AUSTIN BAY ON IMMIGRATION:

Securing economic justice and political reform in Mexico is key to any truly effective long-term solution. The Mexican people know it. A decade ago, I met with a number of businessmen and women in northern Mexico who were “dollarizing” their businesses because they did not trust the corrupt central government. I also met several northern Mexican political activists who detailed their plans for ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) decades of one-party rule.

In 1997 and 2000, those plans led to opposition-party victories. Vicente Fox’s presidential election, however, was the end of the beginning for Mexican reformers. Mexico’s bitter mix of statist economics, poverty and elite corruption frustrate quick change.

Mexico’s elites do indeed export their unemployed, as well as potential political dissidents. That policy must end. On the other hand, U.S. businesses benefit from low-wage workers (many coming from Mexico). The U.S. birthrate has declined, and immigrants compensate for that decline. America must confront those facets of the immigration problem.

U.S. demand for illegal narcotics feeds Mexican corruption. Narcotics trafficking negatively affects political and economic conditions in Mexico (and thus has an impact on immigration). Getting real control of the borders means curbing America’s appetite for illegal drugs.

Or just legalizing them, putting the narcotics lords out of business.