The balls on that guy!
During his most recent visit to the White House, Mexican President Felipe Calderon described the new Arizona Immigration Law as discriminatory to Mexicans. Upon reading it, it seems that the new state law is almost a verbatim copy of the Unites States Federal Immigration Laws regarding the status of persons who are in the country illegally. The biggest difference is that the state of Arizona actually intends to enforce this law. The new Arizona immigration law might seem draconian at first glance, but in reality it is merely a state-level redundancy of an already existing but oft unenforced federal law. It could be argued that the new law may be merely the first step in the push for national identification cards which violate constitutional sovereignty, but so far there does not appear to be any correlation. Regardless of how one may feel about Arizona taking on the responsibilities that the Federal government appears to have abdicated, one has to consider that the immigration laws of Arizona and the United States are some of the most lenient in the world.
When I was on an extended vacation in the country of Thailand, I was required to submit my passport to every hotel and guest house where I was staying in order to verify that my tourist visa was current and valid. This was true in every place I stayed because the Thai immigration policies are very strict. Even though tourists provide a significant portion of the country’s GDP, the Thai government takes no quarter when it comes to enforcing their immigration policies. Here in America the regulations are a great deal more relaxed. Most foreign tourists need nothing more than a credit card to stay the night in any hotel. Hotel owners are not required to submit a photocopy of a visitor’s passport to the INS whenever a foreign national checks in. Considering the sheer number of persons who are in this country illegally, it seems obvious that even our uncommonly lenient immigration laws aren’t being as vigorously enforced as they would be in other sovereign nations.
This brings me back to El Presidente Felipe Calderon. While Mr. Calderon plays the political game of national victim-hood for the Washington D.C. press corps, he neglects to mention the strict draconian immigration laws of his own country. For example one could be sentenced with up to two years in Mexican prison for sneaking across the border. I dare anyone to find a penalty that harsh anywhere in the controversial Arizona legislation. In Mexico foreign nationals are not allowed to own certain kinds of property, anyone who was not a naturally born citizen is not allowed to hold any public position at all, and any foreigners protesting against the government can be subject to immediate deportation. Mexican immigration laws make ours seem like outright anarchy by comparison. It seems that Mr. Calderon is either completely ignorant of the immigration policies of his own country or he has balls the size of pinatas.
Anyone who is functionally literate can easily see the hypocrisy of the Mexican President’s comments regarding the Arizona law. That’s what Mr. Calderon is counting on. Most reporters in Washington D.C. are not in-fact functionally literate. The Arizona immigration law is what these activist journalists have been praying for. To them it’s another chance to play the ever-so-overused race card. In their minds it’s not about the enforcing this country’s highly lenient immigration laws or addressing what has become a very real problem in that part of the country, it’s about racism. It’s always about racism. If Arizona’s new law is in fact motivated by racism, it forces me to ask the obvious question. Are Mexico’s harsh and ultimately counter-productive immigration laws racist? After all, even naturalized citizens aren’t allowed to hold public office in Mexico. Are the Mexicans racist, xenophobic, or both? Does President Calderon have a leg to stand on when he criticizes Arizona for doing a small fraction of what his own country already does? Does President Calderon have enormous balls for displaying his open and obvious hypocrisy for an entire nation to see? Are the answers to these questions as obvious as one might think?