President Felipe Calderon vs. Arizona Immigration Law
The President of Mexico has joined the chorus of politicians, corrupt American businessmen, and people with legitimate civil right concerns in condemning the new law in the American state of Arizona which says that Police have both the right and the duty to detain people that they suspect might be illegal immigrants.
Calderon is a smart guy, but here the influence of the Mexican culture shines through clearly. In essence he is saying that it is perfectly OK for his countrymen to disobey those American laws which they don't approve of while they are visiting the USA. Just like most other civilized countries, American law says that foreigners have to follow certain well defined procedures to become a green card carrying resident alien, get permission to legally work, or eventually become a citizen.
This would be like President Obama telling American citizens that it is perfectly OK for Americans to disobey the local laws they don't like when they are living or traveling abroad. And then Obama coming out openly and criticizing the other country when they detain American visitors for disobeying the local laws. It shows that President Calderon, like most of his fellow Mexicans, has a complete ignorance and contempt for the concept of rule-of-law.
The Arizona law may indeed go way too far. Perhaps it will result in American citizens of Mexican ancestry or people of color being treated unfairly. I lived abroad for many years, both in Germany and in The Netherlands. It is the law that one always carries one's passport when abroad in order to verify both who you are and also your citizenship. I got used to doing this.
Now that I have moved back to America I still never leave the house without my driver's license and my U.S. Government passport card, which proves that I am an American citizen. And I am a light skinned gringo. No policeman would mistake me for a Mexican, but I carry this identification anyway. Any American citizen who is concerned about being detained or discriminated against needs to make certain that he always has proof of citizenship with him.
In this era after 911 when we are spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money fighting extremist terrorism, and we are still forcing people to remove their shoes when going through airport security, it is simply not reasonable to blandly say that it is alright for people coming from Mexico to pick and choose which American laws they will obey. The reasons Mexico is well on its way to being a failed state are (1) corruption and dishonesty, and (2) wanton bribery of government officials and disrespect for the concept of rule-of-law.
For some reason the importance of the concept of rule-of-law just never seems to have caught on in Mexico.
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