Some Hispanic groups are planning a nationwide boycott for May 1 — “May Day” in communist countries — and are encouraging immigrants here to give America “a day without Latinos.” The purpose, according to Mexican-American Political Association President Nativo Lopez, is to send a protest message to the American government in Washington in opposition to proposals in Congress to continue making it a crime to enter the country illegally.
“We are asking people not to go to school, or work, or shopping, and instead to go out and protest against the racist and inhumane measures in this bill,” Lopez told Agence France-Presse. Lopez wants big crowds in every U.S. city with significant portions of immigrants in local work forces. Some might say “blackmail” would be an apt description of what Lopez is urging.
Even as Lopez is organizing Hispanics here to protest U.S. policy, Mexican officials routinely use lethal force against illegal immigrants entering their country from Guatemala. In places like Mexico’s Tultitlan state, the Guatemalans hop trains bound for the U.S. News reports last week from Tultitlan described residents rioting after state police shot and killed a local man they mistook for an illegal immigrant.
Can you imagine the outcry here if we began shooting people thought to be illegal immigrants?
The Tultitlan riot highlights why folks like Lopez ought instead focus on Mexico City rather than Washington, D.C. As The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Franc recently noted, the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants typically came here for jobs and “free” social services. That fact points to the root of this problem:
“Even a cursory review of immigration patterns here and in Europe shows that people tend to flee regimes with dysfunctional economies that are rife with corruption and heavy handed government intervention and seek places where the rule of law, respect for property rights and market economies reign supreme,” Francsaid.
Vicente Fox was elected in 2000 as Mexico’s first president from an opposition party in nearly a century. Fox promised to end the Mexican government’s endemic corruption and to emphasize expanded economic growth and opportunity. Unfortunately, the Mexican Congress rejected the Fox reforms so Mexico’s poverty and radically distorted distribution of wealth continue to fester. Mexico’s per capita gross domestic product of $5,877 compares to $36,000-plus for the U.S.
Mexico’s governing class has no incentive to reform so long as poor Mexicans can come here, do menial labor and receive free education, food stamps and health care while sending an estimated $15 billion to poor relatives back home. This is why official Mexican policy is to respect American law, but official Mexican actions routinely abuse our immigration statutes.
No wonder Mexican officials print and distribute a comic book-style tour guide to illegal immigrants headed here. No wonder the Mexican government maintains a Cabinet-level agency — the Institute for Mexicans Abroad — to help immigrants. No wonder Grupo Beta Mexican law enforcement officials steer immigrants to the most open U.S. border crossings.
In other words, Mexico’s invasion of the U.S. must end.
