Hey, here is one way to get more voter support

[Taem]

In both cases I feel what we need to do, and what we want to do, is to have better control over the importation of both labor, and recreational drugs.

So, the parallel to the economic disparity would be; Do we abandon the border? Or, do we add more fences, mine fields, border patrol? Or, do we work on Mexico's economy so there is less need to come to the US? Or, do we create a safer, more efficient vehicle for legal immigration?

You put it so bluntly: Mexico /can't/ do anything on their own without American intervention. I'd say your the one with rose colored blinders on in case you didn't get what Ochci was implying; they have a choice to reform too. Your so focused on what America can do for Mexico instead of what Mexico can do for Mexico.

To me, it's like the parents who drill into their kids, "don't do drugs," only, they push too hard and the kids rebel and end up being junkies on the street. Occhi is right that there is a machismo sexist attitude prevalent in most, if not all of Mexico and it's politics. Might the Mexican American war been the catalyst for this attitude? I don't know, but Karma is a bitch. We can revise all the policies here we want in America, but in the end it still solves NOTHING when at the end of the day you still have a country that doesn't give a damn about you or your policies or issues.

So the real question is, how do you get Mexico to change Mexico? Because I have a feeling once their country's attitude changes, things will change for us here too, but without their willingness to alter their path, no matter what we do in our country, no matter how hard we try, no matter what laws we enact, amnesty we give out, or drugs we make legal, nothing will really change the problem of illegal immigration so long as Mexico is unwilling to help its own people become better citizens and improve it's economy so that its citizens don't feel they have to come to America just to make enough money get out of poverty in Mexico (44.2%). Nothing will really change until that happens.