Opposition to Illegal Immigration: Nationalism or Internationalism?

A new and very smart commenter (and apparent supporter of amnesty for illegals) asks my rationalization for opposing illegal immigration:

Is your rationalization for kicking out all the illegals primarily driven by nationalism (saving the jobs and high living standards of the United States for its “natives”) or internationalism (the (somewhat dubious in my opinion) notion that a “safety valve” into the United States for masses of the impoverished underclass discourages economic development and alleviation of poverty within Mexico)?

Nationalism of course. But I don’t see why progressives should be assisting the Mexican elite with their shit project of exporting their poor to the US so they can hog all the money and not support their own citizens. And that is what the Mexican elite is doing. Most everyone who has studied the issue agrees on that.

In fact, one argument in favor of illegals is that if we don’t let them flood in here, the safety valve will be turned off, and there will be a revolution down in Mexico. Which will be bloody and violent, and which will end up coming over here. I’ve actually heard progressive people make this argument to me.

I think it’s absurd because Mexico already had a revolution. That’s why Mexico was quiet in the 1980’s while Central America was on fire with revolution. At the time, I asked a friend of mine why Mexico was not on fire with the rest of Mesoamerica. A wise woman, she thought a moment and said, “They already had their revolution.” Well of course.

Nevertheless, as they say in Mexico, there is a revolution about every 100 years or so. The The last revolution (1910-1920) was exactly 100 years ago. It ended feudalism and gave all Mexicans land on the ejidos. No matter how shitty things get in Mexico, you can always go farm on an ejido and not starve. It’s a common lie that people starve in Mexico. Almost no one is starving; obesity is a much bigger problem. There’s plenty of food down there but not much money.

Yet the revolutionary party, the PRI (The Party of the Revolution, literally) has gone stale and now forms a far rightwing elite state in many ways. The PAN is even worse. The PRD is a progressive party, but the last two Presidential elections they won were stolen right out from under them while the entire US media, both US political parties and the US government cheered and looked the other way. If the Left keeps being denied power via peaceful means, they may well take up the gun. That’s how the revolutionary process works.

It is certainly conceivable that if the valve were shut off, the elites could come under pressure to create a more fair society by having to share with the rest of the Mexicans. The challenge would probably be peaceful and not armed at this time. In the future it may become armed. The elites are very worried about this for good reason, and that is why they use the safety valve.

Mexico does have a revolutionary tradition, even embedded in the ruling party itself. This would make it difficult for the elite to resist peaceful revolutionary forces to make a fairer Mexico. In addition, Mexicans are violent people, do not fear death (and even seem to love it in a perverse sense – see below)*, and are quite willing to slaughter huge percentages of the population in revolutionary wars if need be.

The Mexican Revolution killed 4X as many Mexicans per capita as the US Civil War did. Most Americans think the Civil War was horrible. Most Mexicans think their Civil War was wonderful.

*On All Saints Day, Mexicans go to graveyards, carry little skulls around and in general have a great big Death Party with all sorts of morbid and ghoulish imagery. This is a fatalistic land where death is everywhere and no big deal, and life is rather cheap.

Please follow and like us:
error3
fb-share-icon20
20
fb-share-icon20

9 thoughts on “Opposition to Illegal Immigration: Nationalism or Internationalism?”

  1. When NAFTA was being debated twenty years ago, wasn’t one of the arguments for it that it would improve wages in Mexico and hence stem illegal immigration?

    How come we never used our supposed trade leverage to improve conditions in foreign lands?

    1. Yeah, that was one of the lies.

      NAFTA was an amazing piece of legislation. It fucked wages, working conditions and the environment in all three countries: the US, Mexico and Canada. It wasn’t good for any country.

      The only people who benefited was the business sector, primarily the corporate sector.

  2. But I don’t see why progressives should be assisting the Mexican elite with their shit project of exporting their poor to the US so they can hog all the money and not support their own citizens. And that is what the Mexican elite is doing. Most everyone who has studied the issue agrees on that.

    This trend actually started with Vicente Fox. Sure, illegal Mexicans came before him, but Mexicans in the homeland generally frowned upon such a decision.

    Now, starting with Fox, the white Mexican elite encourages exporting its poor mestizos and Indians.

    And Fox and those like him also echo the whole notion that Mexicans “do the jobs Americans won’t do” (he got into trouble for specifically saying that Mexicans do the jobs even blacks won’t do).

    Illegal immigration, quite frankly, is bullshit.

    What other nation tolerates this insanity? Why should we be an exception?

    You should check out the open topic watercooler. I provided a link to a pretty good article attacking immigration.

    1. Maybe the white Mexican elite is very smart. They are racist against their darker countrymen. Maybe they would like to “whiten” Mexico by sending the poor and dark Mexicans up north.

      What if racist white elites were encouraging unemployed blacks in the projects to all go to Canada. Could you imagine the uproar from the left?

      1. Well, they are not trying to Whiten Mexico. That’s basically a hopeless project. White Mexico has been slowly darkening for almost 200 years now. They are just exporting their poor so they don’t have to pay taxes to help take care of them so they can keep living like kings.

        Your last paragraph is fantastic!

  3. Dear Robert
    There are nationalist reasons for opposing mass immigration and internationalist reasons for opposing selective immigration. Selective immigration essentially consists of taking the best and brightest from countries that are worse-off than the immigrant-receiving country. It is an encouragement of the braindrain and Robin Hood in reverse, totally unethical.
    If I were the president of an African country, one of my first acts would be to expel Canadian immigration oficials, who are hard at work to intellectually impoverish the African country.
    Another unethical practice is the Canadian and American habit of deporting criminals who have spent nearly their entire lives in Canada or the US but somehow failed to get citizenship. A friend of mine is a parole officer. One of his “clients” is a murderer in his sixties who came to Canada from Germany as a pre-schooler. He hardly speaks any German and has lived all his live in Canada except for those first few years. Yet, the Canadian government wants to deport him to Germany because he is still a German citizen. Such a deportation is an insult to Germany.
    It is also unfair to the murderer, who is in fact punished twice: once by imprisonment and once by deportation.
    Every country should train its own manpower and take care of its own rotten apples. Importing highly skilled labor or deporting riffraff are unethical practices.
    Regards. James

Leave a Reply to James Schipper Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)