How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens

How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens
Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement measures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.

The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?

-- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." How's that for racial and ethnic profiling?

-- If outsiders do not enhance the country's "economic or national interests" or are "not found to be physically or mentally healthy," they are not welcome. Neither are those who show "contempt against national sovereignty or security." They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.

-- Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years' imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years' imprisonment. Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama's illegal alien aunt -- a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim).

-- Law enforcement officials at all levels -- by national mandate -- must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens' arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities.

-- Ready to show your papers? Mexico's National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens' identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.

All of these provisions are enshrined in Mexico's Ley General de Población (General Law of the Population) and were spotlighted in a 2006 research paper published by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy. There's been no public clamor for "comprehensive immigration reform" in Mexico, however, because pro-illegal alien speech by outsiders is prohibited.

Consider: Open-borders protesters marched freely at the Capitol building in Arizona, comparing GOP Gov. Jan Brewer to Hitler, waving Mexican flags, advocating that demonstrators "Smash the State," and holding signs that proclaimed "No human is illegal" and "We have rights."

But under the Mexican constitution, such political speech by foreigners is banned. Noncitizens cannot "in any way participate in the political affairs of the country." In fact, a plethora of Mexican statutes enacted by its congress limit the participation of foreign nationals and companies in everything from investment, education, mining and civil aviation to electric energy and firearms. Foreigners have severely limited private property and employment rights (if any).

As for abuse, the Mexican government is notorious for its abuse of Central American illegal aliens who attempt to violate Mexico's southern border. The Red Cross has protested rampant Mexican police corruption, intimidation and bribery schemes targeting illegal aliens there for years. Mexico didn't respond by granting mass amnesty to illegal aliens, as it is demanding that we do. It clamped down on its borders even further. In late 2008, the Mexican government launched an aggressive deportation plan to curtain illegal Cuban immigration and human trafficking through Cancun.

Meanwhile, Mexican consular offices in the United States have coordinated with left-wing social justice groups and the Catholic Church leadership to demand a moratorium on all deportations and a freeze on all employment raids across America.

Mexico is doing the job Arizona is now doing -- a job the U.S. government has failed miserably to do: putting its people first. Here's the proper rejoinder to all the hysterical demagogues in Mexico (and their sympathizers here on American soil) now calling for boycotts and invoking Jim Crow laws, apartheid and the Holocaust because Arizona has taken its sovereignty into its own hands:

Hipócritas.
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To read another article by Michelle Malkin, click here.

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Let's Make a Deal, Sr. Presidente Calderon
Rich Galen
Wednesday, April 28, 2010

As regular readers know, because I have the attention span of the average 5-year-old, I rarely write on the same topic twice unless, because I have the memory of a 63-year-old, I forgot that I'd written about it.

Today will be a departure because of the response of Mexican President Felipe Calderón to the new immigration law in Arizona.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Mexico has a population of about 111 million people with a net migration of "-3.61 migrant(s)/1,000 population." I may be wrong about this but that means every year about 400,000 people leave Mexico.

I'm guessing that some of those migrants end up in the United States of America.

According to the U.K. Guardian, El Presidente is muy agravado over this new law and "promised to raise it with President Barack Obama during a visit to Washington next week."

This would be really funny: How about if Maryland State Troopers were to stop Calderón's motorcade on its way in to the District of Columbia from Andrews Air Force Base and made everyone show their passports?

Ok, that's not funny. But this is.

According to reporter Ewen MacAskill:

The Mexican foreign ministry, long used to warnings from the US state department about the risks of travelling to Mexico because of drug wars, retaliated by issuing an alert to Mexicans and migrant communities because of the "adverse political atmosphere" in Arizona.

UPI wrote that the warning "advised Mexican nationals to use 'extreme caution' traveling to Arizona -- even before the law takes effect -- and listed consulates where people can get help."

It added, "As long no clear criteria are defined for when, where and who the authorities will inspect, it must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time."

Calderón told a group of migrants in Mexico City Monday that

"Criminalizing immigration, which is a social and economic phenomenon, this way opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement."

Sneaking into the United States has long been criminalized. This law applies to people who are illegal aliens who, because the word "illegal" is involved, would appear to have been involved in criminal activity in the first place.

More importantly, it seems that migrants in the U.S. are much safer than migrants in … Mexico as this lead paragraph from another U.K. Guardian article shows:

Stalked by kidnappers, murders, rapists and corrupt officials, the journey Central Americans make through Mexico on their way to the United States is one of the most perilous migration routes in the world.

The report on which that article was based, states:

"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses."

And, before you roll your eyes thinking this was the work of some anti-Mexican hack with an ax to grind, the report was produced and released by Amnesty International - not exactly an organization known for embracing conservative causes.

Whoa! ¡nos trae la cuenta por favor! (Which either means, "check, please!" or "Is this the right road to Tumazunchale?")

Felipe Calderón is whining about the way we are treating immigrants in the U.S. because they may be asked to produce documents proving they are here legally, while immigrants in his very own country are being kidnapped, robbed, raped, and murdered by the tens of thousands, according to the report.

So, Sr. Presidente, why don't you deal with the social and economic phenomenon of immigration in Mexico and let us deal with the s & e p of immigration in the United States?

Until that, let's have an informal agreement: No American citizens will come to Mexico, and no Mexican citizens will come to the U.S.

¿tenemos un reparto?