Denogean: Mexico must do more for Mexicans

ANNE T. DENOGEAN

Published: 01.08.2008

The Mexican government is full of hot air and empty of answers on illegal immigration.

Last week, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department promised to defend Mexicans hurt by Arizona's new law threatening the license of any business that knowingly employs undocumented workers.

Here's an idea, Mexico: Why don't you defend Mexicans from the excruciating poverty that forces them to leave their homeland in the first place?

Along with many Americans, I support a measured approach to illegal immigration, one that includes a generous temporary-work visa program to benefit both countries and a humane system for dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants already living and working here, many of them with American children.

But pronouncements from Mexico, such as the one that came last week, infuriate those who are already seeing red over illegal immigration and alienate many of us who sympathize with the plight of desperate Mexicans who risk their skins to seek a better life here.