My wife and I were talking about immigration last night and she said something that struck a cord. "What is Mexico doing about it?" I told her that immigration of some of its poorest citizens benefits Mexico because it relieves the stress that an underclass puts on society and it also provides them with foreign currency since Mexican immigrants often send dollars back to families in Mexico. In fact "Mexicans working in the United States are a huge source of revenue for Mexico, sending home more than $16 billion in remittances in 2004, Mexico's second largest source of foreign currency after oil exports, according to the country's central bank." Thus Mexico does less than nothing, they encourage their people to come north. "What are they doing for us?" she asked and that's when it occured to me that we ought to start looking at this problem from a different perspective.
The immigration issue has been treated in this country as an economic issue and as a human rights issue. We rarely treat it as an international relations issue. We should. Mexican immigration reflects problems in Mexico, not the United States. It is Mexico's treatment of its citizens and its failure to provide them with decent wages and good employment prospects, which has created the problem. The United States is paying for what is a Mexican issue and Mexico is doing nothing and paying nothing. They should. Dispite the abundance in the U.S. we have limited resources and our own problems. In international relations if you help another country you expect something in return. We are helping Mexico solve issues of poverty and foreign exchange. What are we getting in return? We need to start holding Mexico accountable on an international relations level, if we are ever going to begin to resolve all the issues arising because of this immigration problem. We need to start getting Mexico to help us. If they don't maybe, instead of stopping people from coming in, we should stop them from sending money back.
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