Pot Calling the Kettle Black: Immigration in Mexico vs. the U.S.

By Linda Orlando

Every day brings yet another hot news story about immigration reform in the United States. Many of the people protesting immigration reform are Mexicans, saying that unrestricted citizenship should be granted to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants. Even the Mexican government has called American immigration policies "xenophobic," saying that we are afraid to share the wealth of American citizenship with people south of the border. But isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

It may come as a surprise to learn that the immigration laws in Mexico itself are much more daunting than American laws. For instance, legal, naturalized Mexican citizens born in another country are banned from holding thousands of different jobs. In the United States, the only jobs reserved for native-born Americans are the presidency and the vice-presidency. Yet in Mexico, foreign-born Mexicans also can’t hold seats in either house of the congress or the Supreme Court; they can’t work in state legislatures or hold governorships, and many states even ban them from sitting on town councils. Mexico’s Constitution states that all federal, military, or merchant marine posts can only be given to "native-born Mexicans."

The government of Mexico has made immigration laws even stricter over the past few years. Cities are now banning non-natives from holding local jobs such as firefighters, police, and judges. Mexico’s Interior Department distributed information to local officials several years ago describing "model city" statutes, recommending that non-natives be banned from certain jobs. After The Associated Press questioned the practice, officials deleted the non-native recommendations from the statutes, but they insisted that the changes were not in response to the AP’s inquiries. An Interior Department official told reporters, "These statutes have been under review for some time, and they have, or are about to be, changed."

Although most foreigners don’t move to Mexico to work in government jobs, the immigration laws put obstacles in the way that make it more difficult for them to compete for many other types of jobs. Even some native-born Mexicans agree that the government needs to change its policies, both to keep up with modern times and also to welcome the contributions foreign-born people could make to the country. But many Mexicans, apparently including the government, are distrustful of foreigners because of the country’s long history of foreign invasions, not to mention the Mexican-American War.

The rules are particularly puzzling because foreigners constitute an extremely small percentage of the population of the country, and pose no threat to the job market for native Mexicans. Only about .5% of Mexico’s 105 million people are foreign-born naturalized citizens, in contrast with the 13% of foreign-born citizens in the U.S. And Mexico grants citizenship to only about 3,000 people a year, compared to the United States, which grants citizenship to an average of almost a half a million people each year.

J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, wrote a recent article on immigration that echoed the sentiments of many government officials confused by the dichotomy between the immigration laws of the two countries. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide," Waller said. "The Mexican constitution."