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Mexico s immigration laws are harsher than Arizona s - New York Manhattan Conservative | Examiner.com





A migrant family from the South seeks a better life in Mexico.

Photo: Luis J. Jimenez/The New York Times

The chorus of critics of Arizona's new law targeting suspected illegal immigrants has been joined by an unlikely voice. It belongs to Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who has blasted the Arizona law as opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement."

Just one problem with Calderon's holier-than-thou posturing. His own country's Reglamento de la Ley General de Poblacion General Law on Population, which was enacted in April 2000 is quite similar to the Arizona law, with one important difference. It is far stricter and the penalties for violating it far more draconian.

Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony. The penalty includes up to two years in prison. That jail time

is upped to 10 years for repeat offenders. Visa violators can be sentenced to prison terms of 6 years, and any Mexican who aids and abets an illegal immigrant is himself considered a criminal.

And that's just for openers. The law also gives Mexican officials the authority and discretion to deport foreigners who:

  • are deemed detrimental to "economic or national interests";
  • violate Mexican law;
  • are not "physically or mentally healthy";
  • lack the "necessary funds for their sustenance" and for their dependents.

The root of Mexico's immigration woes, ironically, is its own southern border, with Guatemala. Families from that even poorer country to Mexico's south illegally enter Mexico to do jobs vacated by Mexicans who themselves have made an illegal crossing of their northern border. The Guatemalans are thus coming to Mexico to "do jobs that will no one else will do." There seems to be a delicious irony in all of this that makes Calderon's righteous indignation that much more pernicious and hypocritical.

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