Why Would Mexico Boo Us?

Rarely does the Miss Universe Pageant generate any headlines the day/week after its broadcast, but last weekend's pageant was the exception to that rule for a couple of reasons. First, America's delegate to the pageant stumbled and fell on her ass during the evening gown competition, which has been publicized ad nauseum in the last 48 hours. More significant, however, was the other headline generated from the evening. When the American delegate got up on the podium to speak, the mostly Mexican crowd at the pageant (held in Mexico City) sustained a prolonged booing fit directed at the American chick. In any other international context, I would dismiss this booing as a misdirected fit of petulance about U.S. foreign policy, specifically the war in Iraq, but given that this happened in Mexico City during the midst of our heated immigration debate, I'm inclined to believe the audience actually has the audacity to express displeasure at America for not rubber-stamping the Vicente Fox-endorsed immigration plan.

It's pretty stunning actually. Mexico surely doesn't lay out a welcome mat for Central American immigrants at its southern border. In fact, it has an iron-clad gauntlet much like the proposed border fence in this country that has so many in Mexico infuriated. After all, Mexico doesn't want that cheap Guatemalan and El Salvadoran labor trickling into their country and suppressing their wages! While the quid pro quo between the American and Mexican governments is tacitly understood by everybody, it's Mexico that clearly gets the better end of the bargain, foisting their unrelenting social problems onto American soil and allowing their kleptocratic government to continue with business as usual.

The worst thing that could happen to the Mexican people in this immigration deal is continued lax border enforcement by the United States, unless of course the Mexican peasantry enjoys sending its young men and women thousands of miles north to work, often separated from their families and forced to stand in line at the post office every Thursday afternoon sending money orders back home. A cultural climate like this ultimately corrupts both participating nations, benefitting only a few powerful money interests on both sides of the Rio Grande. It's sickening that the Mexican people, or at least the crowd at the Miss Universe pageant booing "immigration reform" dissenters, don't appreciate that.