During the NAFTA debate and at the
height of his credibility in the United
States, Carlos Salinas argued that
failure to ratify the treaty would bring
about an economic collapse in Mexico,
which in turn would bring about a wave
of undocumented immigration to the
north. The economic collapse came
anyway, but the wave looks more like a
steadily rising tide. Were the Clinton
Administration, in its obsession with
re-election politics, to try to stem
that tide, it would threaten the only
true deterrent to the proverbial wave:
Mexican stability. Any attempt to clamp
down on immigration from the south -- by
sealing the border militarily, by
forcing Mexico to deter its citizens
from emigrating, or through some federal
version of California's Proposition 187
-- will make social peace in the barrios
and pueblos of Mexico untenable.
The United States has traditionally
made the right choice between what it
considers two connected evils: Mexican
instability and Mexican immigration. It
fears both but clearly prefers the
latter, knowing that the former would
only worsen matters. Indeed, immigration
has not been a problem in binational
relations but, rather, has been part of
the solution to other, graver problems.
Some Americans -- undoubtedly more
than before -- dislike immigration, but
there is very little they can do about
it, and the consequences of trying to
stop immigration would also certainly be
more pernicious than any conceivable
advantage. The United States should
count its blessings: it has dodged
instability on its borders since the
Mexican Revolution, now nearly a century
ago. The warnings from Mexico are loud
and clear; this time it might be a good
idea to heed them.
Others, of course, might argue that the
threat of instability is the only thing that
will ever bring anything resembling racial
justice to Mexico. In either case, let's be
honest: as this revelation from the heart of the
Mexican Establishment proves, allowing massive
Mexican immigration serves to keep Mexico's
white power structure entrenched.
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily
blog.]
