Our more troublesome neighbor is known for sticking its unwelcome nose in our American internal affairs—from lobbying for a permissive immigration policy to handing out instructional invasion comic books to its dollar-seeking émigrés.

Even more disturbing, however, is Mexico's financial support for the worst of its expat criminals, in the form of extreme lawyering for Mexican murderers facing death row.

Those monsters get the best legal practitioners available, with a hefty price tag being no problema—thanks to the peculiar generosity of the Mexican government.

In a wealthy country where nevertheless half the population lives below the poverty line, you might think Mexico City could better invest its financial resources in schools, infrastructure and healthcare.

But responsible expenditures to benefit honest Mexicans is not the plan.

Mexico has quietly obtained the services of top anti-death-penalty lawyers in America to defend its most brutal exported offenders. One recipient: Juan Quintero, the murderer of Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson. Quintero was defended by ACLU attorney David Lane, who finagled a sentence of life in prison for a back-shooting child-molesting cop killer in Texas. The outcome of no execution for Quintero is a testament to the wonders of unlimited money and slick lawyers.

For edification about the extent of Mexican munificence, see the fascinating article by Mike McPhee in the July 28 Denver Post, Mexico buys death defense:

"'I truly take my hat off to Mexico for funding this program,' Lane said. 'Defending a death-penalty case can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million. None of these defendants has any money, and the cases fall to public defenders, at the taxpayers' expense.'

"Lane is one of 21 U.S. lawyers hired by Mexico to represent 51 Mexican citizens in the United States currently on death row and another 200 facing death-penalty trials. Since 2000, U.S. lawyers hired by Mexico have represented some 450 defendants. "

Crunching those numbers indicates that Mexico City is willing to spend many millions of dollars to keep its lowlifes from American justice. (However, when Mexican authorities want their dangerous drug kingpins prosecuted, they extradite them to the US to get the job done.)

Incidentally, attorney Lane  (Email him.) is quite the package of leftist illogic. He defended plagiarist professor Ward Churchill and provided legal help for propagandizing high school teacher Jay Bennish. Lane has argued that the traditional Columbus Day parade constitutes "ethnic intimidation" to Native Americans—such is his loyalty to the First Amendment, which ACLU lawyers often profess. (Email him.)

In the Quintero trial, Lane made the case that the killer had a troubled childhood and brain injury. But Quintero had lived normally, with a job and a wife, and was certainly able to negotiate returning to Houston after being deported in 2004 for sexual indecency with a child.

At any rate, the jury decided on a life sentence rather than execution, which left widow Joslyn Johnson feeling victimized yet again.

Another project in David Lane's reverse world of anti-justice: Jose Luis Rubi-Nava, an illegal Mexican who dragged his girlfriend behind a truck over a mile and a half to her death. In July, Judge Paul King ruled that Rubi-Nava was fit to stand trial after 12 days of hearings over five months designed to convince the court that the accused is retarded, which would have spared him from the death penalty under Colorado law. Such is the advantage of having a Cadillac defense team—funded by the deep pockets in Mexico City.

Inquiring minds want to know: Why does Mexico go to such lengths and so much expense to protect scum?

There is no capital punishment in Mexico, so at least they are not hypocrites about sentencing. But many Mexicans at the non-elite level would like to have tougher punishment, including the death penalty, to fight worsening crime anarchy. Those sentiments were present at the anti-crime rallies that took place in various locales in Mexico on August 30. There was little negative reaction in Mexico to the recent execution in Texas of Jose Medellin, who had raped and murdered two teenaged girls in 1992, compared with earlier anger.

The anti-death-penalty stance is a favorite among the left's issues, and is promoted as being more enlightened and humane than the grim finality of Old Sparky and its variations. Unfriendly Mexico is always on the lookout for a way to give America a black eye, and the opportunity to assume an imagined position of superiority may be too irresistible. That element of motivation cannot be discounted.

Another possibility exists. Arguably, the Mexican government has embraced the values of criminal culture and essentially is a crime enterprise. Presidente Calderon appears to have the right stuff in his resistance to organized crime, but you have to wonder how high the infiltration of narco-criminals has gone within the government. In 2005, Nahum Acosta, a top aide of Presidente Vicente Fox, was arrested for leaking information about his boss' travel plans to drug traffickers. (He was later released when charges were dismissed.)

Official Mexico appears unable to stand against the drug cartels that weigh money rather than count it, as illustrated by this unsettling estimate:

"Edgardo Buscaglia, a UN adviser and economics and law professor in Mexico City, recently reported to the Mexican attorney general's office that up to 60 percent of Mexico's cities were controlled by organized crime.

"Criminal elements infiltrate local governments by financing political campaigns and with bribes. Mexico ranks 6th in the world for the highest presence of organized crime, Buscaglia's research reveals, after Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. "

Mexico Infiltrated, Security in Latin America Blog, July 27, 2008.

So far, the cartels appear to be winning. They have the muscle and they have the money. Mexico's history and culture of corruption offer little resistance to such a determined assemblage.

The narco-gangsters imagine Mexico in the near-future will be their own private fiefdom of crime—similar to Osama's relationship with Taliban-run Afghanistan.

Actually, Mexico is even better than Afghanistan—because it is located next to one of the world's top crime opportunity zones. From millions of affluent drug users to an endless supply of people to be kidnapped, America is the full refrigerator of any thug's dreams.

Given that clear and present danger, why doesn't Washington take appropriate steps to protect us from the crack-house country next door?

Brenda Walker (email her) lives in Northern California and publishes two websites, LimitsToGrowth.org and ImmigrationsHumanCost.org. She is gradually beginning to accept that either John McCain or Barrack Obama will become the President next January.