No talk of walls… just talk
Whenever challenged on their anti-Mexican statements, anti-immigration folks in the U.S. try to talk about the way Guatemalan immigrants are treated in Mexico. Earlier this year, Mexico reduced the penalties for being an undocumented alien, reducing it to a fine. So much for the justification the U.S. had for incarcerating “illegals” on the flimsy excuse that “Mexicans do it too” (or, what I call the “Mommy, he did it first” defense). Now that the excuse for anti-immigration rhetoric is crime prevention, this small item (the only English-language source I could find being the Cuban government controlled Prensa Latina) is worth passing along.
Guatemala, Oct 23 (Prensa Latina) Guatemala President Alvaro Colom is to meet Thursday governors from four south-eastern Mexican states to analyze border problems and ways to develop that area.
The meeting will take place at the main square of the ancient Maya city of Tikal, in the northern department of Peten, and attended by top representatives from Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Tabasco.
Also on the list is Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Patricia Espinosa, her Guatemalan peer Harold Rodas, as well as Interior ministers from both countries and ministers of Defense, Health and Culture of Guatemala.
The two nations will tackle security, the fight against drug trafficking and people smuggling, migration, environment and trade.
President Colom’s government announced a plan to erradicate drug trafficking in the country, which will deploy 15,000 new policemen in the streets and reinforce the military presence on the borderline.
Guatemala and Mexico share a 954-mile border and the two countries have expressed their interest in increasing security in the region and turning it into a zone of opportunities for people.
Among bi-national projects are the management of biosphere reserves and basins, as well as possible joint infrastructure works to benefit people in both sides of the border.
mexfiles.net 
I have read plenty of reports about Northern Mexicans not being liked by Southern Mexicans especially along the border. If anything the counter argument about Mexican border patrol could be said, “Why on Earth would the Free United States want to practice similar border patrol techniques to Mexico?”
I have been wanting to ask about the new agreement on Mexico deporting Cuban Boat people back to Cuba. Do Mexicans ever blame other Spanish speaking foriegners for causing problems in Mexico?
I might imagine that the reason that Mexico gaurds its own southern border so heavily is simply to avoid Comunist influence of South American groups like FARC or Peru’s Evo Morales or Venezuelas Chavez types from getting in and helping the Zapatistas acheive their radical agenda? I could be grossly wrong on this, but it seems that they are worried about that in adition to the war on (some) drugs.
The differences between northerners and southerners are as much cultural as anything else. Different accents, some cultural differences, the usual prejudices one section of a large country has for folks from another (think of the way Texans think of Bostonians, or vice-versa).
The issue with Guatemala has been that G. had a civil war from the 1950s thru the 1980s and armed militias (and refugees) would end up in Mexico. A lot of those militias (as well as a generation of kids raised in violence) ended up in criminal gangs — old fashioned banditos — that sometimes cause trouble in southern Mexico. And… it’s weird I know… but with so many men from the South (Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco) having gone north for work, farmers have to depend on illegal aliens from Guatemala to bring in their crops.
A military officer I once knew said that the three foreign threats Mexico realistically sees are the United States (which it can’t do anything about), a Cuban refugee crisis — especially when their government changes and renewed violence in Guatemala.
Guatemalans (mostly Mayan indians) passing thru Mexico headed for the U.S. were easy pickings for Mexican crooks, and — until August this year — were liable to be held imprisoned until they could be sent home.
This agreement seeks to improve conditions for both southern Mexico and Guatemala, so people won’t need to emigrate north — and cut down on the smuggling that’s “normal” along all borders. The Guatemalan border country is pretty difficult to patrol — jungles and mountains — and the people on both sides are Mayans, which makes U.S. style border controls difficult and keeping out the criminals and the crazies is about the best anyone can hope for.
The Cuban “problem” is seen by the Mexicans as caused by the U.S. “wet foot/dry foot” policy — Cubans who ask for asylum in the U.S. are allowed to stay, no questions asked. But, the U.S. and Cuban Navies will stop them at sea, and the Mexican route has been less guarded. Mexico had good relations with Castro’s government up thru the Fox Administration (Castro launched his revolution FROM Mexico, don’t forget), and there are sizable numbers of Mexicans who favor good relations. Not just lefties, but business people (Cuba is an important trading partner) and those who support the traditional “Juarez Doctrine” … which basically says to stay out of your neighbor’s internal affairs. The agreements with Cuba seem to be more to keep Cuban refugees from becoming an unmanageable problem for Mexico. The biggest worry about the Cubans (besides those that are taking jobs from Mexican workers) is that gangsters — allied with right-wing Miami groups — are running the people-smuggling trade. The Cubans want to cut off the Miami groups influence, and the Mexicans want to cut off profits for the gangsters… a win-win for the two governments, though it may suck for would-be emigrants from the Island.
There are some — not many — who worry about FARC or Evo or Chavez influence on the Zapatistas, but that’s not a big concern. The Zapatistas aren’t particularly considered a threat by anyone and even something of a benefit by the conservatives (Marcos’ campaign to convince people not to vote in the presidential election benefited the Calderon backers more than anyone else).
Evo and Chavez aren’t seen as baddies by most people, but more as nationalists (and like other Latin Americans, Mexicans get a certain enjoyment out of seeing the U.S. tweaked by little countries). Most of what they are doing — and seems so “radical” north of the border — buying out industries based on natural resources and land reforms — are things Mexico did back in the 1920s and 30s, so they’re not seen as all that radical anyway.
Sure, there is a sense among some that “radical” foreigners could cause political problems, but you don’t hear any worries about terrorists or the like. When Mexican students were killed in the Colombian raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador, even the Mexican establishment rejected the Colombian claims of radical Mexican involvement, and demanded apologies from Colombia (and got them) for the incident.