Illegal Immigration

Vicente Fox was interviewed on The Factor this week (transcript here; Fox News’ dumb website doesn’t seem to have a direct link to the video, but part of it is currently on The Factor’s main page, titled "Border Battle").  The interview was somewhat interesting, but Vicente Fox dodged pretty much every question, constantly responding with "that’s not Mexico’s problem, it’s America’s problem."

It’s true that America is to blame for the out-of-control Mexican illegal immigration problem.  For decades our government has failed to adequately protect the southern border, failed to adequately punish businesses that hire illegal immigrants, and failed to adequately punish and/or deport illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes once they’re in the US.

But Mexico is also to blame for this out-of-control situation.  Of course Mexico doesn’t want to try and stop its people from emigrating to the US, because those emigrants send enormous amounts of money back to Mexico, money that the Mexican economy is heavily dependent upon.  But Bill asked the obvious question: Mexico is sitting on vast oil reserves and has two beautiful coastlines, so why is it unable to create and sustain a first-world economy?  Unfortunately, Vicente Fox had no answer to this or any other question that Bill asked.