. "They have no responsibility to protect the US."
Oh? Mr. Flopper, really. I think you are thinking along different lines than what that one sounds like. Really, I do.
After a 250 year history of letting all before and since Poncho Villa murdered some working folks from the USA, Mexico had this habit of dumping Mexican criminals at the border and threatening to shoot 'em if they ever crossed the border going back, they are not held to a standard of taking care of their own business?
We don't do that to them. And we expect modern Mexico to rehabilitate their own to function sans using them to bring terror into neighboring countries or keep them locked up at their own expense, just like we have to in order to make our society run without the threat of being murdered by a serial hit man incarcerated for 30 or more kills, or rapes, or repeated thefts that destroys someone else's American dream.
I think there has to be a modicum of expectations of neighbors. Even on a smaller scale, a neighbor who harbors a rabid animal must either dispose of it or hand it over to the authorities for a merciful handling of its end. You can't let an irresponsible neighbor let his mad dog run free to bite your own children. It is right and just to require certain responsibilities from a neighbor.
Mexico has numerous high-end billionaires living in and around its capitol city and elsewhere. They can well afford to take care of their own, same as us.
Neighbors simply must respect some give-and-take with neighbors. When all else fails, however, the pioneer adage of "Good fences make good neighbors" sometimes must be employed when one of the neighbors engages in egregious behaviors. There's something seriously wrong with a nation that produces and engenders poverty on certain groups of people. We need to insist the neighbor either deals with the problem their society inflicts on expanding poverty among more and more people while reducing the number of people who make it to the middle class and concentrating wealth at the tip of its pyramid.
It is not our business to rearrange the Mexican structure, but it is our business to take care of our own first before we spend so much as a nickel on someone else's unwanted children. And if one is over here, we are not obligated to bring in 100 family members per new citizen so they can be one big happy family living on middle class taxes. We're not that rich, although with all those fat cats in Wshington knowing what real luxury is, we have to keep an eye on what they inflict on working class taxpayers. They are
not entitled to average people's life savings. They are entitled to empty their own pockets if they think that would solve Mexico's problems.
Mexico needs to grow up and come up with new ways to help poor people fare well in life. I personally think our bright and intelligent neighbors south, by virtue of their bilingual and street smarts can channel some of that latino intellect on helping their poor folks come up in the world without forcing the neighbors to put their masses ahead of our own childrens' welfare.
And this can be accomplished peacefully, imho. Poncho Villa's own people ended his gringo killing spree without American intervention. Modern Mexico has a lot more options than are evidenced to us to take care of their current habit of laying spoiled eggs on someone else's border including ours. And we better watch our step. Once they catch on to competition, they will be a force to reckon with because they are bright, intelligent people, most are faithful, obedient and decent human beings. I look to them and think, "I bet they can figure out a way to take the marijuana plant and destroy the DNA part that causes young people bad development in boys, yet keep some of its relaxation properties that lure people into its spell. I bet they can find a way to prevent burning vegetable matter to cause cancer, as well. Our scientists haven't come up with that yet. We ought to run a race to give the science department who works on those kinds of problems a huge grant from someone like George Soros. I challenge our mega billionaires to find ways to encourage friendly competitions between advanced cultures. And of course, they may have to go all the way to China to figure out what the bright and quiet folk there do to bring about good human health issues to prevent cancers of any kind with their garlic ways.
And that's what I think.