Peña Nieto: never let an AMLO proposal go to waste
There has been a pattern over the last several years of AMLO proposing “radical” policies, which the opposition will poo-poo as pie in the sky… before adopting a watered down version One thinks of things like the small old-age pensis first given out here in Mexico City (basically, as a form of economic stimulus as well as food assistance) that were eventually, in a lesser form, then proposed by the opposition throughout the country.
AMLO, while chomping at the bit to begin governing (he takes office at midnight on the last day of November), has proposed given the Central American migrants work permits, and offering them jobs on the massive public works programs planned for under-serviced south… two railroad projects (a tourist train around the Yucatan, and a new Trans-Isthmus train) as well as reforestation and soil conservation projects. Peña Nieto… supposedly at the bidding of Donald Trump to “DO SOMETHING!” to stop the exodus from Honduras and the other Central American states devastated by years of US policies, has come up with an AMLO-lite program to slow down the migrants, or at least drain off as many people from the caravan as possible:
The Guardian:
The Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, said that migrants wishing to obtain temporary identification documents, jobs or education for their children could do so by registering for asylum in southern Mexico.
“This plan is only for those who comply with Mexican laws, and it’s a first step towards a permanent solution for those who are granted refugee status in Mexico,” Peña Nieto said in a pre-recorded address broadcast on Friday.
To qualify for the scheme he called “Estas en Tu Casa” (“Make Yourself at Home”) migrants had to be in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, the president said.
In other words, “mí casa es su casa”… as long as you don’t try reaching your original destination, or moving anywhere near the Mexican heartland.
The Mex Files 
I’m not sure that a group that storms the Mexican border by force can be counted on to be “law-abiding” after that.
And what about all those Mexicans that want jobs???
Maybe the Peña Nieto should instead detain and deport all those in the caravan who don’t have visas to be in Mexico. After all, those Hondurans aren’t exactly popular in Mexico, at least if the vast majority of comments left on Mexican news sites and on Mexican YouTube videos are anything to go by. And such enforcement of law would go a long way toward improving relations with Mexico’s most important foreign partner.
Saludos,
Kim G
Redding, CA
Where we’d love to see a post about all those ‘U.S. policies that have devastated Central America.’
Putting those migrants to work is good policy. It would be a boon to Mexico, people who vote with their feet are the kind of people who want to get ahead in life-put them to work.