Monday, April 5, 2010

Is Mexico on the verge of becoming a failed state?

Coming on the heels of this Department of Defense assessment of the political situation in Mexico, there is this story detailing the efforts by the drug cartels to force people in Mexican border towns out of their own homes.
….Last week, at least 30 Mexicans from the town of El Porvenir walked to the border crossing post at Fort Hancock, Texas, and asked for political asylum. Ordinarily, their claim would be denied as groundless, and they would be turned back. Instead, they were taken to El Paso, where they expect to have their cases heard.

No one doubts that they have a strong claim. Their town on the Mexican side of the border is under siege by one or more drug cartels battling for control of the key border crossing. According to Mike Doyle, the chief deputy sheriff of Hudspeth County, Texas, one of the cartels has ordered all residents of the town of 10,000 to abandon the city within the next month.
Click the link and read on. This is why any discussion of immigration reform that does not take serious account of border security is worse than useless.

5 comments:

smitty1e said...

I'd say it's past the verge of the threshold of the slippery slope leading to the precipice, but you know that I eschew pleonasms.

JeffS said...

I had to look up "pleonasms", but I agree with you, smitty.

At best, the Mexican government has lost control of some areas. At worst, the Mexican government is collapsing.

RebeccaH said...

If Mexico goes down, we're in a lot of trouble, and not just from hordes of illegals streaming across the border. We get a lot of our oil from Mexico.

missred said...

the majority of mexico is a cesspit and the government is corrupt. build a wall (a real one, eg the berlin wall), dig a moat on the mexican side, fill it full of hungry gators from florida, and put armed lookouts every 1/2 mile with orders to shoot to kill.
damn i wish i was in charge!

SwampWoman said...

Mexico has been a failed state for quite some time. The people have voted with their feet.