Today President-elect Barack Obama is meeting with Mexican president Felipe Calderón in Washington. On the agenda will be Obama's immigration and security positions in relation to Mexico. On immigration, the economic resession will make it difficult for Obama to follow up on his campaign promises to make the "pathway to citizenship" easier for Latino immigrants (citizenship is not what the majority of them want, incidentally, just work visas).
The greater concern for the new president will be border security as the body count in the Drug Wars doubled in Mexico last year and the violence is now spilling over into the United States. Mexico, not Iraq, Afghanistan nor even al-Qaeda, should be the number one security concern for the new Obama administration. I find interesting his choice for the new director of Homeland Security - Arizona governor Janet Napolitano - who is pretty "hawkish" on maintaining a secure U.S.-Mexican border (a good thing!). Here'a an op-ed piece Gov. Napolitano wrote in 2007 for the New York Times - "Don't Forget the Border" - calling, among other things, for a National Guard presence on the border (again, a good thing in light of the military capabilities of the powerful Mexican Drug Cartels). So I'm hoping that today's Obama-Calderón meeting will be fruitful and the beginning of a good working relationship between our nation and Mexico.
...just sent you an email
...will look forward to your response as you have the time
Posted by: WildOldeMan | 2009.01.14 at 08:18 AM