Leave Americans in Mexico Be
by Jacob G. Hornberger,

There is a big immigration problem that has been growing year after year. An increasing number of American citizens are moving to Mexico, and some of them are even becoming undocumented workers. Even worse, they are refusing to assimilate and are even insisting on retaining their U.S. citizenship.

Six years ago, on February 5, 2001, in an article entitled “American Retirees Flock to a ‘Paradise’ in Mexico,” the Washington Post reported that in the small Mexican town of Anjijic, where 7,500 Americans lived, there was a banner just past the Gringo Grill that in English read, “Welcome to your new home.” Bringing their culture to Mexico, the Americans in Anjijic were organizing gardening classes and Sunday morning walking clubs. The Lake Chapala Society had a library containing 20,000 books — in English — and an English-language theater. The Super Lake market carried rye bread and every type of Betty Crocker cake mix. Restaurant menus in town were changing from enchiladas to waffles for breakfast. Most of the people at Donas Donuts were Americans, discussing U.S. political issues, presumably in English.

Since then the problem has only intensified. That 2001 article reported that the U.S. Embassy estimated that 600,000 Americans were living in Mexico. Today, Wikipedia puts the number at one million.

The assimilation problem hasn’t gotten any better either. In a recent article entitled “Illegal Gringos,” the Los Angeles Times reported that San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, has many retired baby boomers moving into town, a number of whom are performing work without a permit or license. It’s obvious that they’re not even bothering to learn Spanish because there is an expatriate newspaper oriented toward them that is written in English. Yes, you read that right — a local English-language newspaper in the heart of Mexico for Americans living there!

There are undoubtedly some people who are condemning all this as something despicable, perhaps even immoral. “I think it’s horrible that they’ve retained allegiance to the United States,” they no doubt are saying. “They should become Mexican citizens. Why aren’t they assimilating? Why aren’t they learning Spanish? They’re taking jobs away from Mexicans. They’re still flying the American flag, and they’re singing the Star Spangled Banner. They’re celebrating the Fourth of July more than the Cinco de Mayo. Worst of all, they’re actually rooting for American sports teams rather than Mexican ones. Something needs to be done about these people!”

I say, leave those Americans alone. Why shouldn’t they be free to live in Mexico any way they want? If they want to associate only with other Americans, why shouldn’t they be free to do so? Why should they be required to give up their American citizenship just because they’re living in Mexico? Sure, it might be a good idea for them to learn Spanish, but shouldn’t this be left up to them? And yes, some of them are working illegally, but who cares? Aren’t they providing services that people are willing to pay for and that are improving people’s lives? And so what if they’re still flying the American flag, singing the Star Spangled Banner, and celebrating the Fourth of July? Who are they hurting? And does it really matter that they’re rooting for American sports teams instead of Mexican ones?

Leave Americans in Mexico be. Let them pursue happiness in their own way. Isn’t that what freedom is all about?

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

The Road to Dystopia

The search for a silver bullet to slay illegal immigration continues. Hard-liners are turning the country upside down looking for it.

They are looking in Washington, where Senate Republicans last week offered more than a dozen bills to further enshrine mass deportation as the national immigration strategy. It is a grab bag of enforcement measures that will be useful for tough-talking campaign commercials, but will not actually solve anything.

Republicans and some Democrats in the House are trying to force a vote on a bad bill called the SAVE Act, which among other things would force all workers, including citizens, to prove they have a right to earn a living — a bad idea compounded by the notoriously bad state of federal government records.

The error rate in just one database, the Social Security Administration’s, is believed to be more than 4 percent, making it likely that many thousands of Americans would face unjust firings and discrimination, and waste a lot of time and effort trying to clear their names.

The harsh-enforcement virus has spread far beyond the Capitol. In states like Oklahoma, laws have been enacted to force illegal immigrants further underground, off official registries and into anonymity, by denying them identification like driver’s licenses. In a growing number of states and counties, politicians are offering up police officers to the federal government for immigration posses. From Prince William County, Va., to Maricopa County, Ariz., officers who pull people over for minor traffic infractions are checking immigration papers, too.

Many law-enforcement professionals say this is reckless and self-defeating, because it sends a deep, silencing chill into immigrant communities. Citizens and legal residents will inevitably be hassled for looking Latino. And it is expensive; Prince William’s new law is expected to cost $26 million over five years, plus a few million more to outfit police cars with cameras, as a hedge against lawsuits.

Maybe some people do not mind that immigration zealotry is sending the country down a path of far greater intrusion into citizens’ lives, into a world of ingrained suspicion, routine discrimination and economic disruption. Is that what we want — to make the immigration system tougher without fixing it? To make illegal immigrants suffer without any hope of ever becoming legal, because that is amnesty?

Could it be that tightening the screws relentlessly on illegal immigrants, even if some citizens suffer in the process, is all for the greater good?

Which is — what exactly? To drive a large cohort of workers out of a sputtering economy? To take more people off the books? To prop up the under-the-table businesses that inevitably evade such crackdowns? To worsen wages and working conditions for all Americans, since nobody works more cheaply and takes more abuse than a terrified, desperate immigrant?

This is a country that runs on routine amnesties. Where would the courts be without plea bargains, or state budgets without periodic tax forgiveness? Are illegal immigrants the one class of undesirables for whom common sense, proportionality, discernment, good judgment and compassion are unthinkable?

It is frightening to think that this country’s answer could be an emphatic yes.

Arizona city seeks moat to secure Mexico border

YUMA, Arizona (Reuters) - Most plans to gain control of the porous U.S.-Mexico border focus on some combination of fence. But this city in far west Arizona is looking to build a moat.

Faced with high-levels of crime and illegal immigration, authorities in Yuma are reaching back to a technique as old as a medieval castle to dig out a "security channel" on a crime-ridden stretch of the border and fill it with water.

"The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," said Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden, who is backing the project.

Curbing illegal immigration and securing the nearly 2,000 mile (3,200-kilometre) southwestern border are hot topics in this U.S. election year. Washington has pledged to complete 670 miles of new barriers by the close of 2008, despite resistance from landowners and environmentalists.

The proposal seeks to restore a stretch of the West's greatest waterway, the Colorado River, which has been largely sucked dry by demand from farms and sprawling subdivisions springing up across the parched southwest and in neighboring California.

The plan to revive the river, which drains from the Rocky Mountains through the Grand Canyon and runs for 23 miles (37 kilometers) along the border near Yuma, seeks to create a broad water barrier while also restoring a fragile wetland environment that once thrived in the area.

"What you are building is a moat, but it's bringing the life and the wildlife back," said Ogden, an Old West lawman with a handlebar mustache, explaining how the project differs from other plans to fix the border.

"It's innovative thinking. It doesn't take much brainpower to build a 12-foot high fence around something, but this is unique."

RECLAIMING NO-MAN'S-LAND

The project is starting with a desolate 450-acre patch of scrub and thickets known as Hunter's Hole, a once-thriving wetland on the border a few miles southwest of Yuma that has become a haven for drug smugglers and illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico and a headache for local law enforcement.

"It's in the United States, but it's become a no-man's-land, an area where bodies were dumped, where people and drugs were smuggled over the border," said Ogden, whose deputies share much of the responsibility for tackling border-related crime with federal police.

Engineers plan to dig a "security channel" up to 10-feet (3 meters) deep and 60 feet wide through the problem area, which lies a short way inside the border. The dirt removed would be used to create a levee along the outside to give U.S. Border Patrol agents an elevated patrol road overlooking the line.

The area would also be replanted with native sedges and rushes to provide habitat for threatened local species such as the Yuma Clapper Rail, a secretive marsh bird. Backers say it would also provide a space for residents of Yuma, a farming town popular with winter visitors, to walk and fish.

The organization behind the project would like to extend it the entire course of the Colorado River, which marks the U.S.-Mexico border, in what it sees as an environmental recovery program that complements the Border Patrol's task.

"It doesn't replace the Border Patrol's efforts, it supplements them. At the same time you are restoring habitat in a secure environment and creating a place to relax," said Charles Flynn, the executive director of the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area Corporation.

PROMOTING SECURITY AND FRIENDSHIP

Curbing illegal immigration and securing the border are issues that frequently confront both presumptive Republican Party nominee Sen. John McCain and Democratic rivals Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are campaigning to be their party's pick for the November election.

The U.S. government has sought remedies including boosting police numbers, adding surveillance technologies, and, controversially, constructing hundreds of miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers along the international boundary, which has drawn fierce opposition from some quarters.

More than a hundred border landowners in south Texas have resisted a government bid for access to their lands to build new fencing, which they see as a meddlesome and unwelcome intrusion, while environmentalists say fences may sever key wildlife corridors for animals including the jaguar.

The planned revival of the Colorado River, where it carves through desert peppered with fertile farmland, is something of a standout.

It has won the backing of the federal Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land; the Bureau of Reclamation, which has provided a grant to drill wells and pump groundwater, and a letter of support from the Border Patrol. Also on board are Yuma City Council and local residents including the Cocopah Indian tribe, who have farmed the river's flood plains for centuries.

Perhaps more surprisingly, it has also won support across the boundary in Mexico, where plans to build border fences are eyed with suspicion. Local environmentalists there have embraced the project and plan to work in tandem to restore the wetlands on the Mexican side.

"Instead of putting up walls and promoting division, we can promote security and friendship," said Osvel Hinojosa, the director of Pro-Natura, an environmental group in northwest Mexico, of the proposal.

"Moreover, instead of damaging the environment, we can improve it."

Trafficking in human beings

The trafficking of human beings is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation. It is estimated to be a $5 to $9 billion-a-year industry.^[1] Trafficking victims typically are recruited using coercion, deception, fraud, the abuse of power, or outright abduction. Threats, violence, and economic leverage can often make a victim consent to exploitation.

Exploitation includes forcing people into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. For children, exploitation may also include forced prostitution, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, or recruitment as child soldiers, beggars, for sports (such as child camel jockeys or football players), or for religious cults.[

Human trafficking differs from people smuggling. In the latter, people voluntarily request smuggler's service for fees and there may be no deception involved in the (illegal) agreement. On arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is usually free. On the other hand, the trafficking victim is enslaved, or the terms of their debt bondage are fraudulent or highly exploitative. The trafficker takes away the basic human rights of the victim.

Victims are sometimes tricked and lured by false promises or physically forced.^[3] Some traffickers use coercive and manipulative tactics including deception, intimidation, feigned love, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt bondage, other abuse, or even force-feeding with drugs to control their victims.^[4]

People who are seeking entry to other countries may be picked up by traffickers, and misled into thinking that they will be free after being smuggled across the border. In some cases, they are captured through slave raiding, although this is increasingly rare.

Trafficking is fairly lucrative industry. In some areas, like Russia, Eastern Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, and Colombia, trafficking is controlled by large, powerful organizations. However, the majority of trafficking is done by networks of smaller groups that each specialize in a certain area, like recruitment, transportation, advertising, or retail. This is very profitable because little startup capital is needed, and prosecution is relatively rare.^[5]

Trafficked people are usually the most vulnerable and powerless minorities in a region. They often come from the poorer areas where opportunities are limited, they often are ethnic minorities, and they often are displaced persons such as runaways or refugees (though they may come from any social background, class or race).

Trafficking of children often involves exploitation of the parents' extreme poverty. The latter may sell children to traffickers in order to pay off debts or gain income or they may be deceived concerning the prospects of training and a better life for their children. In West Africa, trafficked children have often lost one or both parents to the African AIDS crisis.^[6]

The adoption process, legal and illegal, results in cases of trafficking of babies and pregnant women between the West and the developing world. In David M. Smolin’s papers on child trafficking and adoption scandals between India and the United States,^[7][8] he cites there are systemic vulnerabilities in the intercountry adoption system that makes adoption scandals predictable.

Women, who form over 80% of trafficking victims, are particularly at risk to become involved in sex trafficking. Potential kidnappers exploit lack of opportunities, promise good jobs or opportunities for study, and then force the victims to become prostitutes, participate in pornography^{[citation needed]} or escort services. Through agents and brokers who arrange the travel and job placements, women are escorted to their destinations and delivered to the employers. Upon reaching their destinations, some women learn that they have been deceived about the nature of the work they will do; most have been lied to about the financial arrangements and conditions of their employment; and all find themselves in coercive and abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous.

The main motive of a woman (in some cases an underage girl) to accept an offer from a trafficker is better financial opportunities for herself or her family. In many cases traffickers initially offer ‘legitimate’ work or the promise of an opportunity to study. The main types of work offered are in the catering and hotel industry, in bars and clubs, modeling contracts, or au pair work. Traffickers sometimes use offers of marriage, threats, intimidation and kidnapping as means of obtaining victims. In the majority of cases, the women end up in prostitution. Also some (migrating) prostitutes become victims of human trafficking. Some women know they will be working as prostitutes, but they have an inaccurate view of the circumstances and the conditions of the work in their country of destination.^[9]

Men are also at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work predominantly involving hard labor. Other forms of trafficking include bonded and sweatshop labor, forced marriage, and domestic servitude. Children are also trafficked for both labor exploitation and sexual exploitation. On a related issue, children are forced to be child soldiers.

Many women are forced into the sex trade after answering false advertisements, and others are simply kidnapped. Thousands of children from Asia, Africa, and South America are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families.^[10]

[edit] Extent

According to United States State Department data, an "estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children [are] trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation."^[11] Due to the illegal nature of trafficking and differences in methodology, the exact extent is unknown.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the impoverished former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been identified as major trafficking source countries for women and children.^[12][13] Young women and girls are often lured to wealthier countries by the promises of money and work and then reduced to sexual slavery.^[14] It is estimated that 2/3 of women trafficked for prostitution worldwide annually come from Eastern Europe, three-quarters have never worked as prostitutes before.^[15][16] The major destinations are Western Europe (Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK, Greece), the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, the United Arab Emirates), Asia, Russia and the United States.^[17][18] An estimated 500,000 women from Central and Eastern Europe are working in prostitution in the EU alone.^[19]

An estimated 14,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year, although again because trafficking is illegal, accurate statistics are difficult.^[20] According to the Massachusetts based Trafficking Victims Outreach and Services Network (project of the nonprofit MataHari: Eye of the Day) in Massachusetts alone, there were 55 documented cases of human trafficking in 2005 and the first half of 2006 in Massachusetts.^[21] In 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimated that 600-800 persons are trafficked into Canada annually and that additional 1,500-2,200 persons are trafficked through Canada into the United States.^[22]

In the United Kingdom, 71 women were known to have been trafficked into prostitution in 1998 and the Home Office recognized that the scale is likely greater as the problem is hidden and research estimates that the actual figure could be up to 1,420 women trafficked into the UK during the same period.^[23] Trafficking in people is increasing in Africa, South Asia and into North America.

Russia is a major source of women trafficked globally for the purpose of sexual exploitation, Russian women are in prostitution in over 50 countries.^[24][25] Annually, thousands of Russian women end up as prostitutes in Israel, China, Japan or South Korea.^[26] Russia is also a significant destination and transit country for persons trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation from regional and neighboring countries into Russia, and on to the Gulf states^[27], Europe, Asia, and North America.

In poverty-stricken Moldova, where the unemployment rate for women ranges as high as 68% and one-third of the workforce live and work abroad, experts estimate that since the collapse of the Soviet Union between 200,000 and 400,000 women have been sold into prostitution abroad — perhaps up to 10% of the female population.^[28][29] In Ukraine, a survey conducted by the NGO La Strada Ukraine in 2001-2003, based on a sample of 106 women being trafficked out of Ukraine found that 3% were under 18, and the US State Department reported in 2004 that incidents of minors being trafficked was increasing. It is estimated that half million Ukrainian women were trafficked abroad since 1991 (80% of all unemployed in Ukraine are women).^[30][31]

The ILO estimates that 20 percent of the five million illegal immigrants in Russia are victims of forced labor, which is a form of trafficking. However even citizens of Russian Federation have become victims of human trafficking. They are typically kidnapped and sold by police to be used for hard labor, being regularly drugged and chained like dogs to prevent them from escaping. ^[32] There were reports of trafficking of children and of child sex tourism in Russia. The Government of Russia has made some effort to combat trafficking but has also been criticized for not complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.^{[33] [34]}

The majority of child trafficking cases are in Asia, although it is a global problem.

In Asia, Japan is the major destination country for trafficked women, especially from the Philippines and Thailand. The US State Department has rated Japan as either a ‘Tier 2’ or a ‘Tier 2 Watchlist’ country every year since 2001 in its annual Trafficking in Persons reports. Both these ratings implied that Japan was (to a greater or lesser extent) not fully compliant with minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking trade. There are currently an estimated 300,000 women and children involved in the sex trade throughout Southeast Asia.^[35] It is common that Thai women are lured to Japan and sold to Yakuza-controlled brothels where they are forced to work off their price.^[36][37]

Many of the Iraqi women fleeing the Iraq War are turning to prostitution, while others are trafficked abroad, to countries like Syria, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Iran.^[38] In Syria alone, an estimated 50,000 Iraqi refugee girls and women, many of them widows, are forced into prostitution.^[39] Cheap Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make Syria a popular destination for sex tourists. The clients come from wealthier countries in the Middle East - many are Saudi men.^[40] High prices are offered for virgins.^[41]

As many as 200,000 Nepali girls, many under 14, have been sold into the sex slavery in India. Nepalese women and girls, especially virgins, are favored in India because of their light skin.^[42][43]

In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family.^[44] In this instance, the woman does not gain the title of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of slavery, sometimes called trokosi (in Ghana) or voodoosi in Togo and Benin, or ritual servitude, young virgin girls are given as slaves in traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine.^[45]

Reporters have witnessed a rapid increase in prostitution in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Kosovo after UN and, in the case of the latter two, NATO peacekeeping forces moved in. Peacekeeping forces have been linked to trafficking and forced prostitution. Proponents of peacekeeping argue that the actions of a few should not incriminate the many participants in the mission, yet NATO and the UN have come under criticism for not taking the issue of forced prostitution linked to peacekeeping missions seriously enough. ^{[46] [47][48] [49]}

In the western world, Canada in particular has a major problem with modern-day sexual slavery. In a 2006 report the Future Group, a Canadian humanitarian organization dedicated to ending human trafficking, ranked eight industrialized nations and gave Canada an F for its "abysmal" record treating victims. The report, titled "Falling Short of the Mark: An International Study on the Treatment of Human Trafficking Victims", concluded that Canada "is an international embarrassment" when it comes to combatting this form of slavery.^[50]

The report's principal author Benjamin Perrin wrote, "Canada has ignored calls for reform and continues to re-traumatize trafficking victims, with few exceptions, by subjecting them to routine deportation and fails to provide even basic support services."

In the report, the only other country to flunk was the United Kingdom, which received a D, while the United States received a B+ and Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy all received grades of B or B-. The report criticizes former Liberal Party of Canada cabinet ministers Irwin Cotler, Joe Volpe and Pierre Pettigrew for "passing the buck" on the issue.

Commenting on the report, the then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Monte Solberg told Sun Media Corporation, "It's very damning, and if there are obvious legislative or regulatory fixes that need to be done, those have to become priorities, given especially that we're talking about very vulnerable people."^[51]