Mexico Works to Bar Non-Mexicans from Jobs

MEXICO CITY - If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force.

Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory.

Ironic and hypocritical, as Mexico criticizes America for it's plans to try and stop the flow of other country's, including Mexican, citizens from entering into America illegally (and actively helping their Mexican citizens to cross the border illegally into America), Mexico now work hard to make sure the jobs in THEIR country go to Mexican citizens.

Think of the outcry and the protests if we were to do this in America.

Yet, Mexico has the cajones to sit and lecture America on what it thinks we should do. Mexico actively criticizes how America tries to stem the flow of illegal aliens that cross our borders, that use forged documents and identity theft to receive benefits and get jobs in America. It is not just coming across the US border that makes what they do illegal, there is much more, and it is time others begin to see this also.

In the United States, only two posts — the presidency and vice presidency — are reserved for the native born.

In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."

Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.

Mexico's Interior Department — which recommended the bans as part of "model" city statutes it distributed to local officials — could cite no basis for extending the bans to local posts.

After being contacted by The Associated Press about the issue, officials changed the wording in two statutes to delete the "native-born" requirements, although they said the modifications had nothing to do with AP's inquiries.

"These statutes have been under review for some time, and they have, or are about to be, changed," said an Interior Department official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

But because the "model" statues are fill-in-the-blanks guides for framing local legislation, many cities across Mexico have already enacted such bans. They have done so even though foreigners constitute a tiny percentage of the population and pose little threat to Mexico's job market.

The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million.

Are you an immigrant in Mexico?
Looking for work has just become alot harder for you.

Not that Mexico wants any immigrants that are coming to Mexico to work. They want those who already have money, to open up businesses, retirees with money, ect.

Interesting that Mexico only grants citizenship to 3,000 people per year compared to America which averages a half a million (I think this is probably higher though).

Mexico seems to be doing what some hard-liners have spoken about, curbing the ability of non-citizens to find work. I do not support this for regular immigrants, but for illegal aliens.

I think if we hit the US companies and small business that hire these illegal aliens at bottom of the barrel wages; exploiting their workers because the workers cannot complain because they are here in the US illegally; start hitting them hard, fining them, jailing them, making it so painful that it will be safer and easier to hire a US citizen than someone who is in America illegally - we will then begin to see a down turn in illegal aliens when the jobs they are coming for begin to dry up and are no longer available.

"There is a need for a little more openness, both at the policy level and in business affairs," said David Kim, president of the Mexico-Korea Association, which represents the estimated 20,000 South Koreans in Mexico, many of them naturalized citizens.

"The immigration laws are very difficult ... and they put obstacles in the way that make it more difficult to compete," Kim said, although most foreigners don't come to Mexico seeking government posts.

J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, was more blunt. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution," he said in a recent article on immigration.

I completely agree.

Every time they open their mouths to criticize America and how it is handling its border enforcement or its plans for border enforcement, they should compare it to Mexico's Constitution.

Every time we have La Raza or other radical illegal immigrant supporters spouting about what and why America is doing the wrong thing, break out a copy of Mexico's Constitution (since they seem to be so dedicated to Mexico by placing Mexican flags above the American Flag, ect), let them know of their own Mexican Constitution and compare it to Americas.

Ask them, should we then begin doing the same as Mexico is doing on immigration?

Some Mexicans agree their country needs to change.

"This country needs to be more open," said Francisco Hidalgo, a 50-year-old video producer. "In part to modernize itself, and in part because of the contribution these (foreign-born) people could make."

Others express a more common view, a distrust of foreigners that academics say is rooted in Mexico's history of foreign invasions and the loss of territory in the 1847-48 Mexican-American War.

Yet it does not stop them from 'invading' America trying to find jobs to send money back to their country.

A distrust that seems to go back about 150 years ago?

America and Americans have done much to try and improve their economy with NAFTA and other trade agreements, a decade or more of looking the other way as Mexican citizens sneak across American borders illegally, use illegal and forged documents to achieve drivers licenses, jobs, benefits, welfare, ect.

If you break that apart, it is not just illegally entering the country, it is using forged documents, lying on application forms, welfare and benefit fraud, identity theft, ect. There is more than just coming across the border that is illegal when it comes to this.

And it is time for it to stop.
It is time for America to quit giving a free pass to illegal aliens.
Being an American citizen is a PRIVILEGE, not a right.

When people take for granted being an American citizen, this country becomes less in their eyes; it is taken for granted and easier to talk trash and hate America when people do not think it is a privlege but their right to be here.

Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs."

Some say progress is being made. Mexico's president no longer is required to be at least a second-generation native-born. That law was changed in 1999 to clear the way for candidates who have one foreign-born parent, like President Vicente Fox, whose mother is from Spain.

But the pace of change is slow. The state of Baja California still requires candidates for the state legislature to prove both their parents were native born.

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