Uh, Central America isn’t in great shape right now. In Guatemala, decades of civil war has really fractured people’s mindsets, and right now Guatamala is one of the most violent countries on Earth. Highway robbery, gang wars and political related (often terrorist) violence are fairly common. Guatemala’s neighbors, an assortment of some of the less fun countries in the world, don’t really help. Mexico is not really trying to keep out the poor as much as poltical radicals, terrorists and gangs. The state of Mexico versus Guatemala does not really compare at all to the state of the US and Mexico.
I really can’t think of anything more “American” than risking it all to work hard and support your family. The values of Mexican immigrants are largely the values that America celebrates and encourages.
Anyway, American tourism has been abnormally low in the last few years. My tourist town is really struggling, and in three months travelling in Asia, I only met one other American tourist.
Remittances from Mexicans in the US have surpassed tourism revenues for sometime now. I believe they are the second leading source of legal income after Pemex. Illegal drugs is another story.
This IMO, more so than any politician’s interest (disinterest?) in the poor, is probably the major reason for the Mexican government’s reluctance to do more in stemming the emigration of Mexicans to the US.
Those are fine values, but I doubt immigrants as a group possess them to any greater extent than native-born Americans as a group. And these values represent only a small part of what it means to be an American.
I can’t square the “hardworking, family-oriented Mexican immigrant” stereotype with the insistence that immigrants be entitled to every government handout under the sun, including preferential treatment on the basis of ethnicity. If they’re so productive, it should be a non-issue whether they are eligible for government benefits. Yet there’s a vast corps of professional ethnics that rises up to resist any restrictions or even enforcement of the existing laws limiting benefits for immigrants.
Thank you for the link…very helpful. Which part of the desert do you live? (I’m in the Victor/Apple Valley area.)
CBEscapee, I’m in agreement with your last post. Reluctance is a good word to describe the Mexican government’s reaction (or lack of action).
Even Sven, no doubt is the Central American region more unstable and poorer than Mexico itself, but that doesn’t excuse the government’s approach in handling it’s own citizens/economy/internal problems in laisser faire way, and I don’t mean “laissez faire”.