Border States Feel Strain…In Mexico!

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

In January, a delegation came to Arizona from the Mexican state of Sonora, Arizona’s neighbor to the south, to complain about Arizona’s recently-enacted law that cracks down on illegal immigration.

There’s nothing new about Mexican officials meddling in U.S. immigration policy. They’ve become quite accustomed to it. Needless to say, foreign officials shouldn’t deter Arizona’s lawmakers from doing what needs to be done.

But there’s another angle to this story, which illustrates the special predicament of Mexican Border States, and the role those states might play in the future.

Mexico has six states that border the U.S. From east to west, they are: Tamaulipas , Nuevo Leon , Coahuila , Chihuahua, Sonora , and Baja California.

These six states are among Mexico’s more prosperous states. They are not major sources of emigrants to the U.S.

According to a 2007 Mexican government report prepared for the Mexican House of Representatives, the 5 principal “emigrant-expelling states” are in Central Mexico. They are: Michoacan (President Calderon’s home state, said to have more of its people dwelling in the U.S. than in the home state), Jalisco, Guanajuato (Vicente Fox’s home state) , the state of Mexico and Veracruz.