Mexican Asylum Applicants: Early Signs of a Failed State?

[peejay 327]

MEXICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS: EARLY SIGNS OF FAILED STATE?

by Rep. Thomas Tancredo

Mexican law enforcement officials are walking into U.S. ports of entry in increasing numbers to seek political asylum, and the flow may soon become a flood as Mexico's battle with the drug cartels intensifies. Our first instinct is to welcome them, but there is more at stake than humanitarian sentiments.

The problem is that if our immigration laws are stretched to grant asylum to law enforcement personnel on the grounds that their own government cannot protect them, any Mexican threatened by these violent criminal gangs can claim the same right of asylum.

U.S. immigration law does not easily accommodate these law enforcement cases because they are fleeing threats from organized crime - the Mexican drug cartels - not political persecution by their government. If our laws are stretched to accept thousands of refugees from drug cartel violence, it will only exacerbate Mexico's problems.

We can sympathize with the Mexican police chief or prosecutor who lands on a cartel hit list because he will not play ball with them. The Mexican federal government seemingly cannot protect him and his family, so he flees to El Paso or Nogales and seeks asylum. The number of such asylum applications more than doubled in the first six months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007, but very few have been approved. What will happen if we do not accept these asylum applications as a humanitarian gesture? What will happen if we do?

The rising number of asylum seekers from Mexican law enforcement and the professional classes is a new phenomenon, not merely another facet of our open-borders fiasco. These people are not swimming the Rio Grande or sneaking across the Sonora desert. They are walking into our border ports of entry from Texas to California and asking for protection. We must respect them for following our laws and doing it the right way. But we must also ask some hard questions before throwing open our gates. Humanitarian concerns must be balanced against other considerations - because the fate of Mexico hangs in that balance.

What happens to Mexico if all the good cops flee to the U.S. or Europe and the only ones left are working hand-in-glove with the criminals? What are the consequences if all the honest judges and prosecutors flee and only dishonest ones are left in charge of the courts? What happens if honest businessmen find it easy to flee to San Diego, Houston or Phoenix and only those who will do the cartels' money laundering are running the nation's trucking companies, farms and banks?

The unpleasant truth is that this new refugee problem is the sign of a deep crisis not in the Mexican economy, but in the Mexican political system itself. Mexico exhibits mounting signs of a "failed state," a political system that cannot satisfy the most basic conditions of civic order such as safety in one's streets, home, school and workplace. Failing states begin to hemorrhage people and their assets. The middle class begins to flee - doctors, lawyers, accountants, business owners, teachers and, of course, law enforcement officials, who are the first targets of criminal organizations.

(No link: Article from an e-mail)

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

What happens to Mexico if all the good cops flee to the U.S. or Europe...

Newsflash: It won't be all good cops. This is a horrible idea. We don't need to import Mexico's drug wars into our country any more than we already have.

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

Think about why they are now having these problems? Who buys all their drugs? Who is pushing their government to crack down on corruption?

Mexico could have just as easily legalized drugs and told the US to deal with it on their side of the border?

[ready4ONE 5,400]

To what extent are Mexican Drug Cartels propped up by our failed "War on Drugs?"

[almaty 19]

Elected to the House in 1998, Tancredo has not only led the fight to deport every undocumented worker in America -- a proposal that would cost at least $200 billion -- but has called for halting all immigration, legal and otherwise. In one unforgettable move, Tancredo wanted to deport the family of an undocumented high school boy who was profiled in The Denver Post for his perfect grades.

The grandson of Italian immigrants, Tancredo traces his interest in politics to the eighth grade, when he played Fidel Castro in a class assignment. He urges America to reject "the siren song of multiculturalism" and depicts Islam as "a civilization bent on destroying ours." In September, when Pope Benedict XVI sparked riots by condemning Islam as "evil," Tancredo urged him not to apologize. Even the right has noted his unbridled looniness on the subject: In July, when Tancredo proposed that America respond to any future terrorist attack by bombing Mecca and other holy sites, the National Review came to an unavoidable conclusion: "Tom Tancredo is an idiot

[ready4ONE 5,400]

National Review came to an unavoidable conclusion: "Tom Tancredo is an idiot

Ya think?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

To follow his line of reasoning (though its typically alarmist as you'd expect) if he really believes this he must surely (logically) be of the opinion that avoiding this scenario will necessitate the US bailing out Mexico and preventing it from becoming a failed state.

[peejay 327]

Elected to the House in 1998, Tancredo has not only led the fight to deport every undocumented worker in America -- a proposal that would cost at least $200 billion -- but has called for halting all immigration, legal and otherwise. In one unforgettable move, Tancredo wanted to deport the family of an undocumented high school boy who was profiled in The Denver Post for his perfect grades.

The grandson of Italian immigrants, Tancredo traces his interest in politics to the eighth grade, when he played Fidel Castro in a class assignment. He urges America to reject "the siren song of multiculturalism" and depicts Islam as "a civilization bent on destroying ours." In September, when Pope Benedict XVI sparked riots by condemning Islam as "evil," Tancredo urged him not to apologize. Even the right has noted his unbridled looniness on the subject: In July, when Tancredo proposed that America respond to any future terrorist attack by bombing Mecca and other holy sites, the National Review came to an unavoidable conclusion: "Tom Tancredo is an idiot

So...what you are saying is that it is perfectly normal for public officials to seek asylum when their own government fails to protect them and that these numerous documented incidents are the fabrication of a loonie.

To follow his line of reasoning (though its typically alarmist as you'd expect) if he really believes this he must surely (logically) be of the opinion that avoiding this scenario will necessitate the US bailing out Mexico and preventing it from becoming a failed state.

If I read it right...it was an obsevation rather than a call for action.

Although he didn't say it, building a wall and stationing US military troops on the border would go a long way to keeping this situation from further spilling over into US territory (as it already has and is).

This is not without precedent. President Wilson had to send US forces to the border and eventually into Mexico in 1916-17 in response to the murder of US citizens and general violence along the border by bandits and terrorists from Mexico.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Elected to the House in 1998, Tancredo has not only led the fight to deport every undocumented worker in America -- a proposal that would cost at least $200 billion -- but has called for halting all immigration, legal and otherwise. In one unforgettable move, Tancredo wanted to deport the family of an undocumented high school boy who was profiled in The Denver Post for his perfect grades.

The grandson of Italian immigrants, Tancredo traces his interest in politics to the eighth grade, when he played Fidel Castro in a class assignment. He urges America to reject "the siren song of multiculturalism" and depicts Islam as "a civilization bent on destroying ours." In September, when Pope Benedict XVI sparked riots by condemning Islam as "evil," Tancredo urged him not to apologize. Even the right has noted his unbridled looniness on the subject: In July, when Tancredo proposed that America respond to any future terrorist attack by bombing Mecca and other holy sites, the National Review came to an unavoidable conclusion: "Tom Tancredo is an idiot

So...what you are saying is that it is perfectly normal for public officials to seek asylum when their own government fails to protect them and that these numerous documented incidents are the fabrication of a loonie.

To follow his line of reasoning (though its typically alarmist as you'd expect) if he really believes this he must surely (logically) be of the opinion that avoiding this scenario will necessitate the US bailing out Mexico and preventing it from becoming a failed state.

If I read it right...it was an obsevation rather than a call for action.

Although he didn't say it, building a wall and stationing US military troops on the border would go a long way to keeping this situation from further spilling over into US territory (as it already has and is).

This is not without precedent. President Wilson had to send US forces to the border and eventually into Mexico in 1916-17 in response to the murder of US citizens and general violence along the border by bandits and terrorists from Mexico.

Building a wall won't do much to dissuade asylum seekers. The UK has a bloody moat around it and that didn't stop asylum immigration (from the former Yugoslavia) from being a national debate a few years ago.

I would hazard a guess that if we're really serious about curbing this problem we would be helping to treat the cause rather than just the symptoms.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Number 6

[Peikko 1,575]

It's probably a bit of an alarmist piece. How many people are actually involved in these assylum applications? A few hundred either way isn't going to make much of a difference even a few thousand is peanuts in the scale of things and even according to the piece the number granted assylum is nil to negligable.

What is worrying is this idea that one can 'suspend' one's notion of humanitarian if it's not convenient. That's just senseless. Either one considers someone's plight as requiring humanitarian intervention or one doesn't. One can't just say 'I'll do the humanitarian thing if it doesn't have any unpleasant consequences for me'.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Purple_Hibiscus

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It's probably a bit of an alarmist piece. How many people are actually involved in these assylum applications? A few hundred either way isn't going to make much of a difference even a few thousand is peanuts in the scale of things and even according to the piece the number granted assylum is nil to negligable.

What is worrying is this idea that one can 'suspend' one's notion of humanitarian if it's not convenient. That's just senseless. Either one consideres someone's plight as requiring humanitarian intervention or one doesn't. One can't just say 'I'll do the humanitarian thing if it doesn't have any unpleasant consequences for me'.

That would seem to be about the size of it. The asylum system exists to provide sanctuary to people fleeing persecution. It also requires some demonstrable proof on the part of the applicant - its far from "I'm sorry about that, here have this Green Card".

[Peikko 1,575]

This letter demonstrates the appeal of Tancredo for some of the US population though. "I'll get you all fired up about something 'outrageous' and make you think that I am trying to do something about it while I pocket lots of lovely $'s doing nothing that can actually change your day to day lives"

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Soapbox oratory at work I guess. With fist-pounding for added emphasis.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

It could be argued that Mexico is a failed state since 1910 (time of Mexican Revolution)--but such argument could also be said of France since 1815.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It could be argued that Mexico is a failed state since 1910 (time of Mexican Revolution)--but such argument could also be said of France since 1815.

France is a failed State? What yardstick does one measure that by I wonder....