Mexico has no right to lash out at US immigration

by YankeeJim | September 11, 2010 at 12:40 pm

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Calderon makes a valid point that it is up to South American nations including his own to provide sufficient economic opportunity and security such that citizens don’t have to run away to the United States and to enter illegally. Yet, implying that the US shoots illegal immigrants as a matter of routine is a ridiculous and irresponsible remark. It simply does not happen unless the illegal is engaged in criminal activity that warrants the action as it would with any other criminal.

Mexico is in a meltdown. America would do well to focus on relationship-building in the Western hemisphere, beginning with Mexico.

“Mexico Lashes Out at U.S. Immigration Practices

Published September 10, 2010

Fox News.com

Sept. 2: Mexico's President Felipe Calderon delivers his latest "state of the nation" report to Congress in Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in an interview Friday that last month’s massacre of 72 migrants doesn't undermine Mexico's moral authority to demand better treatment for its own migrants.

"Of course we have the moral authority, because Mexican officials are not shooting Central American youths at the border, but U.S. agents are shooting Mexican migrants," Calderon said in an interview with the Spanish-language Univision network.

"If we are talking about responsibility, at the root of this, in the case of immigration, is the lack of immigration legislation in the United States that would recognize this phenomenon," Calderon said.

The massacred migrants, most from Central America, were attempting to cross Mexico to reach the U.S. border when they were kidnapped by what is believed to be a group of gunmen from Mexico’s Zeta drug cartel, according to a man who survived the massacre.

In a joint meeting with Calderon, President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador said that the home nations of migrants bear some of the responsibility for immigration problems.

"In part, the greatest responsibility lies with our governments, the Salvadoran government, for not having generated the employment conditions, the welfare conditions, that doesn't leave our migrants any choice but to look for other opportunities in the United States and Canada."

Thirteen Salvadorans were among the dead identified so far in the massacre in late August.

Funes also said, however, that he doesn't blame Mexico's government for the massacre, and called for a joint effort to fight drug cartels.

"We have come to have a conversation with the president of Mexico, not to condemn him or criticize him," Funes said. "Rather the opposite, to show him our support and offer our help in this fight."”