The strange behavior of Mexico

A very odd thing is going on in Mexico and in Mexican consulates in the United States. Mexico is starting to spend $50 million to help Mexicans who are in the United States illegally stay in the U.S.

What this says is that the Mexicans do not want their expatriates back in Mexico. We also are hearing that over the past few years, beginning with the policies of the Obama administration which aggressively sent Mexican illegals back to their home country, Mexico has been having to deal with an influx of their citizens who have moved out of the country into the U.S., only to have been sent back again. And Mexico isn’t prepared to have people who have tasted freedom re-establish themselves into a country that does not always respect freedom or offer economic equality.

Doesn’t it seem that the right thing for Mexico to do for its expatriates would be to spend that $50 million on helping their countrymen and women successfully return to their homes and successfully re-assimilate into Mexican society?

The answer is that in the world view of the Mexican government, which is unbelievably disdainful of its lower-class citizens, the best way to deal with the poor and the uneducated is to encourage them to get out of the country — and apparently to try to keep them out.

That is cheaper than educating their lower-class citizens. It is cheaper than creating jobs for them. And it also is good business to have those expatriates sending remittances back home to family members in Mexico so that Mexico gets to spend less supporting the parents and the grandparents of the people who have gone north.

You don’t see the United States spending money to keep its expatriates out of their own country. Americans who have gone abroad to study, or to work, or to marry, or just to travel find they can return to their country with relative ease and blend back into society.

Unless, of course, they have committed crimes either while abroad or back home before they left. A lot — perhaps a majority — of those deported back to Mexico from the U.S. are suspected of having committed crimes. They find themselves met at jails by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and sent back home. Others are picked up elsewhere.

Naturally, Mexico does not want those folks back. They are too much trouble. The Mexican government would be glad to spend millions to keep them north of the border.

But why are Mexican officials so wary of having people who are hard workers and decent citizens return to the country of their birth? Why not welcome them back?

Could it be because people who have experienced freedom and economic justice are too hard to manage into submission in a country rife with government corruption, widespread crime and economic inequality? Could it be because the Mexican government has become so dependent on donations from Mexican citizens working in the United States and sending remittances home to family members that $50 million is a small price to pay to help them stay up north?