In many ways, Mexico has
been acting as a migrant filter for the U.S.
for at least a century.
Very few of us know about the situation
of the Mexico-Guatemala and Mexico-Belize border region,
nor about the urban consequences of this new wave
of central American and South American migrants into the border
cities of Matamoros, Laredo, Reynosa, Ciudad Juarez, Nogales, Mexicali.
Tecate and Tijuana.
The U.S.
and mainstream
international media have ignored reporting about the catastrophic effects
that this new migration wave is having South of the Wall
since the turn of the millennium.
The influx of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador
started to be a serious problem for the Mexican government
and its territory’s both south and northern border.
Pressured by the American government
to filter the surge of central American migrants,
the Mexican authorities had no choice but to further militarize
its southern borders, deploying thousands of troops
to the urban and rural areas that have become the passageways.
Doses of new
checkpoints have been placed along the Guatemala-Belize border
and investment and surveillance infrastructure
has increased considerably.
New legal deportation agreements were introduced
between Mexico and countries down south, and legislators
have been hard at work introducing tougher
immigration laws.
What the Americans have been doing to Mexicans for decades,
now Mexicans are doing it with siblings
from south of the border.
Such is the trickle down...
However, if billions of dollars in the absolute best
and most high tech, military, financial, physical, human and surveillance
infrastructure in the world cannot deter migrants to cross the U.S.
from Mexico's northern border,
what can we expect from any effort from the Mexican government
to militarize its southern border?
Currently, the Mexican military is ranked 30th in the terms of its global strength,
however they rank that and its total
yearly budget is $11 billion.
To put it in
perspective, this is less than two thirds of what Trump
was planning to spend in the fiscal construction of the wall,
or 1.4%
of the 2021 American military budget
or you can also say that the American budget
is $729 billion more.
I think you can begin to read where my argument is going.
President Biden
has asked Mexico to do its part
in resolving the migration crisis at the US-Mexico border.
He has forcefully called on Mexico to increase enforcement
of its own southern border with Guatemala,
take steps to reduce corruption
and abuses within its migration system
and provide assistance and resources for migrants
who are apprehended while attempting to cross into the United States.
Mexico is again being bullied to do
so, or otherwise investors would leave,
or an infinite amount of penalties could fall on its uncontrollable faith.
Mexico has been told to use
its military against the Latin American siblings
that have also endured the imperialist and neoliberal impositions
which have produced the economic and political crisis
that most of the South is currently suffering.
Undoubtedly, the primary reason that these waves of
migrants are traveling north.
So now apparently Mexico has to buy high tech surveillance equipment
and use its military against them so the American capitalists can continue
inflicting violence on its populations and plundering its natural resources,
making everything fall further into poverty.
Not only that,
but now Mexico has to also absorb
the costs of keeping them in the country, provide them shelter, education,
health services, etc.
Quite a friendly favor to ask of a country
with close to half of its population living below the poverty line,
where more than 70% of its rural population
live on less than $2 a day,
a country that struggles to properly service its own population,
that is aghast with daily violence
and capitalist driven corruption.
I seriously loathe
to say this, but perhaps Donald
Trump was right when he said Mexicans will pay the wall.