Most folks would agree that it’s generally bad form to insult someone in their home, especially if they happen to be a neighbor. And those rules apply to everyone, from you and me to heads of state. But apparently no one has ever taught this finer point of etiquette to Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico. He decided to criticize Arizona today from the south lawn of the White House, for – as Major Garrett in this clip notes – a law that has yet to take effect in Arizona.
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There’s something especially hypocritical in Calderon’s criticism of Arizona’s response to his government’s complete failure to keep its citizens from unlawfully invading the United States. And that’s not even the worst problem – the ongoing drug war between Mexico’s narco-syndicates and Calderon’s government has turned the border between Mexico and the United States into a war zone. Juarez, Mexico – the world’s deadliest city and a stone’s throw across the Rio Grande from the US – is ground zero of that war. To put things in perspective, in 2008, there were over 1400 homicides in Juarez. The deadliest city in America in 2008, New Orleans, came in with 179 homicides, close to one tenth of the number of killings in Juarez. This violence has spilled across the border, resulting in violent crimes and the deaths of Americans, including American law enforcement. Would it be appropriate for President Obama to visit Los Pinos and criticize Calderon for his inability to maintain law and order in Juarez? I don’t think so. And apparently President Obama agrees with me. When he visited Mexico City and engaged in a joint press conference with Calderon, the President went out of his way to praise Calderon for his “courageous” (yet ineffective) efforts against the narco-terrorists and then proceeded to criticize America by implying that we had not done “our part” in solving Mexico’s problem. Our failure, apparently, is the result of both America’s appetite for illegal drugs and our gun laws. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. Read the transcript – search for the paragraph that begins “I have said this before…” The President went out of his way not to criticize a country while enjoying their hospitality, and instead chose to criticize his own – something he seems to enjoy doing. It’s a shame President Calderon couldn’t have returned the courtesy while enjoying our hospitality today. It’s also a shame that President Obama didn’t call him out on it. Because, like the drug problem, and to paraphrase President Obama, no one can pretend the illegal immigration problem that prompted Arizona’s law is the United States’ responsibility alone.
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When it comes to illegal immigration, it takes two to tango. At least 6 million of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States today come from Mexico. Regardless of how one feels about the Arizona immigration law, no one can argue that at least half the blame for the illegal immigration problem rests squarely at the feet of President Calderon and his government. The border has two sides. Stopping illegal immigration requires efforts on both sides of that border. Right now, Mexico doesn’t appear to be pulling their weight.
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In his criticism, Calderon said Arizona’s law opened Mexicans up for discrimination. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that it does, is Calderon really the best person to criticize it on those grounds? I don’t think he would consider Mexico’s own immigration laws discriminatory, despite Mexican law that allows the government to bar immigrants who would upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” As the article I just quoted notes, the Mexican immigration laws make ours look ridiculously lax – even if one includes the Arizona law (which, as I noted above, still hasn’t taken effect yet). Mexico even bars foreign visitors from interfering in internal Mexican politics – so perhaps President Obama’s good manners were simply his effort at trying to keep from getting arrested for interfering with Mexico’s internal politics.
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Personally, I would like to see President Obama take a page from Mexico. Regardless of his personal feelings or his Administration’s response to Arizona’s law, President Obama is also President in Arizona. And I would like to think that, at the very least, he would take umbrage with the idea of any non-American – especially the leader of a country that has criminalized foreign dissent within their borders – criticizing a law enacted within the United States by the people of a state. This law was passed with support from over 70% of Arizonans. Regardless of whether you or I like the law, or whether the President likes it, it’s a valid law in Arizona (until a court says otherwise), and it was enacted as part of the federally protected and insured republican government of the state of Arizona. The President should call out Calderon for his inappropriate comments, and he should do it publicly, as Calderon did.
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To put it another way, in the words of two great Americans in one of our greatest films – “Hey! He can’t do that to our pledges! Only we can do that to our pledges!”
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Like the drug problem, illegal immigration is going to take work on both sides of the border. Mexico isn’t pulling its weight. Yet they criticize us for our response to it with impunity – in our house. That’s just galling. And to add insult to injury, the President of the United States ignores Calderon’s attack on Arizona, and proceeds to use it to set up an attack on Republicans in the Senate! Say what you want about George W. Bush – at the very least, you always knew he was on our side. After seeing this press conference, I’m starting to think President Obama believes illegal immigration is America’s fault – if only we weren’t so much more successful than Mexico, they’d never want to come here. Is there any problem we face that isn’t our fault in his world?
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Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of being conciliatory. Sometimes the best way to move forward is to admit that both sides have made mistakes. But there are also times when you’ve got to back up your people. Like the baseball manager who gets thrown out of a ball game by arguing with the umpire over a call he knows was made correctly just to back up his player, when you’re the boss, sometimes you’ve got to do the right thing and call out someone – even a head of state – who oversteps his bounds. Rudy Giuliani had no problem turning down a check for $10 million from a Saudi Prince who came to New York and criticized the United States during his presentation speech. He was mayor of New York. Why can’t we expect the same thing from President Obama? Isn’t that part of his job? Sticking up for America when we’re being criticized by hypocrites? What’s next? Hu Jintao criticizing us about human rights at the White House?
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I would call this whole business unbelievable but, unfortunately, I can believe it.
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May 19th by Brian S
I saw this earlier. And that poor little girl who is scared talking to Michelle Obama. I guess it is official, our officials care more about ILLEGAL immigrants than natural born citizens. I’m completely flabbergasted. He should have told Calderon to get his own house in order before coming here to lecture us on how to treat the people fleeing his shithole country. And can we please compare and contrast how this country and Mexico treats illegal immigrants?
Sadly this is exactly what I expected from Obama, we should all be embarrassed.
I think this is nothing more than the arrogance of Calderon into believing that he can say whatever he wants and having meaning. Let’s face it, LI was 100% accurate when he said that Calderon needs to fix his shithole country prior to saying anything about what a soveriegn state inside a sovereign country is doing to protect itself against foreign aggression. Drug smugglers, human traffickers, gang bangers coming into our country and committing crimes against those in our country or on our soil is foreign agression, simply in a domestic context. It’s unforunate that our immigration system is so called “broken” but how can we say our system and laws are broken when we don’t even enforce the current ones to begin with. The open borders crowd and lobby is too influencial in that they are always pandered to. Who else was able to keep National Guard troops unarmed during their brief stint on the border. Drug dealers have AK-47 but our troops shouldn’t be able to defend themselves if need be?
I know my comments make me a racist, unsympathetic, incompassionate with people on the left but it’s a cold hard truth that needs to be recognized.
I searched for that phrase (you mention in the post) and it didn’t come up Brian. I’ll read the whole thing at some point, but could you direct me to the paragraph that galls you?
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LL, did you read the statement?
Yes, Ed. I also saw Obama stand there with his thumb up his ass. Hope and Change.
“But I will not pretend that this is Mexico’s responsibility alone. A demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business. This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border”
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Read a little further to the Q&A and it sounds like he’s setting up for reinstatement of the “assault weapons” ban.
Cato got a good part of it. Here’s the rest:
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“I have said this before; I will repeat it: I have the greatest admiration and courage for President Calderón and his entire cabinet, his rank-and-file police officers and soldiers as they take on these cartels. I commend Mexico for the successes that have already been achieved. But I will not pretend that this is Mexico’s responsibility alone. A demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business. This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.
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So we have responsibilities, as well. We have to do our part. We have to crack down on drug use in our cities and towns. We have to stem the southbound flow of guns and cash. And we are absolutely committed to working in a partnership with Mexico to make sure that we are dealing with this scourge on both sides of the border.”
If you were asking about Calderon’s statement, here’s an article that talks about it in more detail that the video link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100519/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_mexico_bad_translation_1
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Here’s the specific paragraph in the Embassy translation: “I know that we share the interest in promoting dignified, legal and orderly living conditions to all migrant workers. Many of them, despite their significant contribution to the economy and to the society of the United States, still live in the shadows and, occasionally, as in Arizona, they even face discrimination.”
Brian, it would go along way towards fixing Mexico if we admit we lost the drug war and end it, or at least scale it back. Also, reforming agricultural subsidies. Mexican farmers go out of business because they can’t compete against our government subsidized corn, so they come here for jobs. There are things we can do, too, if our politicians had any courage.
I’m still waiting for Obama to actually read our law (I’m assuming he has not since Holder and Napalatino have not), then read the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act (specially section287g). When ICE gives state and local law enforcement the authority to “identify, process, and when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter during their regular, daily law-enforcement activity.” it is okay. But a state creating a law that does the exact same thing, is not okay and akin to Nazi Germany or Chinese human rights violations.
Very interesting read regarding selective targeting of the drug cartels in Mexico and possible government corruption.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126906809&ps=cprs
The drug war is stupid. Everyone should have all the guns they want and all the drugs they want.
Also, no, Barack Obama is not the President of Arizona. Or of Virginia. Or of Illinois. He didn’t take any oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution of Arizona, or any other state.
Folks who want the drug war to end have clearly not ever felt the negative effects of it, even from the “ok” drugs like marijuana. Having had multiple issues with family members and drugs over the years, I’m not comfortable with introducing more legal intoxicants into society.
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RD, he took an oath the preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Arizona is a state within the United States. The Constitution guarantees it will protect Arizona’s republican form of government, provide for its defense from outside invasion, and ensure full faith and credit of its laws and legal rulings. The President doesn’t get to pick and choose which states he wants to protect and which he can’t. He’s president of the whole union. That includes Arizona and other places he may not like.
He took an oath preserve, protect and defend the nation. Last time I checked, Arizona was a part of the U.S. and Mexico was not.
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How about instead of giving the corrupt government of Mexico billions of dollars we give that to the border states to help secure the border. How about instead of offering to send troops to Mexico, we send them to the border states that have been repeatedly requesting them for years!!!!!!
Brian, isn’t personal responsibility part of being an American? Your anecdote highlights the problem here: these multiple issues not only took a toll on your family no doubt, but also took a toll in money to finance law enforcement associated with the drug war that… wait for it… didn’t work.
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How many billions have we paid over the years? I’d rather spend the money on mental health to find ways to treat people that self-medicate.
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Immigration? Penalize the workplace that hires those in the country illegally if you want to stop this immigration disparity, but you also need to create an easier path for those that want to enter legally.
Calderon in front of Congress was showing just how big a set he has – cajones grande. I’d say I was shocked, but this guy is a nut. The real sick thing is members of congress applauding this nutjob as he disses a state and the 2nd Amendment. Morons.
There are negative effects from drug use, Brian, but the negative effects from the drug war are far worse. I’ve had two alcoholics in my family, but I’d never, ever advocate prohibition as a “solution”.
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Oh, and legalization doesn’t necessarily mean selling crack at 7-11. There are a lot of different options, but politicians aren’t even allowed to discuss them, it seems.
Except for marijuana, sell it in 7-11. You can’t tell me with a straight face that it’s any worse for you than buying a fifth of Wild Irish Rose or a pack of Marlboro Reds.
I’ll piggy back on pgreer’s point, that part of the reason the border situation has changed in the past ten years is BECAUSE Mexico and its president tried to do something (and seem to have failed miserably.) But militarizing the border (with the help — both financially and otherwise from the US, beginning under GWB and continuing under Obama) we have made the drug war more deadly than it ever was (with no appreciable lessening in drug trafficking.)
Until a few years ago, most of what we thought of as “illegal immigrants” were truly the type that most of us here in Virginia understand. Someone comes across, brings over a family member, that person has a child, who gains citizenship, etc etc. These are the illegal immigrants who work very very hard (and are often treated extremely harshly by employers eager to exploit them) and are often very eager to assimilate into the country that they want to call home.
It is because of these illegal immigrants that I believe the law in Arizona is wrong. And yes, I’ve actually read it. And yes, I know that all policing and laws are potentially discriminatory, but it is because of that, that I find any law singling out any group of people to be problematic. I have no doubt that the majority of police officers in Arizona (and anywhere) are excellent at what they do and will be fair and just.
However, there is no getting around the historical fact that when human beings (of any country) have laws that single out one group of people over another that we tend to create a system that dehumanizes the people we are singling out. It only takes a small minority of people to do this. Thus, I believe that we should take ENORMOUS safeguards against anything that comes close to this practice. Which is why I oppose the law as currently written in AZ
That said, I understand, given the recent militarization and escalation of the drug war, why the situation on the ground there has changed. I am not asking that we do nothing. What I am suggesting is that the Arizona law is not the way to go.
(And Brian — I share your experience of watching close friends and family destroyed by drugs. We heard just a few weeks ago that a second friend of ours from college — a brilliant mind — committed suicide after a life of continued and heavy drug use. It’s shattering to watch. The first friend who committed suicide after heavy drugs had been one of my best friends growing up. He’d been my prom date. He was dead at 40.)
Brian, I regret that your family has had these issues. But there will always be people who fall victim to drug addiction.
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The phony war on drugs has been going on for decades now. It has cost billions and billions of dollars. And many lives. And we have gained nothing. We have increased the profit potential for some of the most violent criminals imaginable enabling them to essentially purchase entire governments. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world and most of the inmates are nonviolent drug offenders. Costing us billions more.
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Can you honestly say this is a prudent use of scarce resources or represents wise public policy?
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What we are doing is a complete failure. An incredibly expensive and counterproductive failure. How many more decades must we follow such a ludicrous policy before our politicians display enough courage to change from this disastrous course?
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If we can’t move away from such an obvious and huge failure as our drug policy it doesn’t bode well for any of the other tough choices ahead.
I think I am one of the few here who experiences first hand that local law enforcement can be an extremely beneficial partner in federal immigration enforcement. I lersosnlly think every detention center and jail should be required to participate in the Secure Communities Program and have a certain amount of employees trained in 287g. It’s a very rewarding part of my job onthe local level seeing ICE do their work through assistance we provide them at the local level. As you know I support the Arizona law under a self formulated sovereignty argument that the federal government has failed in the constitutional responsibilities and therefore have the authority to defend themselves from illegal immigrants. (All illegals of any nationality)
Most contact people have with law enforcement is at the local level and it would be stupid for them not to assist the federal government is certain duties. We do it with other criminal investigations and it is successful. The reasonable suspicion standard in Arizona is not difficult to obtain through the course of a contact with lawful contact with law enforcement. When you pull someone over for a traffic violation that’s probable cause and if they lack an OL and won’t answer why they don’t possess one or have any DMV record or give your their date of birth you are slowly building reasonable suspicion to further your investigation to inquire about immigration. Remember, in AZ and VA you must be a lawful resident to possess an OL. There is nothing racist or harrassing about that. The situations people make up are so far fetched that it makes me want to puke. My support for Arizona has essentially forced me from my political party as a Democrat. I’ve been told not to think about attending anymore events or anything because of my support for it. They don’t like the fact that law enforcement can make these laws work just fine.
I know from my own experience researching on my own immigration that any efforts of ANY type of enforcement is going to be attacked. No matter what. The Secure Communities Program only focuses on those arrested for non-immigration offenses through ICR databases and are extremely successful and accurate. (Verifying through prints and interviews). Now the pro-illegal crowd has repeatedly fought this and forced certain liberal city councils to forbid jails for doing this program because it’s a federal matter. They proclaim they are not opposed to enforcement but any time a local does anything that resembles enforcement they are up in arms.
I know this is long but from my experience I know that local law enforcement can be an extrmely valuable asset to ICE. The pro-illegal crowd will oppose anything and people on the fringe left will call me racist for not disapproving of enforcement measures. Illegal is illegal, plain and simple. It’s not being insensitive or cruel but a truth and a fact that must be faced by people who just do ‘t understand or refuse to accept. People on the left shouldn’t be advocating for reform and amensty when they are the same people who consistently oppose current, yet weak and constraining enforcement laws currently on the books.
Just my thoughts on the issue!
To be fair to DanielK’s point, in many ways, I’m less concerned about the abuse of power by law enforcement than I am the creation of a second class citizenry in the general population. I’m very strongly pro-law enforcement personally, and as I state above, I have no qualms about the vast majority being able to do their job fairly and with honor. I also believe that given the heightened sensitivity that I’m sure most local law enforcement agencies will demand of their force, that even the smaller minority who might otherwise look the other way will have profession incentives not to.
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So to me, this isn’t a law enforcement issue (meaning, I’m not someone spinning stories about how law enforcement is going to be bad guy). The problem is that once you have created a second class population, the dehumanization in the general population more often spirals out of control than gets better. How many times in history do we need to see this before we admit that it’s a human trait? And because of that, we must be ever vigilant.
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Conservatives like to talk about American Exceptionalism. And unlike many on the left, this is something that I actually believe in. So let’s be exceptional on this issue. Let’s not create a second class tier of population the way that Europe has. Let’s figure out a way to make this work that is better.
Gretchen the law is almost verbatim to the federal law. If we are discriminating so are they. This whole excercise in whether this law is constitutional is crap. The only difference between our law and the Feds is that we are actually going to ENFORCE it.
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What militarization of the border? We have been asking for national guard troops for years. Where the hell are they? Have you even been to our border? It is a mess.
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I’m tired of people using the excuse that we are picking on illegals because they are Hispanic and that we are racists. Hispanics get targeted because of simple statistics – they make up 90% of the population of illegals here. Duh! If our illegals were Eastern European, then they would get targeted. Hey, go pick on Germany. They stop slavic and turkish people all the time for their papers. /gasp
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Our state is not dehumanizing anyone. The countries they came from are the ones that are dehumanizing them. Why no ire for them. You want to talk about responsiblity. How about making countries like Mexico responsible for taking care of their people. Why isn’t the UN coming down hard on them for human rights violations? Why are you not coming down hard on them?
Daniel, What is most disturbing is the continual insinuation that law enforcement can’t be trusted to make reasonable suspicion decisions in AZ – or throughout the country for that matter. They do it every day, as part of their job, and they must use that professional decision to even get to question someone about their status. The misrepresentation of this law is deliberate and done for reasons that I don’t want to elaborate on right now, because they make me so sick.
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Perhaps if people are worried about second class citizen status, they should ask the race baiter and dividers in their own party to stop. If one believes in American Exceptionalism, regardless of race, religion, creed or politicial affiliation – bravery is in order. A public call for our President to stop spreading half truths and disrespecting law enforcement would be an excellent start.
We are not creating a second class by enforcing our immigration laws and securing the border. By coming to this country illegally, they put themselves in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of by coyotes and businesses and organized crime. The best way to avoid that is to come here legally.
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As a country we do not have unlimited resources. Europe has the same problems we do. People from shit hole countries want to live in non shit hole countries. I don’t blame them for wanting a better life. But we can’t take everyone. And sooner or later these shit-hole countries need to take responsiblity for their own citzens wellfare.
While I generally have an open mind on almost any political subject, drugs is not one. As pgreer can attest to, no amount of arguing is going to convince me that we need any more legal intoxicants on the market – the ones we have are bad enough already.
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As for the costs of the war on drugs, we have no way of knowing what the results of legalization would actually be, and no real way of quantifying them even if we could guess well. As for the billions spent fighting the war, how much of that went to paying the salaries of law enforcement? Dan, as a Democrat, I think it’s kind of odd that you’d be arguing we should legalize drugs – thus throwing millions of Americans out of work. The potential damage of ending the war on drugs is likely to be just as catastrophic to the economy as you claim the war itself has been.
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In any event, this thread isn’t about drug legalization. It’s about Calderon’s gall to come here and blame us for trying to solve problems his country is creating. And he did it again today in front of Congress. The man has no shame. He’d make a great used car salesman.
pgreer — My husband does an extensive amount of work in El Paso/Juarez, and in Phoenix, and in Mexicali. So yes, I know exactly what the border situation is like, and I live with knowing that the person I love most is often physically right in the middle of it.
“It’s about Calderon’s gall to come here and blame us for trying to solve problems his country is creating”
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Yeah, funny how it’s somehow our fault that people risk their lives border jumping to escape a backwards-assed shithole of a country. I mean, we have the same problem with the millions of Canadians coming here illegally. (just kidding – Canadians don’t border jump unless they need health care) Wonder why he got a standing ovation from Congressional Democrats?
You guys are acting like Obama looked into the eyes of a dictator and said he was a good man and could “see his soul”. I mean, what kind of idiot would do THAT?
Gretchen, then you know that our border is not militarized. Else we would not be asking ad nausem for troops!!
Jesus Christ, some of you sound like James K. Polk hopped up on amphetamines.
Migration is labor responding to market forces. Trying to stop it is inherently futile. Ask the old Communists in eastern Europe if you don’t want to take my word for it. Calderon can’t stop this from the inside of his country any more than the East German border police could stop it in that country with all their fences, dogs, searchlights and land mines. We shouldn’t expect him to do it and we shouldn’t want him to do it. When the economic gradient between the two countries appproaches zero, the migration (legal and illegal) will stop. If economic conditions were better in Mexico, we’d be heading there legally, if we could, and illegally if the system didn’t enable us to move pursuant to visas and permits.
If we want to resolve this, we need a bi-national solution. It won’t be cheap, quick or easy. If we really want to take a bad situation and make something valuable out of it, we need a tri-national solution that makes North America competitive in world markets. That’s the capitalist, market-based, conservative approach to this.
pgreer — the border is certainly militarized, especially in Juarez. Thousands of Mexican citizens (and a few Americans) have lost their lives in the drug war being fought sometimes hand to hand on the streets of that city. We know several people personally who have felt compelled to leave the city due to the fighting of drug cartels against the Mexican military, which has been at least partially funded and trained by the United States and our military — a program that was begun under GWB and continues now under Obama.
(pssst—the word “border” implies there are two sides, after all!)
Why argue about just Juarez? Holy Shit, the whole border – but for a portion in California – is wide open. Once you put yourself in the hands of a coyote – you basically allows yourself to be USED.
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As for Bush looking into the Soul of Putin – absolutely stupid. Trying to double down on stupidity in the name of diplomacy is Obama’s style. Besides apologizing all over the world and standing with Calderon on the White House Law and trashing AZ, then egging him on to whine and complain about racial profiling and our individual second amendment right – is truly top of the like stupidity. Please, please, please defend these actions. I can not wait.
Calderon’s remarks, like any US president when he goes abroad, have audiences both in this country and at home. Taken as a whole, Calderon said a lot of important and intelligent things this trip, many of them critical of his own country. The overall theme is exactly correct – that the issues between the countries require cooperative solutions and that many of those solutions are difficult and will take time.
Calderon has been the most aggressive reformer in Mexico in a very long time. He is doing this at great risk to himself, politically and personally. I question whether his blunt force approach on the drug issue is effective, but there is no question that he has weighed into it on a big scale. He also is trying to root out internal corruption within the federal and provincial governments. Good luck with that, Amigo. But it’s hard to fault him for effort and courage.
The drug violence is clearly a bi-national product. We contribute the demand, the market and the guns and ammunition. The Mexicans contribute the thugs. Both sides have to work very closely together to get this under control. It’s harder than in Colombia, and that one took time, money and blood.
Scout, Perhaps Calderon should be honest in his criticism, considering Mexico’s immigration policies are more forceful than AZ’s. If he believes that AZ’s pending laws are wrong – perhaps he should change his own countries laws? Same question goes for Americans that do not agree with AZ’s laws – are they petitioning or calling for a change in our (unenforced) federal law?
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The hypocrisy is astounding!
“The drug violence is clearly a bi-national product. We contribute the demand, the market and the guns and ammunition”
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Yeah, but how do we address demand? I mean, humans aren’t angels – they’re going to do lines and smoke weed. Also, where are the automatic weapons coming from? It’s not like you can walk into the local sporting goods store and buy one of those.
Loudoun Lady- I wasn’t only addressing Juarez. Above I mention that my husband does a lot of work out of Phoenix (and along the Arizona border) and Mexicali ( the California border.). Juarez is right now the most deadly center of the drug war between the cartels and the Mexican military, but by far not the only point of conflict.
Gretchen, By replying the border is “certainly militarized” to someone referring to militarization along the whole border to secure it, with an example of Juarez – you seem to be implying there is vast militarization. There is not. There is very little, so little in fact that 240,000 illegals were caught crossing the border and were deported last year alone. These are just the ones caught. So much for training the Mexican Military (which is not what PGreer was referring to), it has had little impact on the stream of illegals.
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Securing the border might help, just a suggestion of course.
I’m refering to OUR military, not Mexico’s corrupt military who are in league with the drug cartels. I consider Mexico’s military part of the problem, but not because they are military, but because they are corrupt. If our military were there, the situation would be vastly different.
BTW, read that NPR article I linked regarding the possible connection between the drug cartels and the military. It is a good read.
Has someone done a cost/benefit on securing the border? You know, like the one we did for the Iraq war.
What is occuring in Mexico is classic Bush Doctrine. Instead of having the war taking place here, we are spending American Dollars and using the American military to train a foreign country’s military. It is not dramatically different (philosophically) from what is also occuring in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama obviously never saw Godfather I or II. You never take sides against the family. oh I forgot he hates his family.
Calderon is a hypocritical little Mexican midget.He just pissed away any good will he had with the American people. The drug cartels will at some point blow his misinformed ass up or crank up the corruption machine to such a level he is chased from office. Those north of the border who would have rallied to his nations defense now don’t give a rats ass. He may be a brave little dude , however lacking any ability to think critically while possessing a tin ear he has proven himself to be just another in a long line of worthless Mexican presidents. Don’t let the door hit you in ass on the way out you little twerp.
Classic Bush Doctrine? I didn’t know he invented this concept.
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“Instead of having the war taking place here”
How would we bring the Mexican cartel war to U.S. soil? You are not making any sense.
If our own Congress and President so blatantly ignores the will of the American people (Healthcare, Stimulus, Immigration), then why the heck should Calderon worry about the goodwill of the American People?
He know who’s holding the purse strings – amazing how the victims of the illegal immigrant tidal wave are now suddenly portrayed as the victimizers, while the drug cartels, corrupt police/government/army, drug runners, coyotes, etc, now they get a pass – it’s the people of Arizona who’re the problem…
The staggering audacity of the lies the government tells us about illegal immigration, their steadfast refusal to do anything about it, the attacks by the federal government on a sovereign state, it all makes me think we really have fallen through the looking glass …
Squiddy, we don’t use the term “illegal immigrant” on this blog. Please refer to them as “undocumented Democrats.” Thanks.
“while the drug cartels, corrupt police/government/army, drug runners, coyotes, etc, now they get a pass – it’s the people of Arizona who’re the problem…”
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Squiddy you hit the nail on the head.
“Classic Bush Doctrine” – hell, if we wanted to have a war with Mexico it is attached south of the country. Further do we WANT a war here on our soil? Is this the “Obama Doctrine” – invite war on our land? Sadly, I think I might be on to something.
“Undocumented Democrats Seeking Amnesty”
LL, what do you like in your tea?
“Squiddy, we don’t use the term “illegal immigrant” on this blog. Please refer to them as “undocumented Democrats.” Thanks.”
Oh crap, no doubt I’m on some quasi-government watchlist now …
I will say, wrt to the drug discussion above – I surrender – like Prohibition gave rise to organized crime, the marijuana prohibition is stoking the on-going disaster on the southern border. It’s time to suck the oxygen out of the room, and put out the fire, by delegating to the states the ability to legalize the sale and cultivation of marijuana in the US. Would keep billions in our economy, and at least substantially de-fund the cartels.
I’m a green tea drinker Ed, why do you ask?
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If you want my opinion on the tea party movement, just ask. I can venture a guess at yours.
So Stoner, I get the point that you’re not fond of Calderon, but what do you expect to take his place after, as you predict, the drug cartels “blow his misinformed ass up”? You seem outraged that he’s going after the drug cartels and endemic corruption.
LL – what relevance do Mexican federal laws have to this situation? Are there millions of Yanks living in an underground economy in Mexico, trying to make a little money while fearing the knock on the door? That’s news to me. I frankly don’t think the problems are the same in Mexico, and it’s not because they have tough immigration policies (if they do). The difference is the relative state of the economies on both sides of the border. If Mexico were the more prosperous economy, and it was nearly impossible for unskilled Americans to get visas to work there, a lot of us would be sneaking across the Sonoran desert to try to feed our families.
Edmund has this Burkian way of taking a few words to make a looming point. Getting full control of the southern border would cost more than we have. You can’t stop migration when the economic gradient is as steep as it is on either side. You can, however, be smarter about managing the flow and knowing who’s here, how long they’ve been here, whether they’re paying taxes and have insurance, etc. This administration is more aggressive on border patrol than its predecessor or any other administration in my lifetime (which is getting to be boringly long). Recent stats show that there still, even in hard economic times) is a robust flow of illegals.
“Edmund has this Burkian way of taking a few words to make a looming point. Getting full control of the southern border would cost more than we have.”
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You speak as though you’ve already done this analysis. How much would it cost, exactly, and what does getting “full” control of the border mean in the context in which you used it?
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The other side to this is the benefit which is extremely difficult to calculate because one would have to factor for low probability high impact events (see: gulf oil spill). What do you think the economic impact would be if a member of Al Qaeda or Hezbollah or whomever could manage to release a smallpox agent at the Dallas airport? Or perhaps something less elegant, like ten committed extremists unleashed in downtown DC with AK47s? We know they’re crossing from Mexico, as we have some already in custody. Shifting to something more benign, how much capital flight would you estimate takes place as the result of illegal immigration?
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There are ways to go about this without garrisoning tens of thousands of troops on the southern border. Anyone with 500 bucks can find a coyote that will take them across the border, our intelligence apparatus should be able to identify these people pretty quickly. If this were my task, I would use our operators to identify and kill cartel members and their coyotes en masse, which is something we’ve become quite effective at over the past several years.
Cato, what you describe is different from securing the entire border in my view. I would be in support something that you forward in your last paragraph. Could it be that this was the subject of talks over the last days with the Mexican President? We won’t know until later.
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Capital flight as a result of illegal immigration? Could you give me a scenario? I can’t formulate one where a significant amount leaves unless we are talking about the monies in the drug trade — which I do believe is significant. That is different from capital leaving because of immigration.
Flight was perhaps a poor choice of word. I mean monies earned in the US (both legitimate and drug trade money) and sent back to Mexico, El Salvador, etc. In addition to this, I would also point out that you need to factor for entitlement benefits paid out to undocumenteds by state governments (education, health care, food stamps, etc.), lost tax revenue to both state and federal government as a result of wage depression, the cost of unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs to illegal immigrants and the costs of incarceration for the estimated 243K alien criminals.
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Rice University published a study a long time ago (1997) which pegged the annual net cost at 20 billion (not factoring for wage depression or job losses/underemployment). If you take their assumptions and extrapolate them to the present we’re looking at a number in the neighborhood of 55 billion in net direct costs. There was a 2008 study from some outfit called ESR research (which I haven’t examined very carefully) that looked at the costs of immigration (both legal and illegal) through the lens of reduction of native incomes caused by immigrant workers. It estimated the total cost of the government at 346 billion, and attributed 100 billion of that figure to the fact that we were losing tax revenue by importing cheap labor. Karl Rove once famously said “I don’t want my seventeen-year-old son to have to pick tomatos or make beds in Las Vegas” (note to Mr. Rove: that’s *exactly* the kind of job your seventeen-year-old needs).
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In any event, those are all big numbers. Yes we need to control the border, but moreover we need to demagnetize America. Jobs and benefits are the magnets, turn those off and the illegals will go home.
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And yes, I would be very aggressive with facilitators. The message to coyotes and cartels should be “we don’t give a damn where you live or what government protects you, we’re going to leave you wherever we find you.” Ditto to those who knowingly employ illegals in the sense that we should make it clear that if we catch them at it we’re going to put them under the jail.
I know of no historical example where economic migration was ever efficiently stopped by barriers or armed force. The trick is to channel the inevitable force of economic migration into useful, societally acceptable outcomes. To do that, we need a much more sophisticated immigration process than we have. This is a difficult, complex issue, and the average pol isn’t willing to put in the time, energy or learning process to act in the interests of the Nation.
As far as remittances being a negative, I don’t get that. Remittances aren’t enough to stimulate economies in Central America, but they probably better off with them or without them. And, a key to minimizing economic migration is to decrease living standard differentials between the US and Canada, on the one hand, and economies to the South. I can’t get my head around remittances being any species of “capital flight” (and I guess you have modulated your phraseology on that point) or, for that matter any sort of negative
economic event.
Finally, I’m curious (sincerely curious, not rhetorically curious) about the link between the drug issues and the immigration issues. My mind is far enough along in its study of immigration on the southern border to understand that these two issues overlap to an extent, but my apprehension of it at the moment is that the overlap is largely small and coincidental. In other words, assuming there is a solution to either problem, you could solve one, and not the other. Stated obversely, different measures are necessary to address each problem. The partisans of Arizona’s new law talk a lot about drug violence in support of their statute, but it strikes me as largely ineffectual in dealing with drug issues, and more directed at creating a layer of local law violation to substitute for federal immigration law and policy. In this context, my sense is that the drug issue (which is a real problem) is being used as fuel for an immigration approach, but that, in fact, what Arizona has done may not have a major effect on either problem other than to scam votes out of the electorate for pols looking for a horse to ride between now and November.
I dropped a word or two above. Phrase in remittance para. should read ” . . . but they are probably better off with them than without them.”
“As far as remittances being a negative, I don’t get that. Remittances aren’t enough to stimulate economies in Central America, but they probably better off with them or without them. And, a key to minimizing economic migration is to decrease living standard differentials between the US and Canada, on the one hand, and economies to the South. I can’t get my head around remittances being any species of “capital flight” (and I guess you have modulated your phraseology on that point) or, for that matter any sort of negative
economic event.”
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Capital leaving the US via Western Union and flowing into the economy of El Salvador is a negative factor for the US economy in my view. The question becomes just how big of a negative factor is it, and is it offset by more positive effects. For example, if I were on the other side of this argument I might say that the remittances are more than balanced out by the deflationary effect of immigrant labor on non-traded goods and services (i.e. I’d be paying 100K for that new addition to my home vs. 150K). I’m not making this argument, as I believe that this thirst for cheap labor has injected economic distortions that interfere with true price discovery while creating longer term structural problems for us in both the broader economy and political system, but it’s certainly a valid one.
Cato – I love some of your financial posts, but this is taking a weird turn. How is a remittance to El Salvador a negative factor for the US economy if a birthday gift to a grandchild in England not? Or a remittance from abroad coming in here? Is it the amount of those transactions, the locations, what? Monetary outflows are neutral factors economically. I don’t see any need to bookend, or counter-balance remittances with deflationary impacts of low-cost labor. By the way, what you call a “thirst for cheap labor” isn’t some exogenous diktat, it’s market-driven. Another way of looking at it is that it’s a “thirst for higher wages.” Most of us conservatives have always viewed that kind of ambition as a positive impact of markets.
Up to a point, one can distort markets by putting governmental obstacles in the way of movement of capital and labor, but it always comes crashing down in some kind of heap. When one gets into cross-border movements, there are legitimate policy reasons to exercise controls on both capital and labor, but those controls largely are ones necessary, at the minimum effective level, to ensure security and measurability.
“Cato – I love some of your financial posts, but this is taking a weird turn. How is a remittance to El Salvador a negative factor for the US economy if a birthday gift to a grandchild in England not? Or a remittance from abroad coming in here? Is it the amount of those transactions, the locations, what?”
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What makes me think about it differently is the sheer amounts of the remittances. The average of the remittance estimates I’ve seen are around 40 billion. Let’s stipulate for a moment that we don’t have 40 billion worth of birthday gifts leaving the country.
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“Monetary outflows are neutral factors economically. I don’t see any need to bookend, or counter-balance remittances with deflationary impacts of low-cost labor.”
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I don’t understand how you can state that it’s neutral without using some sort of bookend. If we use only Mexico as an example I can say that until 2003 the interest paid to US banks by Mexico + profits returned to the US by companies operating down there were approximately 14 billion. This exceeded the remittance amounts. In 2003 these numbers started to exhibit negative divergence.
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“By the way, what you call a “thirst for cheap labor” isn’t some exogenous diktat, it’s market-driven. Another way of looking at it is that it’s a “thirst for higher wages.” Most of us conservatives have always viewed that kind of ambition as a positive impact of markets.”
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I fully understand that this is a market driven phenomenon. However, sometimes what markets want isn’t healthy for them. For example, I like near-zero interest rates. I like getting cheap money and using it to speculate on risk assets. An investment that looks good if I pay 3% to get that money doesn’t look so hot if I paid 10%, and this distorts the pricing of risk. Likewise in the labor market. Did we set ourselves up for this by trying to put a price on labor? Is it really a market positive to transfer wealth from our own displaced working poor to the undocumented labor pool only to have it remitted to Mexico?
BTW I could make a very, very sound argument that if we looked only at numbers illegal immigration is a huge economic positive for the country on a short run basis. What I think is the more interesting problem is the longer term structural challenges we set ourselves up for with current policy, and where is the tipping point? (I don’t know)
Cato, dear boy, don’t confuse what you (or I) want with a market. Once we start telling markets “what is healthy for them”, we’ve got a real philosophical disagreement about who gets to tell markets how to alter their behavior in response to political opinion.
Re your latter point, I think most economists do view immigration, legal and illegal, as economically positive for the United States in the aggregate. I doubt that many would change their view even if we could accurately segregate the legal from the illegal impacts. The argument in economic terms isn’t that immigration (of either stripe) is bad for the US. The economic argument is how to maximize the benefits and minimize the negatives. Broadening the legal side of this by bringing those who are here out of the black market would magnify those positive economic impacts considerably.
It’s a political mess and it is having negative impacts in particular areas. There are considerations beyond the economic and I share your concerns on the security front. But I’m not aware of much economic thought that we do not benefit in the aggregate from mobile labor inputs, whatever the source.
“Cato, dear boy, don’t confuse what you (or I) want with a market. Once we start telling markets “what is healthy for them”, we’ve got a real philosophical disagreement about who gets to tell markets how to alter their behavior in response to political opinion.”
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I suspect you and I probably don’t have any fundamental difference at all in market philosophy but we know the answer to that question. The people who get elected are the ones who are allowed to experiment with market behavior modification, at least until the next election. They do it with TARP and ZIRP in the financial markets, they do it with the minimum wage in the labor market, etc. etc. etc. What would happen if they let the market be the harsh mistress that it’s supposed to be? Well, you can go back to what happened right after Lehman went under to figure that out. Yes, I believe the markets would self correct but the amount of pain involved would greatly exceed the collective political will of every elected politican in our history.
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My point is, this patient has been on a morphine drip for about the past 50 years. Government intervention/fraud/inflated assets are about the only thing holding the economy up. If you withdrew the intervention, exposed all the fraud, and sent every swindling bankster to jail you’d finally pop the bubble but assets would suffer a massive negative adjustment.
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Whatever do-gooder pops that bubble is going to have to leave town faster than the Bin Laden clan after 9/11. Which is why it will never happen – it’s just easier to keep blowing bubbles.
“Broadening the legal side of this by bringing those who are here out of the black market would magnify those positive economic impacts considerably.”
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My sense is that this is probably correct. We’re going to end up going down the path to citizenship route, sooner or later.
Thank you both for a good discussion.
LL, what do you like in your tea?
edmundburkenator
on May 21st, 2010
Vodka
President Obama repeated the liberal canard that all the illegal weapons in Mexico are coming from the United States. This fiction is being hoisted on us by the Mexican authorities who want to keep the counter-drug cartel aid money flowing, including gun suppression funds known as the Merida Initiative. In fact, the Mexican authorities turn over to the US only a fraction of the illegal weapons that they seize, the ones that they know came from the US because they have access to the ATF eTrace system. The majority of the weapons that they seize we never get to see. According to testimony before Congress by an assistant director of ATF, Willaim Hoover, in 2008, the vast majority of illegal weapons in Mexico come from China. That makes sense, given the popularity of the AK-47 among the drug cartels. However, the Mexican government (and President Obama) would have us believe that it is all America’s fault.
HisRoc: I haven’t heard Obama or anyone else say that “all the illegal weapons in Mexico are coming from the United States.” This isn’t an issue about “all”. If you want to talk policy, you should leave the exaggeration polemic at home. The issue is that weapons, particularly sidearms, especially in quantity, are more readily available in the US than in Mexico and are migrating across the border. Your point that there are other sources of other types of weapons is worth adding to the discussion, without the overstatement.
Yes, HisRoc, because “90%” is soooo much different than “all.”
Thing is, when you give them an opening like that, it allows them to change the subject – now, the issue isn’t the “…the liberal canard that all the illegal weapons in Mexico are coming from the United States”, the issue is now, at least according to NoVA Scout, that you’re an exaggerator who has nothing legitimate to say.
Funny that in his previous postings NoVA Scout avers that there’s no possible way to secure the border against illegal aliens, but seems to think it *can* be made secure against weapons being smuggled. Which is it?
And talk about economic disparity, the cartels with their cash can buy pretty much any weapons they like from weapons brokers anywhere. So, if the problem isn’t “guns bought legally in the U.S. and smuggled to the drug cartels”, why then would someone (Obama, Clinton, NoVA Scout) make the claim that it *is* the problem? Hmm, could it be they’re setting up the predicate to introduce gun restrictions in the U.S.? Of *course* they are …
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/
Squiddy,
You’re right. The agenda is to ban weapons in the United States, Second Amendment be damned. According to the statistics that the gun-grabbers like to toss about, 87% of the illegal weapons seized in Mexico between 2007 and 2009 originated in the US. However, when you break down the actual numbers that statistic crumbles. The figure of 87% is based on less than 9,700 illegal weapons turned over to the US. However, Mexico reportedly seized over 75,000 illegal weapons during the same time frame.
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As I said in my earlier comment, the Mexicans have access to ATF’s eTrace system. They can game the statistics by only turning over to the US those weapons that they have reason to believe originated here.
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I, too, found Scout’s dichotomy on border security amusing. Economic imbalance between the two countries makes curtailment of illegal migration impossible. But, drug cartels earning millions of dollars in profits each week can somehow be prevented from importing illegal weapons. Hilarious.
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Here is Scout’s solution: outlaw all privately owned firearms in the United States. Ban the manufacturing and importation of all firearms except for police and military use. The drug cartels will continue to buy automatic weapons on the international arms market (China, et al) and will be free to terrorize unarmed civilian border state ranchers at will.
Is that about it, Scout?
Gosh. I sure hope that my comment above was free of overstatement and that I left the exaggeration polemic at home, although I could be wrong about the millions of dollars in profits each week. The trouble with citing those statistics is that the drug cartels simply refuse to file tax returns. Is it safe to say that they earn a shitload of cash every week?
Breaking News. President Obama has ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to the southern border. This is so wrong on so many levels. First, the National Guard is trained first and foremost to be a combat force. They are not a border patrol or law enforcement agency. If you want to see how that difference plays out, I ask you to recall when Clinton put Marines on the southern border in 1996-1997. They shot and killed an 18-year old goat herder near the border in Texas. Second, National Guard units are under the same deployment stress as the Regular Army, making rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan. This commitment will just increase that stress on citizen-soldiers who have jobs at home. Finally, anyone who has ever participated in peace-keeping missions will tell you that units need extensive retraining after such missions before they are ready for a combat assignment. The difference in rules of engagement, the lack of practice in small unit drills necessary in combat, and the simple mental orientation of the troops makes them unready for combat duty without extensive training. Big mistake to send them to the border.
Nova
It was the Obama administration that first floated the grossly inflated numbers of guns making it across the border, that number was 90%. The assertion that the majority of guns ending up in Mexico are from the U.S. has been debunked, over and over. It was a ridiculous assertion to begin with for many reasons, economics being the first, and availability of preferred fully automatic rifles being another . Anyone spending 10 minutes beyond reading Bogus Headlines knows it is absolute crap. If you are inclined to hate guns this myth is for you. If you are interested in the truth then you will discount the bad information as propaganda for the purpose of A. Making Excuses for poor Governmental performance ( both Sides of the Border ) B. A way to advance a gun control agenda on the backs of victims of drug violence.
Oh, dear, dear. Cato and I were having such a nice adult conversation and now the thing has taken this odd turn re guns. I can see that a lot of the problem is reading skills.
I could spend a lot of time describing what I didn’t say. But, I don’t have the patience. So I’ll just say this:
First, I’m a gun owner (multiple) and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. I’d be pretty upset about any proposal to outlaw all guns in the United States, a position that HisRoc attributes to me based on . . . well, absolutely nothing.
Second, we can secure the southern border. It’s a cost/benefit issue. To get that right, one has to understand both sides of the cost/benefit equation in a sophisticated, thorough context. My point has been that part of securing the border is ensuring that there are attractive, usable gates for entry for those who play by the rules.
The 90% figure is guns traceable to the US of the guns tendered for analysis by the Mexicans. In looking at the stats over the past year, the fact that not every weapon seized by the Mexican government is submitted to US authorities for analysis leads me to believe that the number is lower. It is still a significant number.
NoVA Scout,
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Save the back pedaling for the Tour de France. You are quibbling over percentages without addressing the significant statistics. Most of the reading skill problems appear to be yours.
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You fell for a Daily Kos talking point and got called on it. Man up and admit that you were wrong.
HisRoc, everything isn’t a scheme to take your guns away. Jesus, some of you 2A guys are windbags (and I own several too by the way).
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Ban weapons in the United States? Really?
Ed,
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So you are a gun owner. Fine. I am not and have never been a member of the NRA or the GOA. I have to agree with you: most of the 2A folks are windbags. They would rail against denying firearm ownership to mental incompetents and abusive spouses under restraint orders.
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However, as the old saying goes, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.” If you are a gun owner, bone up on the current literature out there by the Brady Bunch. Read what Obama’s Attorney General has said about private gun ownership in regards to DC v. Heller (”should be restricted to members of recognized law enforcement agencies and military forces in keeping with the Militia Clause of the Second Amendment” or words to that effect).
The Mexican weapons canard is just the latest in several misinformation campaigns by the gun-grabbers to weaken support for private gun ownership in this country. Do they envision a total gun ban during this administration? No. But, they believe that their time is coming.
Clarification: I am not now a member of the NRA or GOA and never have been. I am a life-long gun owner (so far) and a concealed carry permit holder. I apologize if the wording in the above comment is misleading.
They can believe “their time is coming” if they want to, but they would be deluding themselves, just like the right does when they believe “their time is coming”. For ideologues, their time is always just around the corner.
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Here’s a saying I’m coining tonight: if you’re paranoid, maybe you’re just paranoid.
Ed,
Cute. Have you ever seen the play “Butterflies Are Free?” Let me take license with one of the best scenes. “There are no ones so paranoid as those who refuse to be paranoid.”
Peace, friend.
What the hell was that all about?
Sorry NoVA, I helped screw up a perfectly good thread.
Ed – no apologies necessary. You keep people alert around here.