Memo From Middle America: Mexico’s Jorge Castaneda Has A Plan To Stop Donald Trump. But It’s Just A Bluff—Given Patriotic American Leadership

Allan Wall
“Some Americans….dislike immigration, but there is very little they can do about it,” gloated Jorge Castaneda in Atlantic Monthly in 1995 [Ferocious Differences, July, 1995 ] In the past few decades, it would have been hard to say Vicente Fox’s foreign minister was wrong.  But the triumph of Donald Trump may mean Americans will finally reclaim control of our immigration policy. And Mexican elites don’t like that one bit.
Castaneda, like other Mexican elitists, is livid over Trump. Though it’s concealed in Mexican nationalist or globalist “human rights” rhetoric, the real reason Trump’s election victory terrifies them is it threatens their strategy of dumping the Mexican poor on the American taxpayers, in the process expanding Mexican influence within our borders.
The Mexican elite is already attempting to sabotage Trump’s efforts. Thus the Mexican foreign ministry is continuing and probably expanding its meddling through its vast consular network on U.S. soil. But Mexican elitists who aren’t part of the current Mexican government are also working these issues. Castaneda is at the forefront of these efforts.
Castaneda has a long history of working for “the whole enchilada” – a comprehensive migratory accord giving Mexico effective veto power over U.S. immigration policy. Of course, he has little in common with the poor mestizos he purports to champion, but instead operates as part of the academic/journalistic jet set lecturing Americans about why they should give up their country.
In a new column entitled Pintar Nuestra Raya [“paint our line,” the equivalent of “drawing a line in the sand”] Castaneda declared Mexico should resist Trump in three major ways [Jorge G. Castaneda website, November 11, 2016, first published in el Financiero. My translations].
  • First, Castaneda says Mexico should declare the construction of The Wall is a “hostile act toward Mexico.” He urges the use of “legal, ecological, political, cultural and social” instruments so “it is not constructed.” He even says “they [= Americans] have no right” to build it.
How is building a wall on our side of the border “hostile?” The way the Mexican government incites migrants to break our laws is obviously more “hostile” than a common-sense measure to protect our sovereignty. And Mexico is in no position to say what we can or can not do. But they’ve been walking all over us for decades. It’s going to be a shock when the gravy train ends.
  • Secondly, Castaneda says “NAFTA cannot be re-opened or renegotiated.“ But in the very next sentence, he writes in the future there can be a “certain renegotiation” of NAFTA “in exchange for other concessions.”
Other concessions? According to Castaneda we can’t build a wall and can’t renegotiate a trade agreement. So what other concessions does he want from us?
  • Third, Castaneda says “massive deportation of Mexicans” is “unacceptable for Mexico.” Indeed, he openly says Mexico should try to make it “enormously difficult” for us to enforce our laws.
In other words, as Mexico’s elites see it, they should call the shots in our immigration system.
To frustrate our ability to enforce immigration law, Castaneda says Mexican officials
…could very easily tell the U.S. authorities that we accept a deportee on the condition that they demonstrate to us, with documents, their Mexican nationality. If they allege that by definition the undocumented don’t have documents, we say to them that we think that the great majority of the deportees are Central Americans, and that if they want to deport them that they send them to Central America. Some Mexicans will end up there… For the time being, such a delay of deportations will accumulate that the Americans themselves will not know what to do.
Note Castaneda’s disdain for ordinary Mexicans. He doesn’t mind some of them being accidentally deported to Central America to make his point.
But there’s a simple solution on the U.S. side. Just deport anybody, regardless of nationality, who enters illegally from Mexico to Mexico. Make Mexico deal with them. After all, they entered the U.S. from Mexico!
But Castaneda has an even more insidious suggestion. He openly states Mexico should use Central American immigration as a weapon against us [Mexico can use Central-American immigration as bargaining chip with Trump, Univision, December 8, 2016]:
There has been a surge in Central American immigrants heading for the United States since Donald Trump won the Election in November, according to several initial reports… If this is the case, it is only logical. Trump has vowed to build his wall. It does not matter if Mexico will pay for it or even if the threat is true. It makes perfect sense for anybody hoping to make it to the United States, from Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala, to do so before any wall is put up….If they have relatives in the United States, or if they think that their reception will be better with President Barack Obama still in power until January 20, then their decision is perfectly rational.
Castaneda recounts how during the Surge of 2014, the Obama Administration pressured Mexico:
When the first wave of unaccompanied minors came to the United States in July 2014, Mexico complied with the White House request to cooperate in stopping the flow of immigrants. The logic behind it was sound. The goal was to avoid sparking anti-immigrant hysteria in the United States precisely when immigration reform seemed set to prosper.
My italics! By “hysteria,” Castaneda means provoking Americans who want a sane American immigration policy.
Castaneda says in 2014, in hopes of an imminent amnesty in the U.S., Mexican President Pena “…declined to take either of the two feasible actions for a country caught up in this immigration situation.”
These “two feasible actions”:
  • First, declare the Central Americans as “refugees,” let them stay in UN-supervised refugee camps in Mexico for a month, after which “they have the right to leave Mexico for wherever they choose: to the United States, or their home country.”
  • Second, “To follow Turkey’s example”. Here Castaneda refers to Turkey’s Erdogan agreeing to stop the flow of refugees entering Europe in return for benefits for Turkey.
It’s telling that Castaneda sees the relationship of Mexico with the United States as being analogous to that between Turkey and the European Union.
According to Castaneda, “Mexico has agreed to do the United States’ dirty work without maintaining its values via the refugee option and without extracting any benefits from a Turkey-style alternative. But things have now changed.”
So what does Castaneda propose?
….Trump is no friend to Mexico. It makes no sense for Mexico to keep doing America’s dirty work with Trump as president if he wants to build walls, deport Mexicans or revise the NAFTA trade deal. Still, Mexico has a bargaining chip. Mexico can stop the flow of immigrants on the southern border, or it can allow immigrants free access to its northern border.
But how is this a bargaining chip? Aren’t there already hordes of illegal alien Central Americans entering our southern border? And did not those same illegal aliens pass through Mexico?
This means that Mexico either can’t or won’t stop the flow of Central Americans. Castaneda is either mistaken and a victim of his own arrogance or just bluffing.
The real bargaining chips are in the hands of President-elect Trump, not the Mexican government.
If we get control of our border, then hundreds of thousands of Central American illegal aliens could be stuck in Mexico. And that’s something the Mexican elite doesn’t want!
So rave on, Jorge. If Trump does what he pledged to do, Mexico may have to finally get control of its southeastern border!
And if Trump does what he said he’d do, it won’t matter what Mexican elites say about it.
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico. Allan`s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.