Just for a moment put your self in the place of a so-called “illegal immigrant”. What are you to do when all the options are bad? Stay, with no job, no prospects and an out of control war fueled by drugs is raging all around or try to go north where the job prospects are so so and you are pretty much unwelcome. I don’t know about you, but I would try to escape the crushing poverty and endless violence by going north. Yeah, the US economy is still in the tank and with no serious options for fixing being considered by either political party, it looks like things will get worse before they get better. But consider what is going on to our south.
Mexico is in a sort of civil war that has been raging off and on for decades. Drug traffickers tempted by astronomical amounts of money (39 BILLION anyone?) and all the perks that go with it, have been fighting the hapless Mexican Government. This undeclared war has been ebbing and flowing in its intensity until recently. Since 2006, it has taken a far darker turn and lives lost number in the tens of thousands. Exact figures are hard to come by and vary according to the source. There are parts of Mexico that have morphed into such a state of lawlessness; they effectively have no government at all. Many of us here take police for granted. We call them and help will come. A crime here will be investigated. (I know this is not ALWAYS true.) In many parts of Mexico, you are on your own if something bad is happening and nobody knows anything. Consider this exchange between the Mayor of Guadalupe and Roy Carroll, a reporter for the Guardian:
“What is going on in the valley?”
"I really don't know."
“Who is doing the killing?”
"I really don't know."
“Who is responsible for security?”
"I really don't know."
“How many people have fled?”
"I really don't know."
The mantra almost becomes a joke. The mayor shrugs, smiles. He knows this exchange is ridiculous. He floats a metaphor. The "situation", he says, is "a perfect storm".
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/03/mexico-drug-war-killing-fields)
The mayor before him was assinated. He is wise to choose his words sparingly and carefully. Mr. Carroll goes on to describe the small town turned into an utter wasteland of burnings, beheadings, murders, kidnappings and “disappearances”.
Consider the following:
More than 28,000 people have died in Mexico's drug wars since President Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against the cartels upon taking office in December 2006, and there seems no end in sight.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/03/mexico-war-drugs-violence
What is certain is that kidnappings of desperate and vulnerable men and women seeking to scramble across the Mexico-US border are commonplace. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission estimated in a report presented last year that nearly 20,000 migrants are kidnapped annually, based on the number of reports it received between September 2008 and February 2009. The government disputes these figures.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/05/brazilian-immigrants-gunned-down-mexico
Yes, we have our share of random and senseless acts of violence here but nothing on the scale Mexico is experiencing. For the most part, gang bangers here are not as well armed or as well trained at the police, much less our military. In Mexico this is not the case. The Cartels are often better armed and have more training than the police. The Gulf Cartel for example, uses ex- military and police as enforcers. They are known as the Zetas. They know police and military tactics.(http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34215.pdf) The level of violence is extreme, with beheadings, running gun battles, child soldiers (acting as hit-men), mass graves and torture. All too often there is zero accountability.
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