Mexico should take in the migrants or stop their passage to the US

A previous Founders Broadsheet set down what we believe to be the principles of a sound immigration policy. We believe those principles still hold but wish to update them with some topical comments in the wake of the firestorm over the Trump administration’s alleged mistreatment of migrant children. The firestorm has provided non-stop haters of the Trump administration a welcome distraction from the embarrassment of the Inspector General’s report on FBI malfeasance. But the hypocritical comments of the Mexican government cannot be allowed to stand unrebuked. According to the Wall Street Journal,

Mexico’s government criticized U.S. immigration policies that it said violate the human rights of children by separating them from their undocumented migrant parents. “We strongly urge the U.S. government to reconsider this policy,” Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said Tuesday, urging federal authorities to implement measures to alleviate the traumatic conditions of some 2,000 children held in U.S. facilities without their parents. He called the Trump administration policies “cruel and inhumane.”

The migrants who are the occasion of the current crisis come from Central America. Their native language is Spanish, also the national language of Mexico. Both Mexico and the Central American countries the migrants come from also share a common Mayan Indian ethnic heritage alongside their common Hispanic heritage. Clearly, the best linguistic and cultural fit for these impoverished unfortunates, fleeing danger and anomie in their home countries, would be to settle in Mexico, not the US. If Mexico is not willing to provide their less fortunate Latin neighbors with a new homeland, by what right does it presume to give them free passage through Mexico in order to impose them on the United States? Given this context, the comments of Foreign Minister Videgaray are contemptible and outrageous.

We believe that all the illegal migrants should be turned back at the US border. Let Mexico deal with a problem which exists only as a result of Mexico’s neglect of its own obligations. If the migrants wish to enter the US legally, we’ve included a map of all the US consulates in Mexico where they can apply.

But on the US side, we need a good guest worker program to provide secure legal entry and exit to a vetted portion of the Central American and Mexican work force. Crops need to be harvested, houses framed, yards maintained, unfilled service jobs provided with workers in the face of a domestic labor shortage and a looming social security funding crisis. A guest worker program would go a long way toward reducing the motivation for illegal border crossings. Unfortunately, this is just what the current Congress is not considering.

Click here to go to the previous Founders Broadsheet post (“Trade war threat beginning to damage global markets and investments”)