XPost: ucb.politics.progressive, alt.religion.scientology, alt.p   
   litics.usa.republican   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: lying-communists@latimes.com   
      
   The big news this week seems to be that the Mexican government   
   is not happy with President Trump’s border control plans. That   
   headline comes on the heels of the news that the sun is hot.   
   Imagine that!   
   Mexico is not happy that President Trump appears to be serious   
   about building a border wall and halting the cross-border human   
   traffic. The improvements in border security promised in the   
   Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 as a trade-off for   
   the general amnesty never happened, and illegal border crossings   
   have trended upwards again after a brief decline connected to   
   the 2008-10 recession. Apprehensions of illegal border jumpers   
   on the southwest border have increased every year but one since   
   2010, and increased 23 percent from 2015 to 2016.   
      
   Because of the relative ease of crossing the border and Mexico’s   
   liberal definition of Mexican citizenship, we have the situation   
   recently described by author Ann Coulter, who discovered that   
   persons of Mexican origin now residing in the United States —   
   legal and illegal– are equal in number to over 25 percent of the   
   130 million population of Mexico.   
      
   The Pew Hispanic Center says there were 33.7 million Americans   
   of Mexican descent in the United States in 2012, and that figure   
   is based in part on the official Census figure of 11.3 million   
   illegal aliens, over 60 percent of whom are from Mexico. If you   
   believe as I do that the illegal alien population of the U.S. is   
   over 25 million, not 11.3 million, then the percentage of   
   Mexican nationals now residing in the  U.S. — persons recognized   
   as Mexican citizens under the Mexican Constitution — is   
   considerably above 25 percent.   
      
   Few Americans are aware that in 2005, in recognition of the   
   growing importance of remittances to the Mexican economy and   
   thus the growing importance of maintaining a close connection   
   with the millions of Mexicans who have moved north, the Mexican   
   constitution was amended to bestow voting rights in presidential   
   elections for Mexicans living abroad. In 2012, over eleven   
   million Mexicans living in the United States voted in the   
   Mexican presidential election.   
      
   Let me put this in stark economic terms: Mexico’s national   
   income grows in direct proportion to the size of the illegal   
   Mexican population inside the United States. Does that help   
   explain the Mexican fixation on U.S. politics? Mexico’s most   
   profitable export to the U.S. is not oil or avocados or   
   automobile parts, it is people.   
      
   Mexicans living and working in the U.S. send home over $20   
   billion annually in cash remittances — more than Mexico earns in   
   foreign currency from tourism or any export commodity.   
      
   In 1979, Mexico received only $177,000 (U.S. Dollars) in   
   remittances; in 2016 it was $26.1 BILLION — over 90 percent of   
   it from persons living in the United States. (See here for a GAO   
   report on remittances to Mexico from the U.S. and here for the   
   World Bank reports for total remittances received by Mexico.)   
      
   You don’t believe government data? Even the Clinton News Network   
   confirms it: this recent CNN report says Mexico relies more on   
   remittance income than the sale of oil or tourism.   
      
   To guarantee those remittance dollars keep flowing north to   
   south, Mexico must keep exporting its citizens south to north.   
   Does anyone think Mexico will give up that lucrative income   
   graciously? Do you think Mexican politicians will welcome an   
   interruption of either of those two flows — either people going   
   north or dollars coming south?   
      
   As a Congressman, back in 2001, I visited Mexico along with two   
   of my colleagues and met with several high government officials   
   in the Mexican capital. One of those officials was Juan   
   Hernandez, a dual citizen with a home in Texas, who at that time   
   was the head of a cabinet department. That department had the   
   name, Ministry for Mexicans Living Abroad, but it has since been   
   reorganized and given a lower public profile as the Institute   
   for Mexicans Abroad, a government-funded division of the   
   Ministry of Foreign Affairs.   
      
   I asked Señor Hernandez, what exactly do you do here? He was   
   quite candid and informative and not the least bit apologetic.   
   Hernandez’s job was to direct and coordinate a large collection   
   of enterprises of transport and educational activities aimed at   
   assisting and encouraging Mexicans in physically moving north   
   across Mexico and entering the United States.   
      
   I was struck by both the grandiosity and bravura of that   
   official Mexican government operation—directed by a cabinet   
   official. Somewhat shocked by his candid admissions, I asked   
   Hernandez, hey, aren’t you embarrassed by violating the   
   sovereignty of a neighboring country? His reply was delivered   
   calmly and with a smile. I remember his words clearly:  “Really,   
   congressman, we don’t have two countries here, it’s just a   
   region.”   
      
   I also asked Hernandez, why does the Mexican government work so   
   hard to maintain contact with Mexicans even after they become   
   naturalized citizens of the United States? He told me, it’s   
   because they tend to stop sending money home after they   
   assimilate. Assimilation, he believed, was a problem: if   
   Mexicans stopped being Mexicans first, and Americans second,   
   that is very bad for Mexico.   
      
   Juan Hernandez, as I said, is a dual citizen of Mexico and the   
   United States, and he has been very involved in U.S. politics.   
   In 2008, working from his Texas home, he was named as   
   presidential candidate John McCain’s chief of Outreach to   
   Hispanic Americans.   
      
   You can make of that connection with John McCain what you will;   
   maybe the guy just needed a job. But as for myself, I would   
   worry if my candidate were endorsed by the Juan Hernandez   
   characters of the world, and I am delighted that Señor Juan   
   Hernandez is apoplectic over the plans announced by President   
   Trump.   
      
   What lies ahead for U.S.-Mexican relations? Your guess is as   
   good as mine, but if Trump persists in his plans, Mexican   
   bluster and outrage will be replaced by a more pragmatic   
   accommodation.  The border will continue to be a point of   
   conflict, but Mexico may come to realize that the end of the   
   remittance cornucopia was inevitable.   
      
   Mexico can grow its own economy and create millions of jobs for   
   its people by abandoning its socialist dogmas and state-owned   
   enterprises. If that happens, someday soon Mexican politicians   
   will see the bitter medicine administered by Trump as a blessing   
   in disguise.   
      
   Polls of newly-arrived Mexicans who entered our country   
   illegally reveal that the large majority of them do not intend   
   to stay forever. Typically, upon arrival, they plan to get a   
   job, send money home, and then return home to Mexico and enjoy a   
   better life than what they left.   
      
   Mexicans naturally retain a love of the country of their   
   birth—and that love of country is certainly not a bad thing if   
   you think of it as your true home.  If ten million Mexicans now   
   in the United States became optimistic about Mexico’s future and   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)