VivirLatino

There are currently a whole slew of comments in trash right now that are really dependent on the “yeah, you complain about the US, but look at what Mexico is/does!” thought process. In other words, people in the US have no right to complain about immigration policy because if they lived in Mexico, things would be way worse.

We at VL get these comments all the time. Usually in relation to the border (i.e. I vote America starts treating illegals like Mexico does, shoot them!) but lately we’ve been getting them in relation to the border shooting of Sergio Adrian Hernandez-Huereca.

This is a meme used by everybody from the liberals to the far right conservatives. But the thing is, as a meme, this logic simply doesn’t cut it.

First of all, there is no pro-immigration advocate of any sort (that I’ve heard of) who has ever said that their problem with immigration in the US is that we are “not like other countries.” That we want to be like other countries. That we should model ourselves on other countries immigration policies. The reason? 99% of other countries’ immigration policies suck just as bad or worse than the US’s–and that includes more “civilized” European countries. I’ve posted how in Canada, women living at shelters have been hunted down by immigration police, for example.

If you are a part of the immigration debate for any amount of time, you know that “looking towards other countries” for indication on how to create understandable and human immigration policy simply isn’t a viable method for creating policy here in the US. As such, only very very rarely will you find a legitimate pro-immigration advocate/organization calling for the implementation of another countries’ policies. Thus, if it isn’t an argument, it can’t be used as a *counter* argument. Simple rules of debate. If somebody doesn’t bring it up in the original argument, you can’t make a counter argument introducting new idea.

Also, 99% of of the “But Mexico sux worse!” arguments center *Mexico* as a site of “bad immigration policy.” As if 99% of immigrants in the US come from Mexico. But what does Mexico’s horrible immigration policy mean for the Irish immigrant in the US illegally? Or the Britians or the Indians etc? In other words, all immigrants in the US are from pretty much every country in the world, and it solves next to nothing to assume that if we just close the border, immigration problems will end. Immigration is a global problem that every country in the world is struggling to deal with–to be so US centric in the face of a global international problem is to be narrow minded at best and self-defeating at worst.

Which brings us to another point: many many many times, other countries have horrible immigration policies *specifically* because of US interference/interventions. For example–look at the Phillipines. It is a country similar to Mexico, in that vast money comes into the country from immigrants living outside of it. It has a colonial history, like Mexico and until recently, was living under a dictator, like far too many countries in South America.

And yet, by virtue of land/water geographies, most who come *into* the US are documented (but they may not stay that way–most undocumented workers become undocumented *after* they get here). So we have us a good legal population of workers that we all love because they are like, totes legal, right?

Only…what is the US government doing to help reduce the level of immigration–of *necessary* economic immigration–from the Philippines? Except, oh, congratulating the Philippines for being the “first democractic nation” in Asia as the regime controlling the country murders labor unionizers and thinks 1 out of every 4 workers being unemployed is not so bad?

In other words, the tired “But X country sucks worse than the US” does next to nothing to address the actual reasons why people are forced to immigrate, and erases US culpability in creating the *need* to immigrate to begin with. That is, the problem with immigration is NOT enforcement or “protection” or “defense” etc. The problem is vastly horrifically bigger. It is a problem that exists on a world-wide scale and has everything to do with the World Bank, capitalism, free trade agreements and corporate power. And just because we are able to document some immigrants living under horrific circumstances we created does not erase the fact that those immigrants, like immigrants from countries that we *aren’t* able to majority document–don’t want to immigrate. Who in the hell wants to leave home?

Fighting for hours and hours in blogland about who is worse, Mexico or the US, does next to nothing to interrogate the real issues wrapped around immigration: Who is entitled to a homeland? Who is entitled to protections by a nation/state from corporations? Are corporations human beings? Why is immigration/migration so necessary under current global economic structures? How do The People hold corporations accountable and responsible across borders when The People are not allowed to migrate those same borders? When are we going to make the lives of human beings more important than the life of a Corporation? Which laws are we going to listen to, community laws made by the community for the community, nation/state laws that are increasingly privileging corporations, or corporate laws? And why are the immigration problems in almost every single first world country almost exactly like they are here in the US (i.e. unfixable and unending)? Are Mexicans really the problem? Or is it a system that depends on the movement of labor and capital to exist?

I am the first to say that Mexico as a nation/state sucks. I have no loyalty to Mexico and have many problems with Chicano nationalism/organizing because Chicanos base so much of their organizing on the 1848 Treaty of Hildago thereby assuming that *Mexico* had a legitimate right to contested borderland (I would argue that no nation/state has the right to indigenous land.).

But there is a reason that this is the first time I have ever posted this critique of Chicano Mexico centered organizing at VL in the three plus years I’ve been writing here. Who is better or worse is not the problem for me, and it has almost never been the problem for any immigrant or immigrant rights advocate that I’ve ever known. And I promise you, it is absolutely NOT what any nation/state or corporation is worried about either.

If all of us who are interested in immigration–and yes, that includes you, hateful right wingers–could start talking about the problems that those in government and corporations are talking about, I think we’d actually find some answers worth implementing.

Until then, however, please be forwarned–there’s a reason 99% of the “Mexico Sux Worse Than US” comments are deleted.

Thanks.