Memo From Middle America| Why Do We Put Up With This? Mexico’s New President Enrique Pena Nieto Openly Plans To Meddle In U.S.

Mexico has a new president. Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in July of 2012 and took office [1] on December 1st, 2012. The Mexican presidency is a six-year term with no reelection, so Pena Nieto [2] will be with us until 2018.

Under the past three Mexican presidents—Ernesto Zedillo [3], Vicente Fox [4] and Felipe Calderon [5]—the Mexican government has actively meddled in U.S. immigration policy, campaigned for amnesty [6] and non-compliance with immigration law [7], and has claimed jurisdiction [8] over American citizens of Mexican ancestry.

I’ve been writing about this for years, as have other writers. See my 2002 Social Contract article Undue Influence – the Government of Mexico and U.S. Immigration Policies [9], and of course my VDARE.COM archive [10] for plenty of articles on the topic.

What’s particularly disturbing is that, despite this open meddling, no U.S. politicians seem particularly interested in or concerned about the subject.

The brutal fact is that all Mexican political parties [11], regardless of their differences, agree in their support of illegal aliens in the United States. They all support amnesty [12] for Mexican illegal aliens in our country. And given Mexico’s huge diplomatic network [13] north of the border, they have a lot of pull.

So what is Enrique Pena Nieto’s position?

In the Mexican political system [14], the president is elected in July but isn’t inaugurated until December. That gives him plenty of time to transition to the presidency, assemble his team, get ready to go. And during that five months, Pena Nieto and his team did indeed speak to these issues.

On November 23, 2012, after the U.S. presidential election, then president-elect Pena Nieto had an opinion piece published in his name in the Washington Post. Here’s how it began:

“Both Mexico and the United States held presidential races this year, and the results offer an opportunity to redirect our countries’ bilateral relationship. The U.S. election demonstrated the growing demographic bonds that connect our countries’ futures. The election in Mexico heralded a new era of change and reform [15], as much as a new style of governing, based on pragmatism and results.”

Notice that part about the U.S. election and “the growing demographic bonds [16] that connect our countries´ futures”? Obviously, Pena Nieto is well aware of the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population and he is eager to use it to advance the interests of Mexico. But then, so were previous Mexican presidents.

Pena Nieto began the second paragraph with this comment:

“To build a more prosperous future for our two countries, we must continue strengthening and expanding our deep economic, social and cultural ties.”

Now, “social and cultural ties” could refer to a lot of things [17], but given the previous context, it’s likely to assume a demographic element.

Later Pena Nieto gets into demographics again:

Above all, our mutual interest lies in our intertwined peoples. More than 1 million U.S. citizens live in Mexico, and my country remains the largest source of immigrants to the United States. Some analysts detect new momentum for comprehensive immigration reform [a.k.a. amnesty [18]] since the U.S. presidential election. All Mexicans would welcome such a development.

U.S., Mexico should build on their economic ties [19] Washington Post, November 23rd, 2012

Once again, the Mexican government is quite aware of the demographic situation in the U.S. and is prepared to continue meddling.

Also during the transitional period, Milenio interviewed Arnulfo Valdivia, who was in charge of migratory matters in Pena Nieto’s transitional cabinet. [Peña quiere 'patrulla fronteriza' mexicana [20], by Miriam Castillo, Milenio, October 9th, 2012]

Let’s see what Valdivia had to say about two issues: (1) borders, and (2) Mexicans in the United States.

I. Borders

Most of the illegal aliens who enter Mexico are intending to pass through to the United States. According to Mexican immigration authorities, about 400,000 illegal aliens enter Mexico through its southern border annually. Of this 400,000 total, 80,000 are sent back to their countries, while 70,000 manage to cross the northern border into the U.S. The other 250,000 wind up staying in Mexico. And the Mexican government doesn’t want that.

According to Valdivia, the Pena Nieto administration wants

“to create the necessary filters so that those who cross by the southern border [21] [of Mexico] do not stay stranded [22] in their attempt to cross to the United States. “

The goal is to

diminish the number of indocumentados [23] [illegal aliens] who are concentrated on the northern border [24] [of Mexico] without possibilities of crossing it, forming belts of poverty [in Mexico].

So according to Pena Nieto’s immigration man, illegal aliens from Central America, if they are “stranded” in Mexico, create poverty. [25] Wow, that’s exactly the opposite of what we hear in the U.S., about illegal aliens creating prosperity. How is it possible that the same people create poverty in Mexico and prosperity in the United States? [26]

Anyway, Valdivia explains the goal:

“To have a border respectful of human rights does not necessarily imply that everybody can pass, but that the passage of anyone who will not be in danger on the northern border is permitted.”

In other words, Mexico reserves the right to control its own immigration policy. But Pena Nieto doesn’t mind so much if Central Americans pass through Mexico as long as they don’t stay and as long as they go on to the United States.

2. Mexicans in the United States

According to the article:

“In the case of Mexicans in the exterior...Valdivia explained that the intention is to integrate them and take advantage of their momentum from abroad. At this point there are 35 million Mexicans in other countries. ”

Except for a small percentage of Mexicans in other countries, nearly all Mexicans abroad are in the United States. And that 35 million figure includes not only Mexicans who emigrated to the U.S.—but also Mexican-Americans born in the U.S. They too are considered Mexicans.

Valdivia says that

“Not for having left the country [Mexico] do they [the emigrants] lose all their rights…The intention is to continue having links, they still have roots in the country [Mexico]. There is no reason to exclude them nor to leave them out of the rights of their country [Mexico].”

In the U.S. we have a romanticized view of immigration [27]. It’s as if we are flattered that all these foreigners want to live in our country. Yet these immigrants, and their leaders back home, have other agendas. And according to both Mexican law and Mexican popular thinking, a Mexican is always a Mexican—even if he takes out U.S. citizenship and even if he was born in the U.S.

As for Arnulfo Valdivia, he’s now the director [28] of the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (Institute of Mexicans Abroad), a branch of the Mexican foreign ministry designed to keep Mexican immigrants and their families loyal to Mexico.

As I reported in a previous blog entry [2] , a few days before his inauguration as president of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto visited Obama in the White House. And guess what? Pena Nieto announced that he is on board with Obama’s immigration reform plan! He said: “We fully support your proposal. We want to contribute. We want to be part of this.”

I have no doubt of that! The Mexican government has plenty of contributions it can make to bringing about amnesty.

So, in a nutshell: yes, Mexico’s new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has an agenda involving emigration and involving Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans. We can expect him to work to further that agenda. And we need to keep an eye on what the Mexican government is up to.

Of course, if we had a government in Washington [29] that was protecting our borders [30], immigration and citizenship [31], then we’d have nothing to worry about. It wouldn’t matter a hill of beans what Pena Nieto and the Mexican government was doing.

But that’s the problem. The U.S. government is manifestly not protecting our sovereignty. In fact it’s openly working to sabotage it [32].

Our own government is working hard to elect a new people. And the readers of VDARE.COM are not included.

American citizen Allan Wall (email [33] him) moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here [34]; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here [35]; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here [36].