An American President's Holiday Thank You Note to the President of Mexico Glen Olives - Digital Journal
go to original December 24, 2014

Christmas note to Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto from U.S. President Barack Obama: "Thank you Quique for all the legal immigration you've been sending! Your best and brightest? Gosh, we don't know how to thank you. ¡Feliz Navidad! – Barackcito"

The constant immigration debate has become wearing, tiresome even. We know that there is a net zero immigration rate among illegals. We know that our economy would collapse without them. We know that comprehensive reform is needed and will never happen because, as I've said so many times before, bad policy is good politics.

But in my latest academic research regarding tertiary education in Mexico (don't tune out just yet), I made some unrelated and surprising discoveries.

Legal Mexican immigration to the United States far outpaces illegal immigration. And the legal immigrants are not gardeners or maids or migrant farm workers. They're Mexico's best and brightest students with the intellectual talent and financial means to attend our best universities, often obtaining graduate degrees in law, finance, engineering, among many other disciplines. They end up staying, quite legally, under the TN visa program, which basically amounts to: Got degree? Got employer willing to hire you? Got work visa! (Sorry for you Chinese hopefuls, this program is just for NAFTA countries.)

And we're happy to have them. They're the "good" immigrants. They speak English fluently, have refined manners, and are excellent at their chosen professions. The reason they don't return to Mexico after obtaining their degrees is that well paying jobs within their fields hardly exist there.

...America is wrong for ignoring the immigration of wealthy, privileged, talented legal Mexican immigrants while lampooning poor illegal immigrants, whose labor it needs much more. Mexico, in turn, is wrong for encouraging the same immigration trend by ignoring its own intellectual infrastructure.

America should be thanking Mexico for both forms of immigration. And Mexico should be looking inward to see where it is going wrong. Neither is likely to happen.

Read the whole story at Digital Journal

Photo: IBTimes

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