New Mexican ‘revolución’ crosses border, infects U.S.

There’s a growing revolution in Mexico that pits the emerging smuggling-based illegal economy built by wealthy cartels, against the traditional, oil and tourist-based economy, the army and privileged classes of old Mexico. This revolution threatens the national security of the United States but is a non-event in the U.S. press and unknown to most Americans.

Those of us who live close to the border between the United States and Mexico are used to the daily reports of violent atrocities that accompany the incessant smuggling of people, drugs, weapons and whatever along its 1,600-mile span.

The media, in border towns on either side, are filled with stories of the travails of immigrants, the costs of immigrants and the violence that comes with this illegal tsunami of people. Every immigrant yearning to breathe free and every terrorist yearning to blow us up knows that the border with Mexico is open to all for the right price. The income from this trade is huge and has long ago attracted a consolidation of skilled and violent smuggling cartels who have carved out territories over which they exercise as much or more control as the Mexican government.

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Mexican Political Influence Expanding

“We are powerful enough to make a
difference,” says Guadalupe Gomez,
talking about the influence migrants
have in Mexican politics.

Originally from the Mexican state of Zacatecas, he’s lived north, in the US, for more than 40 years. He is currently president of the Federation of Zacatecan Associations.

The migrants’ influence comes with the massive amounts of money they send back home.

Despite the relative stagnation of the US economy, this flow of money keeps growing, according to recent data. In 2003 it increased by 35% – the total amount sent that year to Mexico was more than $13bn.

Remittances from Mexicans in the US have become one of Mexico’s most important sources of income – second only to oil and surpassing the traditional tourism industry.

According to Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington “remittances have probably benefited Mexico more than Nafta” (the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico).

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3582881.stm