The process for how Americans can be Mexican citizens....
- From: mike <yard22192@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 09:26:44 -0800 (PST)
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p17844.xml?genre_id=2
Mexico's Glass House
Every country has the right to restrict the quality and quantity of
foreign immigrants entering or living within its borders. If American
policymakers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws
restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a
handy guide: the Mexican constitution.
Adopted in 1917, the constitution of the United Mexican States borrows
heavily from American constitutional and legal principles. It combines
those principles with a strong sense nationalism, cultural self-
identity, paternalism, and state power. Mexico's constitution contains
many provisions to protect the country from foreigners, including
foreigners legally resident in the country and even foreign-born
people who have become naturalized Mexican citizens. The Mexican
constitution segregates immigrants and naturalized citizens from
native-born citizens by denying immigrants basic human rights that
Mexican immigrants enjoy in the United States.
By making increasing demands that the U.S. not enforce its immigration
laws and, indeed, that it liberalize them, Mexico is throwing stones
within its own glass house. This paper, the first of a short series on
Mexican immigration double standards, examines the Mexican
constitution's protections against immigrants, and concludes with some
questions about U.S. policy.
Summary
In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that:
Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political
discourse.
Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.
Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.
Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real
Mexican citizens.
Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public
service.
Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the
clergy.
Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e.,
illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.
Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due
process.
The Mexican constitution: Unfriendly to immigrants
The Mexican constitution expressly forbids non-citizens to participate
in the country's political life. Non-citizens are forbidden to
participate in demonstrations or express opinions in public about
domestic politics. Article 9 states, "only citizens of the Republic
may do so to take part in the political affairs of the country."
Article 33 is unambiguous: "Foreigners may not in any way participate
in the political affairs of the country."
The Mexican constitution denies fundamental property rights to
foreigners. If foreigners wish to have certain property rights, they
must renounce the protection of their own governments or risk
confiscation. Foreigners are forbidden to own land in Mexico within
100 kilometers of land borders or within 50 kilometers of the coast.
Article 27 states,
"Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have
the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their
appurtenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines
or of waters. The State may grant the same right to foreigners,
provided they agree before the Ministry of Foreign Relations to
consider themselves as nationals in respect to such property, and bind
themselves not to invoke the protection of their governments in
matters relating thereunto; under penalty, in case of noncompliance
with this agreement, of forfeiture of the property acquired to the
Nation. Under no circumstances may foreigners acquire direct ownership
of lands or waters within a zone of one hundred kilometers along the
frontiers and of fifty kilometers along the shores of the
country." (Emphasis added)
The Mexican constitution denies equal employment rights to immigrants,
even legal ones, in the public sector. Article 32: "Mexicans shall
have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all
classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or
commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is
not indispensable. In time of peace no foreigner can serve in the Army
nor in the police or public security forces."
The Mexican constitution guarantees that immigrants will never be
treated as real Mexican citizens, even if they are legally
naturalized. Article 32 bans foreigners, immigrants, and even
naturalized citizens of Mexico from serving as military officers,
Mexican-flagged ship and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and
airports:
"In order to belong to the National Navy or the Air Force, and to
discharge any office or commission, it is required to be a Mexican by
birth. This same status is indispensable for captains, pilots,
masters, engineers, mechanics, and in general, for all personnel of
the crew of any vessel or airship protected by the Mexican merchant
flag or insignia. It is also necessary to be Mexican by birth to
discharge the position of captain of the port and all services of
practique and airport commandant, as well as all functions of customs
agent in the Republic."
An immigrant who becomes a naturalized Mexican citizen can be stripped
of his Mexican citizenship if he lives again in the country of his
origin for more than five years, under Article 37. Mexican-born
citizens risk no such loss.
Foreign-born, naturalized Mexican citizens may not become federal
lawmakers (Article 55), cabinet secretaries (Article 91) or supreme
court justices (Article 95).
The president of Mexico, like the president of the United States,
constitutionally must be a citizen by birth, but Article 82 of the
Mexican constitution mandates that the president's parents also be
Mexican-born citizens, thus according secondary status to Mexican-born
citizens born of immigrants.
The Mexican constitution forbids immigrants and naturalized citizens
to become members of the clergy. Article 130 says, "To practice the
ministry of any denomination in the United Mexican States it is
necessary to be a Mexican by birth."
The Mexican constitution singles out "undesirable aliens." Article 11
guarantees federal protection against "undesirable aliens resident in
the country."
The Mexican constitution provides the right of private individuals to
make citizen's arrests. flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the
offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the
nearest authorities." Therefore, the Mexican constitution appears to
grant Mexican citizens the right to arrest illegal aliens and hand
them over to police for prosecution.
The Mexican constitution states that foreigners may be expelled for
any reason and without due process. According to Article 33, "the
Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any
foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the
national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous
legal action."
Notional policy options
Mexico and the United States have much to learn from one another's
laws and practices on immigration and naturalization. A study of the
immigration and citizenship portions of the Mexican constitution leads
to a search for new policy options to find a fair and equitable
solution to the immigration problem in the United States.
Two contrary options would require reciprocity, while doing the utmost
to harmonize U.S.-Mexican relations:
1. Mexico should amend its constitution to guarantee immigrants to
Mexico the same rights it demands the United States give to immigrants
from Mexico; or
2. The United States should impose the same restrictions on Mexican
immigrants that Mexico imposes on American immigrants.
These options are only notional, of course. They are intended only to
help push the immigration debate in a more sensible direction. They
simply illustrate the hypocrisy of the Mexican government's current
immigration demands on the United States - as well as the emptiness of
most Democrat and Republican proposals for immigration reform.
Mexico certainly has every right to control who enters its borders,
and to expel foreigners who break its laws. The Mexican constitution
is designed to give the strongest protections possible to the
country's national security. Mexico's internal immigration policy is
Mexico's business.
However, since Mexican political leaders from the ruling party and the
opposition have been demanding that the United States ignore, alter or
abolish its own immigration laws, they have opened their own internal
affairs to American scrutiny. The time has come to examine Mexico's
own glass house.
[1] The official text of the Constitution of Mexico appears on the
Website of the Chamber of Deputies, or lower house of Congress, of the
United Mexican States: http://www.cddhcu.gob.mx/leyinfo/txt/1.txt. An
authoritative English translation of the Constitution of Mexico,
published by the Organization of American States, appears on the
Website of Illinois State University: http://www.ilstu.edu/class/hist263/docs/1917const.html.
Quotations in this document are from the OAS translation.
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