North Star Writers Group

Not very many miles to the north of where I live, the city of Farmers Branch, Texas is embroiled in lawsuits over whether the city has the authority to ban renting homes or apartments to illegal immigrants. The city council last week revised the ban and slated the new version for a voter referendum next spring.

It always amazes me that in all the endless talk about illegal immigration, almost no one ever puts the onus squarely where it really belongs. Instead, we wag our fingers at under-funded U.S. law enforcement for not doing a better policing job, make token attempts at enforcing laws against employing illegal aliens and blame the immigrants merely for wanting a better life for themselves.

But where is Mexico in all this discussion? What about Mexico’s responsibility to its own citizens? The Mexican government seems far more willing to provide helpful hints about illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and to protest the building of a fence than it does in tackling the problems that create a torrent of immigrants in the first place. This is a supreme irony, of course, since Mexico itself has immigration laws that are far stricter than the United States.

It’s not surprising, however, given that Mexico is a failed state. That is because its biggest export isn’t oil. It is citizens, transformed into illegal immigrants just to find work. It is a failed state because Mexico either cannot, or is unwilling to, provide enough decent-paying jobs for its own people.

To do so would involve massive and fundamental changes in the way Mexico does business. Even today, in the 21^st Century, the Mexican economy is by and large an oligarchy, much the same as 16^th Century England. In an oligarchy, the few control the lion’s share of the economic resources and, as a result, run the government. A different family rules each industry in Mexico. Those who want to do business in that industry must first obtain permission from the controlling family. Needless to say, the family makes sure not to allow much competition in its particular economic segment.

Then there is massive government red tape and endemic official corruption. Although Mexico has made repeated attempts to cut the government bureaucracy and end bribery, both remain and stifle economic growth, leading to a dearth of decent-paying jobs for those who want and need to work.

The result is that every year Mexico loses hundreds of thousands of its most ambitious and energetic citizens to illegal immigration. The government encourages the exodus because it serves as a safety valve. As long as these people leave and send back billions of dollars in remittances to keep their relatives from starving, Mexico can avoid dealing with its economic and political problems.

This desperate situation might not concern us in this country except that Mexico’s problems are now our problems. Illegal immigrants are putting downward pressure on U.S. wages even as jobs that used to pay middle-class salaries are rapidly disappearing overseas. High numbers of illegal immigrants are also sapping public resources like hospitals and schools, forcing tax rates ever higher to cover the escalating costs.

For more than 200 years, the U.S. economy has been resilient enough to absorb wave after wave of immigrants. Free trade agreements, however, have altered the economic landscape. The U.S. economy is morphing into its Mexican counterpart, with the majority of wealth and political influence more and more concentrated into an ever-smaller group.

This is a recipe for political unrest that will make the vitriol over the Farmers Branch ordinance seem like a cakewalk.

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