Open Borders in Mexico

Stop.  It is not open borders with Mexico, but open borders in Mexico.

Migrants from Latin America and Asia are seen in an X-ray
image packed into a truck as they were being smuggled through
Mexico on their way to the United States.
(Chiapas Public Security Secretary / May 28, 2011)

I am not sure what to make of this.  Mexico has problems with poverty and exports its poor to the United States.  The immigrants in turn send billions of dollars back to Mexico.  This part I understand.

But now Mexico has effectively legalized illegal immigration into Mexico. 

President Felipe Calderon, his administration chastised by foreign governments for how their citizens are treated, this week signed a new immigration law aimed at reducing the risks.

The measure decriminalizes the act of entering the country without papers and entitles the undocumented to education and health services. It also promises a major overhaul of the scandal-plagued federal immigration agency.

Is the new law just for public relations?  Will many Central Americans now stay in Mexico?

"Migration puts people in a very serious situation of vulnerability," Calderon said. "It puts them in humiliating conditions, exposed to every kind of abuse."  Not only has the journey across Mexico become more dangerous for migrants, it has also become more expensive — and wildly lucrative for those controlling the routes and arranging the kidnappings and extortions.

Nearly 500,000 people from Central America and beyond traverse Mexico each year en route to the U.S., according to the Mexican government human rights office.

The American 2010 Decennial Census counted 50.5 million Hispanics.  The census shows large numbers of Central Americans are coming over the border.

Among them, 31.8 million, or 63%, are of Mexican origin. They are followed by Puerto Rican-origin Hispanics, who number 4.6 million, or 9.2%, of all U.S. Hispanics. Next are Cubans at 1.8 million or 3.5%, Salvadorans at 1.6 million or 3.3%, Dominicans at 1.4 million or 2.8%, Guatemalans at one million or 2.1% and Colombians at 909,000 or 1.8%.

• Salvadoran-origin population grew by 152% since 2000.
• The Dominican population grew by 85%.
• The Guatemalan population by 180%.
• The Colombian population by 93%.
• The Cuban and Puerto Rican populations grow more slowly -- 44% and 36% respectively.
• The Mexican-origin population grew by 54%.

Criminals regularly target thousands of migrants passing through Mexico, Amnesty International said in a statement Wednesday, noting that immigrants "face a variety of serious abuses from organized criminal gangs, including kidnappings, threats and assaults."

In August, authorities found the bodies of 72 slain immigrants from Central and South America on an abandoned ranch near the Mexico-U.S. border.

At least 11,333 migrants were kidnapped in the six-month period from April through September 2010, according to an investigation by Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights.  A map of high-risk areas for immigrants in the commission's February report highlights areas across the country along the unofficial path known as "the migrant's route."

Mexico no longer has a nationwide passenger rail system, but thousands of immigrants hitch rides on freight trains heading north. They huddle on rooftops and cram into spare spaces between cars.

As reports of drug-gang raids and kidnappings become increasingly common, many call it "the train of death." But they say the journey is worth the risk.

"As I tell my friends, we're all going to die one way or another," said Carlos, an immigrant from El Salvador who stopped at a shelter in central Mexico this week. "The thing is, we have to face reality. Because they tell you so many things about what's happening up there, but the need is very great, and with the help of God nothing is impossible."

Others said threats at home are far worse.

"In our countries, the situation is very hard. They're killing for 200 quetzales (about $25), and one can no longer have a business, have a bus, a truck, because if you don't pay the taxes, they attack, and this is the motivation of all the Central Americans who are trying to reach the United States," Guatemalan immigrant Eddie Marroqui said.

Many from Central America have paid $7,000 each for passage to the United States, authorities said.

"It points to how profitable these operations are for the organized syndicates that move people for profit. And it also points to the need for governments to really target that crime in their legislation," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

"We (Mexico) are still chasing immigrants as though they are a threat. We are a racist country," said Perseo Quiroz of Sin Fronteras, the Mexican immigrant-rights organization.

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