Juarez
Border towns are always dangerous places, because criminals can cross the border, commit a crime, then slip back into their own country. El Paso is one of the least violent cities in the US, but Ciudad Juarez, though peaceful compared with the capital, has among the highest murder rates in Mexico. While some of the crimes can be attributed to the drug wars, a more puzzling question is the high number of women who have been murdered, both in Juarez and in other parts of Chihuahua state.
Part of the problem, apparently, is caused by migrants from southern Mexico. Juarez officials naturally like to blame outsiders for the violence, but there is some truth to the story that poor men and women in southern Mexico come to Juarez hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to work in the Maquiladora factories. The women, once they find work, wish to control their money and go out with their friends on the weekends. This liberation leads to conflicts with husbands boyfriends, who take revenge by beating and killing the women. Carlos Fuentes has memorably portrayed the life of these young women in one of the stories of The Crystal Frontier. Mexicans seeking a scapegoat point the finger of blame at the US, whose Maquiladora program has lured hundreds of thousands of immigrants. They are not entirely wrong. We established these programs under the guise of doing good, but the real point was cheap labor, with no concern for what happened either to Mexicans or to displaced American workers.
The usual tensions and conflicts that have always marked the US-Mexican border have become acute in recent decades. As in Sicily, the huge profits to be made by importing drugs into the US have produced a fierce competition between rival drug lords and between the gangs and the police. The Mexican police and military play an ambiguous role. In some cases their conflicts with the drug smugglers result from their attempts to enforce the law; in others they are more interesting in extorting bribes; in still others they are merely criminals. One of the most effective death squads hired by the drug cartels, Los Zetas, consists of former Mexican soldiers. Mexicans complain, with some justice, that a large number of the hired killersa majority, according to some Mexican officialsare US citizens. Of course most of these US citizens are of MExican background, so perhaps it is only fair for us to return a favor
There are plenty of dishonest cops in the United States and even entire police forces that have been corrupted. In Mexico, however, corruption and criminality are more the rule than the exception, and border cities like Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, and Juarez resemble battle grounds. Caught in the middle are Mexican journalists, whose courage in reporting on the drug wars has made them a target.
There is also suspicion in Juarez that soldiers from Ft. Bliss routinely cross the bridge into Mexico in order to commit crimes. The story, though absurd on the face of it, may be not entirely fantastic: the FBI reports major gang activity among Ft. Bliss soldiers. There is growing evidence that gang-bangers are being recruited by our increasingly mercenary military, but this is a story in progress.
Two Cultures of Violence
Mexico and the United States are both known as violent countries, but there are important differences in the styleand the incidenceof criminal violence. Both are complex countries with varying ethnic and regional traditions. For example, the states of the American South are proverbial for their high homicide rates, but, in contrast with the large cities of the North much of the killing in the South is done for personal motives. Crimes of violence in the US can also be broken down by ethnicity: Black and Hispanic Americans account for well over half the violent crimes, while the rate for white Americans is in line with Western Europe.
In 1999, the US homicide rate, over all, was 5.7 per 100,000. This is a high rate compared with most countries in Western Europe: Italy (2.25), Belgium and England/Wales (1.41), and Ireland (.62), but America seems safe when compared with Mexico, which despite very strict gun laws, has a homicide rate of 17.58-over three times the US rate.
It is difficult to make comparative generalizations, but according to the Overseas Security Advisory Council (a federal advisory committee whose mission is to advise Americans on security issues in foreign countries): In the categories of murder, rape and robbery, Mexicos Distrito Federal (Mexico City and the surrounding region) posts 3 to 4 times the incidence of these crimes than does New York City, greater Los Angeles or Washington, D.C.
What this means when Mexicans enter the US can be measured by the fact that in 2003, while about 27% of prisoners in federal prisons were aliens, 67% of that figure were Mexicanor 18% of the total. When other Latin Americans were added in, the percentage reaches 23%.
Mexico and the United States share a reputation for political violence, but while Americas ill fame rests largely on four assassinated presidents and several well-publicized riots and police crackdowns (Haymarket riot, Kent State, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago), Mexican history is awash in blood. Among the more famous political killings in Mexico, one might name the last two Aztec rulers, Mochtezuma and Cuauhtémoc, the two clerical leaders of uprisings against Spain (Hidalgo and Morelos), Emperors Augustin de Iturbide and Maximilian, Presidents Madero, Carrranza, Obregón, to say nothing of a more recent string of killings that includes: a Catholic cardinal murdered by drug lords in Guadalajara in 1993, a PRI presidential candidate (Luis Donaldo Colosio) in 1994, a PRI secretary general and majority leader elect of the lower house (Jose Franciso Ruiz Massieu) killed by the brother of President Salinas in 1994, a congressman implicated in drugs and murder (Manuel Murloz Rocha).
These few names do not begin to exhaust a very long list that includes rival political candidates murdered by the PRI, journalists killed by drug lords, thousands of students gunned down in demonstrations 1968 and 1971 , and the massive suppression of the Chiapas Indians in the 1990s.
If the pastand the presentare any indication, Americans can expect to see a steady increase in criminal violence as the flow of Mexican immigrants increases. We can also expect, I believe, a more violently confrontational style of street demonstration, common in Mexico, to make its appearance in the United States, and, along with violent rioting, a still more violent response from the policeand not just towards illegal immigrants.
Government thrives on the chaos and disorder that government promotes. The only better excuse than war for big government is fear of crime and civil unrest. Umberto Bossi, founder of the Lega Nord, used to say that Italys political class favored open immigration, because the immigrants caused so much trouble that it justified a continual increase in state power. Whatever intentions of the Bushes and Clintons, the effect of high immigration is always to promote Big Government along with Big Business.
For that reason, I say, be kind to the illegals as we do our best to ship them back, and save your anger for Walmart and the other massive corporations who lure them here to do their dirty work. Perhaps the worst enemies of the american people are the apologists for free trade and open borders who call themselves conservatives and libertarians.
