Illegal immigration, drugs, and Mexico's undeserved bad reputation

By: Ricardo Israel - 31/03/2025

This isn't a story of good and bad, nor is there a line separating them, with some on one side and others behind the barrier. Drugs and illegal immigration are such complex issues that they rather reflect a combination of good and bad decisions, where the bad ones feed off each other.

These are problems that exist throughout the world, and the United States (US) is neither the country that suffers the most nor the one that has failed the most. Furthermore, Latin America, despite all its problems, is much more than just drugs and illegal immigration. To begin with, a good percentage of migrants arrive in poor countries before rich ones, since they only have to cross borders, usually near where the greatest tragedies occur. Not only in Africa, since the large Syrian immigration reached Lebanon before Europe, and millions of Venezuelans arrived throughout the region long before they reached the southern border of Texas. In fact, as a percentage of the population, they are much higher in Chile, on the other side of the continent. Furthermore, it is surprising how late the mainstream media discovered the existence of the fearsome Aragua Train, without yet noticing that several Supreme Courts in the region decreed the expulsion of its members for the commission of terrible crimes, nor cases such as the murder of Lieutenant Ojeda, a Venezuelan asylum seeker in Chile, on the orders and through payment from Diosdado Cabello, as proven by prosecutors, so much so that the case has already been officially presented by Chile to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

In the U.S., Mexico's bad reputation stems from the shared influence of mainstream media and the political class, including some representatives and senators of Latino origin. These opinions are often echoed by the press in other countries, as well as by many analysts.

Of course, a huge percentage of illegal immigration and drugs come from Mexico, but those aren't opinions, they're facts beyond dispute. My argument is different: the reasons put forward in the US debate about the possibility of these decisions being transformed are misguided, which would mean bad decisions. There have been extremists who have requested the use of special forces operating on Mexican territory itself, fortunately in a complete minority.

What if something or a lot goes wrong?

The truth is that, on the issue of illegal immigration, the most important has been a strictly American fact, that, in just a few years, due to the simple change of the inhabitant of the White House, Washington went from one extreme to the other, from open borders to total closure, reproducing in relation to immigration, a (sudden) oscillation that has occurred many times in its history, from approval to rejection of illegal immigration, in a country that, despite everything, remains very open, receiving through various visas one and a half million legal immigrants each year, which compares very favorably with other powers such as China or Japan.

In any case, despite everything, there is a common denominator in the recent waves: in general, there has been a good labor market waiting for immigrants, which means that even if they don't have their papers in order, most can fulfill their "American dream."

In the case of drugs, whether synthetic or not, the real underlying problem is more than one, it is two, and nothing is going to change, if a) we do not end the source, the level of consumption, that is, drug addiction in the US, and b) if there is not greater efficiency not only at the border, but in cutting off internal distribution, that is, a problem that is, at the same time, social, police, and health, all mixed with different generational expressions, which also depend on the policies of each State, with the added fact that an example of the power of drug trafficking is that we never know the name of the American equivalent of Chapo or Escobar, since at least I doubt that these characters, even if they reach the border, also have the networks to control distribution to every place in the immense United States territory.

Furthermore, over the years, the issue of illegal immigration has also become a matter of population exchange, given that there are at least a million Americans residing illegally or at least irregularly in Mexico, without any known drug use, nor have they become a problem for the Mexican authorities, nor is there a political movement to expel them. What's more, I count myself among those who witness their very visible presence in several of the highly recommended "magical towns" not far from the capital, Mexico City, where English is widely spoken and the dollar circulates as if it were the local currency, yet many miles from the border.

Furthermore, despite the complicated history and the territorial loss of a good part of historic Mexico, ceded, sold or conquered, suffice it to imagine if this situation were to occur in reverse, despite all this, the affection and admiration towards the United States is real, for the simple reason that there are so many Mexican families living in both countries, that this historical precedent just mentioned does not have much influence, and if we highlight it it is because in other countries, neighbors with territorial loss from one of them, it is on the contrary a source of almost permanent enmity at the level of people, above all, on the part of the defeated.

Moreover, this has been noticeable recently, as one can compare how different Trump's attitudes toward Trump have been in Canada and Mexico, even though the unilateral decisions affect both equally. Perhaps Mexico is too weak for anything else, but we've seen one concession after another, with widespread applause for President Claudia Sheinbaum without any anti-US sentiment. Unlike the awakening of a kind of Canadian nationalism on the other side of the border, which is expressed not only among politicians (understandable during election season) but has strong repercussions, even among consumers, travelers, and sports spectators.

Nothing similar is seen in Mexico, and perhaps for that reason, during his previous administration, Trump thanked AMLO (he also criticized him, but for other reasons), and now he has done so, always in very kind terms with Sheinbaum, highlighting her contribution, comparing it to the Canadians, for whom he has not adopted the same tone, limiting himself to saying that he has had "productive" conversations with the new prime minister. And everyone knows that there is an element of negotiation in Trump's positions, but the point is that he doesn't have similarly kind words for the Canadians. Certainly, there is hypocrisy in the National Palace in Mexico City, since nothing similar was done with Spain, which was so exaggeratedly and bitterly criticized for the conquest that it made it impossible for the King to travel to the inauguration of the recent change of government.

For the US, the border issue would be much worse if it weren't for the fact that Mexico's cooperation goes far beyond the obligations demanded by international law, and even beyond what is usual between neighbors who have a common free trade agreement, and perhaps for this reason, there have always been kind words from different US presidents, at least since the 1980s onwards. I regularly follow US policy, highlighting how, for example, Mexico helps beyond good neighborliness when Washington requests it, even when this has included militarizing the border, for example with Guatemala.

And this has happened despite Mexico's long-standing assertion that, for them, the issue of weapons is just as serious as the issue of drug use in the US, since the pistols and machine guns used by Mexican cartels to kill come from the US. This theme has been reiterated not only at the political level but also in court, in various trials against arms companies.

And just as the US is right to criticize China's role in the industrial production of fentanyl that cartels bring in through the borders of Mexico and Canada, other places also include US companies among those producing the chemical precursors to make drugs, as well as the role that the US market plays in money laundering and investments resulting from the enormous wealth that drugs generate, calling for a more active role from the Treasury Department to sanction individuals, countries and companies, including banks, since it is the only country that can completely paralyze suspicious financial transactions.

The bottom line is that drug use is what has transformed Mexican cartels into truly international criminal organizations, a power that has allowed them to control a large part of Mexican institutions and increase their presence in several Latin American countries, both producer and transit countries, the latest example being Ecuador.

And no matter how much power they've acquired, the attempt to transform drug cartels into terrorist organizations doesn't help, as they are not, no matter how many crimes they commit. The Mexican drug cartels are not, unlike the Colombian FARC, which are, despite having collaborated and perhaps continuing to do so with Hezbollah, which is, as a means of financing, also heavily involved in drug trafficking in the Middle East, primarily of the synthetic captagon, the so-called "jihadist drug." They are not terrorists; they are very flexible organizations that take advantage of every opportunity, as they have done by moving some of their drug and illegal immigration businesses to a border as open as that of Canada and the United States.

In addition to their proximity to the US, if Mexican cartels have acquired their current relevance it is not only due to domestic consumption in the north, but also because they have replaced the Colombian cartels, given the success of Plan Colombia, Washington's collaboration so that in Colombia, the government of Álvaro Uribe cornered the FARC, in addition to weakening Cartels like the one in Medellín, so much so that in the collective imagination Chapo Guzmán replaced Pablo Escobar, and very quickly, it was the Mexican cartels that took the place of the Colombians in the entry of drugs into the US, first cocaine and then satisfying the more serious and harmful current demand for fentanyl.

The US has tried almost everything in relation to drugs, even militarization, in the sense of speaking of a "war" on drugs, or at least a "fight" against them, and it is one of the few countries that goes beyond the issue of health and police to include the armed forces in its strategy, and it is one of the few, because in general the police are more effective in their repression, in addition to the fact that the experiences in general have not been pleasant, since they have ended up involved in corruption, and since Vietnam Washington has had to deal with consumption by troops as well as by veterans.

In the case of Mexicans, it hasn't been a completely good experience to involve them either, having passed enough years between Felipe Calderón and AMLO (2006-2024) to realize that they are not the solution either.

The complexity of the drug issue is such that in the U.S., those states that have legalized drugs for recreational use have not made much of a difference compared to those that have not, either in terms of health or policing. The U.S. has also gone through periods where it has filled its prisons with drug addicts, penalizing users more than dealers, but there has been no major change in the levels of consumption and trafficking, nor in the crimes usually associated with drugs.

Furthermore, the experience of two decades of occupation of Afghanistan is still fresh, and to the list of failures that occurred, the issue of drugs must be added, another example that there are no easy solutions, given that there was an increase, not a decrease, in drug production, necessary to have agreements with the warlords in several provinces, since, due to their profits, such trafficking was a necessary condition.

Furthermore, the US itself has had an ambiguous policy on the issue, not only ceding control of its southern border to drug cartels, but also with countries where organized crime is present within the government itself, transforming them into narco-states, as is the case with Venezuela, where the Cartel of the Suns comprises the top civilian government leaders and the high command of the Armed Forces. In this case, oil has been the currency of exchange.

As for the current power of the Mexican cartels, there's no doubt that the open border has helped transform them into an even more decisive and important factor for both illegal immigration and drug trafficking, all facilitated by their territorial control, which includes their own tunnels.

My criticism of the language of many US politicians and the mainstream press is that while there is so much information about the damage to the US, there is very little about how much it affects Mexico, given that the fuel for drug use is consumption in the north, since in Mexico, although it is growing, it has not yet remotely reached that level, and in the case of illegal immigration, those who arrive at the border want to enter the US, not remain in Mexico.

However, they leave many negative externalities in their path, since there are many social problems, violence, empowerment of cartels, search for new lines of crime, pressure on services, and the crime problems that they mean for Mexico, in addition to shootings in the streets and an increase in homicides, a list that does not include the various concessions that Mexican authorities make to Americans such as the use of armed forces to try to stop immigration flows, and the "remain in Mexico" policy since nothing obliges in international law that the transit country must agree to accept that citizens of third countries must remain for long periods of time in their country, which is not the one they wish to enter, simply for electoral reasons or internal politics of that nation.

Furthermore, due to pressure, migrants in transit have been offered the option of remaining legally there with a work visa, even though this would create an international obligation for Mexico. For example, with regard to political "asylum," once someone claiming persecution in their country of origin acquires legal residence in another country—the one where they have requested asylum, in this case the U.S.—there is no obligation to grant it, since they have previously obtained protection from another nation. And if I put the word asylum in quotation marks, it's because, as is public knowledge, many people who are merely economic migrants also request asylum to expedite their cases.

And if we're talking about labor rights and economic immigration, it's appropriate to mention César Chávez (1927-1993), a prominent civil rights activist and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, whose strikes not only exposed the abuses of migrant farmworkers but also improved their conditions. Chávez is one of the great historical figures of labor, so much so that in the photographs behind President Biden in his Oval Office, you can see his framed image.

We mention this because Chávez was, above all, a trade unionist. In lesser-known passages of his life and work, he organized protests against illegal immigration right on the border, rightly arguing that it drove down the wages of unionized workers. This argument is so true that it still holds true.

What did Chávez propose?

Although it's not entirely clear, my impression was that he liked the guest worker program for Mexicans that existed during World War II and lasted until the 1950s, in the sense that it was the companies that were responsible for bringing them in, for example, for harvest periods, and it was up to the government to ensure that their human rights were respected and that American wages were not lowered. This idea also yielded results in Germany, when it began its post-World War II boom.

Personally, I don't think it would have the same results in a more complex world like today's, but it is useful for countries that aren't sufficiently curious about ideas that have been successful, whether in other places or at another time, as is the case, and not just in the US. The same applies to drugs, where it's useful to examine countries whose results prove they've done better.

In both cases, the moral is that perhaps the solutions of the future lie in the past.

@israelzipper

-Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Laws (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».