What's Good for the Ganso

When it comes to the subject of U.S. policies on illegal immigration, you have to wonder just how sly this Fox really is:

Kicking off a four-day, three-state tour [of the United States], Mexican President Vicente Fox said Tuesday that his nation wants to be part of the solution in the immigration debate, not the problem. [snip]

Earlier in the day, at a lunchtime speech to about 500 business, civic and religious leaders, Fox stressed the need for greater cooperation between his country and the U.S. on such issues as trade, energy and security.

According to Fox's official spokesman,

... one purpose of the trip is "to promote the immigration reform that is now being discussed in the United States Senate."

In recent months, the Mexican president has decried the exploitation of and discrimination against those of his countrymen who are in our country illegally, constantly pressuring the U.S. Congress and President Bush to move America "closer toward the [Mexican] government's goal of 'legalization for everyone' who works in the United States." Now he is pushing that agenda harder than ever as he speaks across our own nation, with plans to address a special session of Congress in Washington today.

Interestingly enough, what is good for the goose apparently is not quite so important for the gander:

"Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies 'xenophobic,' Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts -- the presidency and vice presidency -- are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, [nonnatives] are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens."

"Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the Congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships ... And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for 'native-born Mexicans.' Recently, the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban [nonnatives] from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges."

And while amnesty proponents and the American media so often denounce opponents as having racist intentions toward those who have been pouring over our borders in recent years, this AP report also documents a seemingly racial undertone among the citizens of Mexico, targeted at those who enter their own country illegally.

Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs."

J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, documents that the Mexican goes even farther in its double standards on immigrants [PDF format]:

In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that:

• Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.
• Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.
• Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.
• Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.
• Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.
• Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.
• Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.
• Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.

Fortunately, American lawmakers do not rely on foreign law in enacting the laws of our own nation. Unfortunately, however, it appears they are beginning to listen to the will and whim of foreign leaders in determining exactly what those laws should be.