The New American Pioneers

I thought I was fairly well-informed on the illegal alien/Mexican immigrant controversy until I read The New American Pioneers by Juan Hernandez, 2006.  I had previously read the chapter titled "The War With Mexico" by Ronald Wells, Christian historian at Calvin College (See The Wars of America: Christian Views, 1981).  Wells had convinced me that the U.S. had attacked Mexico (1846-1848) illegally, that the war was an imperialistic land-grab, resulting in the U.S. taking around one-half of Mexico's territory.  The war started with American settlers in Texas; they were illegal aliens on Mexican territory.  As the numbers of American illegals increased, they claimed Mexican Texas as their own.  Should the Mexicans now living in Texas and California do the same?

Congressman Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the Mexican-American War, said, "the Polk administration had deceived the American people."  Polk falsely believed in Manifest Destiny, that it was God's will for the U.S. to spread from coast to coast.  After Texas, California was the coveted territory.  American ethnocentrism was another important factor; the U.S. saw Mexicans as inferior human beings.  In summary, present day Texas, NewMexico, Arizona, California and parts of other states were stolen from Mexico.  To make this point clear, I sometimes say that I support the building of an impenetrable wall between the U.S. and Mexico.  The Wall's location:  on the northern border of Texas, on the northern border of California, etc. so the U.S. can never again invade Mexico.

Now let us fast forward from 1848 to 2017.  First, some information on the author, Juan Hernandez:

"Born in Forth Worth, Texas, the son of a Mexican father and a North America mother, Juan Hernandez has always had one foot in the U.S. and the other in Mexico.  He spent most of his childhood in Guanajuato, Mexico, attended the University of Guanajuato, Lawrence University in Wisconsin, and later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in English and Mexican Letters from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth."

Hernandez is bi-racial, bi-cultural, bi-lingual and bi-national, so he is unusually well qualified to discuss immigrant/alien problems.  When Vicente Fox became president of Mexico in 2000, Hernandez was appointed head of the President's office for Mexicans Living Abroad, making him the first U.S. citizen to become a Mexican cabinet member.

Poverty and joblessness in Mexico have driven millions to seek employment in the U.S.  Trade policies have enabled the U.S. to ship cheap corn into Mexico thereby driving Mexican corn farmers out of business, pushing them to seek jobs across the border.  Rather than putting money into a border wall, we should put those billions into promoting community development in Mexico.

Hernandez supports President Bush's ideas as outlined in a January 7, 2004 speech:

"As a Texan, I have known many immigrant families, mainly from Mexico, and I've seen what they add to our country.  They bring to America the values of faith in God, love of family, hard work, and self-reliance; the values that made us a great nation."

President Bush has proposed a temporary worker program that would create a more orderly flow of immigrant workers to match available jobs and require a return home after the work visa ended.  He would also create paths to citizenship for aliens now in the U.S.

Dick Morris, who wrote the Foreword, is a Fox News analyst.  Morris makes some compelling arguments asserting Mexican immigration is good for the U.S.  Many developed countries are declining in population.  By 2050 Russia will decline from 145 million to 100 million.  Japan will decline from 125 million to 100 million.  Declining population creates a number of problems such as fewer workers making contributions to pension systems.  A slow but healthy growth rate of one percent is ideal for the socioeconomic health of a society.  Current immigration rates bring us to the one percent growth rate.

The average age of an immigrant is well below the national average keeping our population young.  Today, legal and illegal immigrants contribute billions to our Social Security system; many of these immigrants will not be able to draw upon their Social Security and will end up subsidizing the rest of us.

"Immigration keeps down inflation.  When an economy runs out of workers, the risk of wage driven inflation is enough to cool down any efforts at economic stimulus."

Immigrants begin working at low wage jobs, often back breaking jobs most Americans will not do.  They deserve our respect and gratitude.  The second generation often becomes  middle class and homeowners, an asset to society.

The U.S. makes up four percent of the world's population, but owns a whopping 29 percent of the world's wealth.  "The U.S. has an affirmative obligation to help the poor of other nations, especially our next door neighbor, Mexico.  Remittances sent home by immigrants total $20 billion a year; this money goes directly to poor Mexican families.   Only Mexican oil revenues exceed remittances as a source of national wealth."

Many Americans focus only on the negative side of Mexican immigration, but there are also positive contributions from immigration.  We need to rewrite immigration laws to make the process legal and orderly, and less dangerous.

Some facts:

* About 60 percent of the children in California are of Hispanic or Mexican descent.
* About 24 million Mexicans or Mexican Americans live in these United States of America.
* Mexican Americans are the largest ethnic group in this country.
* 1.3 million Mexicans cross the border each year.  Most are caught and sent back to Mexico.  About 300,000 stay in the U.S.
* The overall economic benefits from immigration outweigh the costs.

Most Mexicans would prefer to stay in Mexico, stay with family, if they could find jobs.  So it would be best if the U.S. could develop an economic partnership---the equivalent of a Marshall Plan---to promote economic development and prosperity in Mexico.