Vicente Fox's term as presidente of Mexico is coming to an end. The country is in the midst of a presidential election, with voting scheduled for July 2nd. The winner, whoever he may be, is to take office December 1st of this year.
So Fox has less than nine months to go.
Which means that he must be thinking about his "legacy," as outgoing presidents are wont to do.
Fox was recently interviewed by BBC Mundo's Mariusa Reyes and one of the topics was—naturally—"migration." [Fox: "En 10 años EE.UU. suplicará", Mariusa Reyes, BBC Mundo March 2nd, 2006]
Fox informed the interviewer that
"in the United States there are harsh people, xenophobic people, there are builders of walls, the only thing they want is to wrongly divide our two countries. In place of this we have many who think that here there is a great opportunity for the American economy, a great opportunity for Mexico, and a great opportunity for NAFTA." (De lo que me doy cuenta es de que allá en Estados Unidos hay gente dura, hay gente xenofóbica, hay constructores de muros que lo único que quieren es dividir a nuestros dos países equivocadamente, pero a cambio de eso habemos muchos que pensamos que aquí hay una gran oportunidad para la economía norteamericana, una gran oportunidad para México, y una gran oportunidad para el NAFTA.)
"Wrongly divide our two countries?"
Excuse me, but the United States and Mexico are still two different countries.
Personally I want them to remain separate countries (for the good of both).
After that, Fox made a rather bizarre prediction:
"I hope that finally we achieve a migratory accord. I daresay that in 10 years the United States will be pleading, it will be begging Mexico to send her workers, and Mexico will not do it because it will have its people busy." (Yo espero que finalmente lleguemos a este acuerdo migratorio. Yo me atrevo a señalar que en 10 años Estados Unidos estará suplicando, estará rogándole a México que le envíe trabajadores, y México no lo va a hacer porque va a tener ocupada a su gente.)
Now that's quite a prediction. Mark it down folks, put it in a time capsule and dig it up in a decade.
In a later interview with Business Week Online, Fox touched on some of the same themes, and even weighed in on specific (U.S.!) legislation:
"For the first time, there are several very solid bills before the U.S. Congress. I especially like the Kennedy-McCain bill because it incorporates elements that I have been discussing with President Bush for these past five years. It would mean that those who are working in the U.S. would have their labor rights and human rights respected. And we could reach a [bilateral] agreement for a future flow of workers—orderly, legal, and secure." [Fox Q & A: Looking Back, and Ahead, March 10, 2006]
Another Fox comment:
"There are xenophobic people who want to build a wall, who want the army to patrol the border. But there are many others, including U.S. businesspeople, who need and are hiring [Mexican] workers."
Translation: There are American employers who would rather pay low wages to illegal aliens than hire American workers.
The interviewer brought up Fox's earlier 10-year prediction: "You've been criticized for saying recently that in 10 years the U.S. will be 'begging' Mexico for more workers. Can you elaborate?"
Fox's answer:
"Demographics are changing rapidly in Mexico. Mexico has already gone through the difficult phase of high population growth, and now we're moving quickly from a situation of having a young population to one that has many more retirees. Mexico's population was growing 1.4 percent annually in 2000, but by 2005 it was growing just 0.99 percent a year. The U.S. already has an adult population with many retirees. I daresay that in 10 years, the U.S. will need many more, young, strong, productive workers from Mexico, and we aren't going to be able to let our young people go north because our economy is going to need them."
Oh yeah?
It's really hard to take this prediction seriously.
IN 2001,the Mexican government's National Population Council (CONAPO) predicted that, even with a decrease in the birth rate and an improved Mexican economy, emigration to the U.S. will not diminish for at least the next 30 years! (That would be until 2031 or later).
The bottom line is this—as long as the U.S. allows mass immigration from Mexico, it will continue, regardless of what happens in Mexico. [VDARE.COM NOTE: More recently, Fox himself, asked how long it would take Mexico to "reach a stage where citizens no longer want to cross the U.S. border to seek work," answered "Generations." Immigration debate seen skirting root cause, Reuters, March 29, 2006]
So it's up to us—not the Mexican government—to decide if we want it to continue.
Ironically, there's only one way Fox's prediction could come true: if we convince our government to get control of the border and reduce immigration (legal and illegal).
Then Mexican workers would be busy in Mexico, where they should be working anyway.
However, if the present immigration disaster continues and worsens, by the time 2016 rolls around, mass emigration from Mexico to the U.S. will be in full throttle, with its negative effects on both countries.
So what'll it be, America?
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) resides in Mexico, with a legal permit issued him by the Mexican government. Allan recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived here his "Dispatches from Iraq" are archived here his website is here.
