, the place to build a wall is at the workplace.
We need to understand that the border is porous both ways. Mexican migrant labor has always had the practice of returning home and then going back (the belief that tightening the border is causing more Mexican illegal immigrants to stay has some credence, because it is making that back-and-forth flow more difficult). There are many villages and towns in Mexico that have a tradition of sending workers back to the States, and many come home after a few months, or after a few years, to retire. The nice new house in the village with the new pick-up and the satellite dish? That man worked in El Norte, but came back to his family. That happens a lot. In my second tour, I ran the passport office in the Embassy, and one of our biggest clients were young children of Mexican immigrants to the United States who had sent their children back to Mexico, to the aunt and uncle or grandparents, while the parents worked. It’s a lot better for those kids than American daycare, to be sure. Those cases were often difficult to process because of a lack of documentation owed to the transient nature of these people’s situations, and if they didn’t have convincing evidence of citizenship, we didn’t issue.
The Mexican economy has grown tremendously in the past quarter-century, and much of that is due to NAFTA. Trade has transformed big parts of Mexico, and has increased and strengthened the Mexican middle-class. Donald Trump probably does not realize the tremendous amount of goods that we export to Mexico. I’ve seen this progress — sleepy villages that were poor and dusty thirty years ago are now clean, modern towns full of prosperous workers. Every day, over one billion dollars of goods cross the Mexican-U.S. border. I don’t expect Trump to understand this; he’s in real estate and services — and casinos — and neither he nor his companies have made so much as a widget. If we cut off trade with Mexico, we would lose a huge, huge market. The biggest retailer in Mexico is Wal-Mart (many small Mexican shopkeepers now use Wal-Mart as their supplier, bringing basic goods to their towns and villages). Mexicans do a tremendous amount of shopping when they visit the United States. It’s almost a tradition, now, that when a wife becomes pregnant, they drive up to San Antonio to buy things for the new baby and his nursery.
I am not denying that Mexico has economic problems, or that it is a burdened by serious corruption. I will note, however, that many of the States in Mexico that have done well economically have been run by the insurgent PAN, and not the long-time PRI ruling party.) Because of corruption and the absence of rule of law, drug trafficking has destroyed many parts of the country. I’m also not denying the huge social problems that the mass of poorly-educated illegal immigrants pose in this country, especially in places like California. But this is no reason to build a wall against Mexico, or cut them off. They’re still going to be our Southern border. The answer is more engagement, not less.
And if you’re looking for someone to help solve these problems, it’s certainly not going to be Donald Trump. He’s so full of himself that he has none of the personal skills to successfully deal with anybody from Latin America. We shouldn’t deal with him, either.
Published in General, Immigration
Yes, lower IQ people tend to congregate there. Look, I’m not saying cities aren’t basket cases, it’s just one of the things that makes them interesting are the cultural effects of immigration.
What percent of Americans no not now respect what you see as America’s values and laws? My guess is a huge percent. Why not actively try to remove those people? There’s no real moral difference between kicking one person out because of their views or not letting someone in because of their views, but one of those things would be viewed as horrible and the other salutatory.
So, we already have a problem with citizens who don’t respect our values and laws, and your solution is to import more? That doesn’t make sense to me.
I have no intention to vote for Trump, but I think Mexico deserves it.
Go get ’em, Brother Aaron. [Why hasn’t He been on a podcast, yet?]
225 years ago…
Mr. Madison
Mr. Smith of South Carolina:
Mr. Sherman of Connecticut:
No, my point is it’s an illegitimate reason to banish someone. Disliking someone’s opinions is not grounds to disallow their existence.
I haven’t read all comments but I recall Mexico’s foreign minister Jorge Castenada several years ago bragging about the Mexican gov’t collusion with the Bush admin to meld the two countries together irreversibly through a systematic policy of illegal immigration. The elites in Mexico got a safety valve to avoid any reforms of their corrupt, dysfunctional institutions along with billions per year in remittances.
So America and Americans are required to suffer for the benefit of others, and the government should adopt policies making sure this happens.
Trump’s right about the border and Mexican politicians. I’ve been living and/or working in Mexico for the past 18 years, the last 12 years working just over the Mexican side of the border (with the exception of an approx two year period where I had to work over phone and video conference from the US side due to kidnapping threats). The great many good Mexicans living on the Mexican side of the border, i.e. the ones no one (like Jorge Ramos) ever reports on: often live in fear of going out at night in their towns. The reason is that the crooks, rapists, and drug traders referred to by Trump use those Mexican border towns as staging grounds for their operations. A border fence, augmented by significant technology and resources, would force those crooks out of those border towns and regions, out to sea, and away from the good mexican citizens in those border regions. Having witnessed these good people’s lives, homes, businesses and communities devalued, there is no excuse for any Mexican politician not to support a border fence and much more. Every Mexican politician, and a great many Mexican citizens, have walls around their houses. Additionally, many hire their own security service to augment the protection offered by the wall. Why?
They are suffering for America’s benefit, so we can have the privilege of not having to compete against them, look at them, or live near them.
Open borders is an even playing field. If you don’t want to live by foreigners, outbid others to live away from them. If you want a job, lower your price and work harder. Don’t use guns to mitigate your competition.
Amen. Excellent comment.
“… headlines in Mexico suggest tacitly that Trump only scratched the surface about the country’s problems. After all, it was the Mexican media that originally turned me into an immigration restrictionist. Rape as a ‘Family Value’ … Mexico has a problem with rape. The huge population of Mexican illegals includes many rapists. Trump was right. Anyone who denies this is either ignorant or lying.
… Guerrero, the country’s most violent state … even the immigration-boosting Los Angeles Times calls (the state of) Guerrero ‘violent and dysfunctional’. … Nearly a million people in southern California have their roots in Guerrero state. Will future emigration and amnesties bring more Guerrero-style violence north of the border? Was Trump so wrong to connect illegal immigration with the danger of crime?
… I’ll be visiting Mexico for the rest of my life. But Trump has a point. Mexico is a deeply troubled country with its own set of problems and challenges. There’s no reason to hurt our own people by bringing those problems here. Moral: time for an immigration shutdown.”
— Allan Wall, American citizen who moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico; his wife is Mexican.
Try to move to Mexico and work and see what happens.
I agree that it is incorrect for Trump to say that Mexico is “sending us criminals”. But isn’t it true that they – at least tacitly- encourage emigration to siphon off their poor and relieve social tensions? What about stories like this : “SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) –The Mexican government began issuing birth certificates at its 50 U.S. consulates on Thursday, a move that could help immigrants stay in the country under President Barack Obama’s new immigration policy.
Birth certificates will make it easier for Mexican immigrants to apply for drivers licenses in California, work permits and ultimately protection from deportation.”?
I have also read that they- consulates- offer advice on how to obtain SNAP and WIC and other benefits.
It seems to me they don’t want those poor illiterates back.
In 1965 when the new immigration bill was passed, the foreign born percentage of the population was around 5% – now it is about 13%. And, wages have been stagnant since about that time.
Hmmm? big spaniel, Trump sure was wrong.
This is almost completely due to increases in benefits coupled with the exponential rise in healthcare costs. Increased immigration does cause a stagnation to moderate decrease in low skilled wages in the short term, but after the influx wages tend to return to where they would be without immigration. So, if you have a constant influx you might get a constant suppression in low skill wages.
We should keep in mind though, that if we’re talking real open borders, most of the immigrants will be so low skilled (not speak English, ect.) that they won’t be competing with English-speaking low skilled Americans. Americans understand the culture much better too, so immigrants would largely be competing with each other for newly created extremely low skilled jobs. Most low skilled Americans would probably move on to newly created language based jobs.
It would be a very radical change. It would likely make the welfare state and minimum wage unsustainable and Americans would be shocked by being in close proximity to something a lot closer to real poverty. But the economy would boom so greatly and real estate prices increase so much that most Americans would be far richer than they are now.
Rainbows and unicorns.
We should keep in mind though, that if we’re talking real open borders, most of the immigrants will be so low skilled (not speak English, ect.) that they won’t be competing with English-speaking low skilled Americans. Americans understand the culture much better too, so immigrants would largely be competing with each other for newly created extremely low skilled jobs. Most low skilled Americans would probably move on to newly created language based jobs.
It would be a very radical change. It would likely make the welfare state and minimum wage unsustainable and Americans would be shocked by being in close proximity to something a lot closer to realpoverty. But the economy would boom so greatly and real estate prices increase so much that most Americans would be far richer than they are now.
Has this ever happened anywhere Mike? Real estate prices skyrocketed because of an influx of poor foreigners? Low-skilled foreign workers not taking jobs from low-skilled Americans at smaller wages?