The war at our borders

Mexico is at war with drug dealers. The police and government admit to no longer being in control of the powerful drug cartels which are waging war against the population. 7,000 people have died in street violence in the last year in Mexico. The criminal insurgents have ramped up to terrorist attacks such as car bombs and roadside explosions. There is a war waging just miles away from our country. Can we protect ourselves from the Mexican revolution when so many of their citizens dwell among us ? We have been slowly infiltrated by what could turn out to be enemy forces. Most Mexicans living in the United States are here to simply work and feed thier families but they have strong bonds and ties to Mexico and it is still thier allegiance. America needs to step up quickly and help Mexico regain its government and peace or we may be in far greater peril than the threat from the Middle East where we are wasting our fighting forces.

wow I had no idea about all this going on....its so hard because so many people are here to work and do the right thing that how do you know the good from the bad ? which causes people to judge on a whole which can tear down the peace process.....its just all so sad to me.....makes me really unhappy that so much killing is going on and people have no idea how close we are to really losing control ourselves here.....we worry so about other countries and what they are doing....but here we have baby rapists and dirty cops and priests and reverands.....teachers sleeping with students, or molesting them.....its just absolutely out of control everywhere.....even here and I for one am terrified....

I live in a neighborhood thats about 70 percent Mexican and work in an area of the hospital that's about the same ratio. I spend my days with people from Mexico. They are honest, hard-working people and I love them dearly BUT they make little effort to assimilate or repatriate. They are Mexican citizens and proud of it. Should things not go well with assisting Mexico and the government of Mexico become hostile I wonder how thier allegiances would fall. The Spanish population is already close to outnumbering the others in this country and they are ruggedly strong people. They work hard, physical jobs and are not the patsies the American public has become. I would not want to see what happens if they chose to band together as an army. And even the most peaceful people can be rallied if feeling threatened.

It doesnt offend me - its the truth. People born in Mexico learn to live with literally nothing. It is a horribly poor country. They come here and are happy to live in a garage. I know quite a few of them that actually rent an unfinished garage to live in and are happy to have it. Others live in one room with a wife and 3 children and think nothing of it. They work hard. Most of them work two jobs. One for their needs here and the other to send money back to Mexico. This is how it usually works. A group of young workers in a town (say 10 of them or so ) will band together thier small amounts of money until they have enough to send one of them to America. About $1500 to be smuggled in a truck and probably walk many miles across vast deserts and swamp land. Some will die along the way. So now one of them is here. Probably he will bring his wife next and quickly get her pregnant so that they bear a child on US soil and that child is a citizen and can not be deported. To deport the child's parents and means of support is barbaric and costly and so we don't. The original worker lives with others in a kind of monetary grace period and works to bring the other nine of the original ten here one by one. They also support the families they left behind.

They willingly work any physical labor that doesnt require a lot of English for pay well short of what it would cost to hire a union worker and pay not only the higher wages but the add on costs of benefits for that worker. They recieve no medical insurance, no disability, they pay no taxes. They are illegal and the employer is breaking the law and paying them in cash. When they become ill, the hospital treats them and must absorb the cost of the medical care. The human being they just treated doesnt even have a social security number or a job or address to trace them with for payment.

Is it right ? Well, of course not, its illegal. But is it understandable to live in abject poverty and seek a way out. Of course it is. Do they work hard for the wage they recieve. Yes. Does the employer deserve a break. hmmmm maybe.

Anyway, in my opinion the answer is somewhere in shoring up the Mexican economy and allowing the Mexicans to live where they most want to live. Few of them truly want to be here. They want to go home but they can't earn money there and are starving and dying. Stricter borders to simply keep the starving on their side of the fence doesnt seem right to me. Let's help them get back on thier feet. And if the employer wants Mexican's to work for him at a lower rate then he should be forced to move his plant down to Mexico to create jobs. You can't live here and do that. That we can enforce and should. I'd also like to see work visas issued in Mexico. Let the same $1500 he pays to be smuggled instead put him on a bus and allow him to work in America providing he has a legal job to come to. I think we also need to take a hard look at our practice of making the children automatic citizens when the parents are here illegally. I

Simple answers I'm sure - too simple and a thousand reasons they won't work but they need to do something soon . . . maybe yesterday.