More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S

Also, people moving to seek a better life for themselves and their children is pretty core to the existence of the US, so I would posit that it's a moral thing to do if people aren't breaking any other laws. By making legal immigration easier, you keep people on the side of the law and less tempted to break other laws, since, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.

No. This only applies when it is an legal outcome which has a legal means to achieve, but which large numbers are going with the illegal means. And it isn't about a moral high ground, because morals are tricky business and can differ extremely based on what moral system you choose to use. Instead, it is pointing out that the official system is broken (at least in regards to the issue) when so many decide to work around it.

I think the truth of the matter isn't one of the system being broken, but of a harder to publicly state mention that the official system is keeping out the people that are not wanted. But it means dropping the 'everyone can get in legally' shield.

It'd probably be far easier to catch them and point them out - no one much would likely feel sorry for them, and they'd likely stand out even among their own communities.

Clearly, there is a de facto difference in how we currently treat the two. But you seem to be arguing that there is a deep fundamental difference in kind that informs that policy. What is it?

As for how countries actually do it, there are a lot of borders out there where you can legally cross without telling anybody, like the borders in the Schengen area (possibly excluding France at the moment, not sure what's going on with that) or the border between the UK and Ireland. Certainly, tracking is the norm, but it's not universal.

"Among all Latinos, there were 14.1 million immigrants in 2000. By 2005, that number reached 16.8 million, and by 2013, there were 19 million Latino immigrants in the U.S."

Even in the down-economy period (2005-2013), there was a net increase. And those numbers exclude their US-born children.

Language is a barrier, though. PR is a barrier. The business culture is more Wall Street or Bourbon Street than Sand Hill Road. Still, it's a great place to come to.

The entire point is to bankrupt the company immediately. If the fine can be included as a cost of doing business, its not effective.

The question is, can you devise a method where if the employer does everything right in verifying someone's right to work in the country, they won't be held liable? That's the trick. To squeeze out any chance of fraud on either side, with damning consequences for breaking the rules (I'd also accept criminal liability for those involved in lieu of bankrupting a concern).

A few men from a village would take the long trek to El Norte, work for a few dollars an hour at backbreaking work for eight months and come home. They'd be rich and buy new pickup trucks. Pretty girls would marry them. They'd run out of money and go back on the dangerous trip to El Norte. Kids would be growing up without fathers and the local economy would collapse because Gringo money was driving up the price of homes and supplies above what you could earn on local farms. More and more men had to join them on the way to El Norte for eight or ten months a year in cold or steaming hot dorms crowded, hurting, vermin infested, saving cash to come home. You had to send your menfolk just to survive.

It was a permanent exploitation scheme, hurting everyone but rich Gringo businesses.

I'd build a wall and enforce the border in a second if I could, just for the good of the migrants. I'm glad more are putting down their buckets where they are and making good. Too bad about the Guatemalan villages the Gringos are draining now in the same way.

It's quite feasible that other criteria (taxes, job creation, etc) contribute more to a candidate's popularity.

But neither has done much immigration enforcement.

The Mexican economy has done very well over the past 30 years. It started very backwards but finally passed the US economy for the first time in opportunities for many people in 2007. That was partly because of the US crisis. Mexico has continued to grow since then.

Mexico has no greater claim over that land, than did Spain before it. You might as well say Mexico stole nearly all of their current land from native tribes that existed there thousands of years ago.

Had Mexico not gone to war with Texas and the USA, it is very likely it still would have lost all that territory to rebellion.

The secession tension grew into Mexico's first civil war (Reform War of 1857-1861), which ended just as the USA-CSA civil war (1861-1865) was starting.

And if we're talking "at gun point", Guadalupe-Hidalgo was negotiated with USA occupying Mexico City. There was serious consideration given to annexing all of Mexico. Really, one major reason Mexico still exists at all is good ol' USA racism: all those Indians and mixed-race people would get to vote and elect their own representatives. Also, would the Mexican states be slave states or free states? So the USA pretty much just took only as much land as it could fill up with free white people, and paid off the loser.

And so they each got to have their own separate civil wars, instead of one big one.

The Apache would like a word with you.

That's an inherently collectivist premise. You're claiming that people are somehow connected to, or tied to arbitrary geographic boundaries. It's absurd and an insult to the people that live there.

You might as well claim that Americans of Irish heritage, are inherently prone to want to return to Ireland, as if drawn by some kind of ancestral magnet. That's obviously not the case. Or you could just skip to the logical conclusion on your premise: Mexicans must all return to Africa, it's only natural since that's where all of humanity originated.

Honestly, I'm kind of amazed with how little political violence there is (like, zero) around the US-Mexico border considering the history here. I also tend to share your opinion about the war, which is pretty much Lincoln and Ulysses S Grant's opinion about the war, which is that it was unjust.

Look at the border wars that go on out there in the world. Where is our border war? There isn't one. Mexican immigrants want to peacefully live and work in the territories that were (again, I'd say "in my opinion", but instead let's say "Lincoln and Grant's opinion") pretty egregiously annexed through force with no justification.

To me, this peaceful border is a giant gift that the US treats like some kind of curse. The biggest problem as far as I see it is a violent drug cartel war that (in my opinion, not Lincoln or Grant's opinion) is at least to some extent a product of a very misguided drug policy in the US.

Beyond that, I'd prefer to see us mimize the relevance of this border. And at this point, data suggests there won't be some mass movement north anyway (for all I know, you might start seeing more US citizens moving south).

The US stole its original territory from England, who had stolen it from the previous inhabitants. The US continued that trend--taking sovereignty over territory via application of force--until hitting the Mississippi. Then, a rare purchase agreement between the US and Napoleon, who had taken land from Spain, who had taken it from rebels, who had taken it from Spain, who had taken it from a previous iteration of France, who had, of course, taken it from the previous inhabitants.

Southwest of Louisiana, that land was added to the US by frequent petitions to join the federation. Previously independent, taken by rebellion from Mexico, who had previously taken it by rebellion from Spain and France, who had taken it from the previous inhabitants.

Mexico took this badly, and in the ensuing war with the US, Alta California changed sovereignty to the US, with monetary compensation to Mexico. The land was previously held by rebels who objected to war with the US, who took it from Mexico, who took it from Spain, who, as usual, took it from the people who had already been living there.

So let's not argue too much about who stole what from whom. The elites like to redraw the maps, as the people on the actual land care little for the border invisibly whooshing over their heads.

And really, the US did pay Mexico $15M (in 1848-1853) for it, even though Mexico had already lost control of much of it to rebels and malcontents, just like what happened in Texas. A bit later, the US purchased Mesilla from Mexico, and there is the modern border.

I doubt Americans would care much about Mexican immigration if our politicians had not selected immigrants as a scapegoat group. They like to blame unemployment on worker competition instead of capital flight, because that makes it look less like their fault.