US and Mexico: On breaking diplomatic relations

“Illegal immigrant who entered through Texas accused of killing 2 had

been deported 8 times. Open border must end.” https://t.co/4K8UvRe9e5

Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX)

December 9 2016

Through his Twitter account, Texas Governor Greg Abbott demanded yesterday from Austin that the US-Mexico border be sealed permanently, for good, this after becoming aware that an undocumented immigrant who goes by the name of Miguel Angel Villaseñor Saucedo killed two women in a hit and run car accident, not in Texas but in Kentucky, in the city of Louisville, fleeing from the scene of the accident. According to the US Department of Justice, Saucedo had been deported eight times, the last time on 2013. Furthermore, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report that this undocumented alien had been nabbed by the US Border Patrol four times.

In Mexico there is no doubt whatsoever of the true meaning of Greg Abbott's desires and intentions. A quick look at some of the Mexican newspapers will prove it.

Here is the actual twit of Texas Governor Greg Abbott:

The remarks of Greg Abbott, speaking as Governor on behalf of all Texans, reveal his abysmal ignorance on how the US government works and the means it has at its disposal to deal with undocumented aliens such as Miguel Angel Villaseñor Saucedo. First of all, the law clearly states that, after the first arrest of an undocumented alien, the alien is to be deported back to his country of origin (if he is not a Mexican but someone from another part of the world such as India or Pakistan, I assume that instead of being sent to Mexico he/she would be sent via a commercial flight all the way back to the other part of the world, with the US taxpayer footing the bill for such a long trip).

Let's forget for one moment about the first detention, and focus strictly on the issue of re-entering the USA illegally. It is a fact of life that illegally re-entering the U.S. after having been denied admission, excluded, or ordered removed (deported) is a federal felony offense that carries (or should carry) severe consequences. When a foreign national reenters the U.S. after having been ordered removed, been granted voluntary departure, or after previous unlawful presence exceeding 180 days, he or she is barred from reentering the U.S. (inadmissible) for a number of years. The penalty for illegally reentering the U.S. without proper permission will sometimes simply involve reinstatement of the previous order of removal and the immediate carrying out of such. However, other serious consequences may be imposed. In general, if someone illegally reentered the USA after previously accumulating unlawful presence, as was clearly the case regarding Miguel Angel Villaseñor Saucedo, that person is subject to a fine and up to two years' imprisonment. If he re-entered the US illegally seven times, then he could have logged 14 years in prison, if the US federal government had done its job. If the order of removal was for committing three or more misdemeanor crimes involving drugs, crimes against a person, or a felony offense (which is now the case of Miguel Angel Villaseñor Saucedo), the alien faces a fine of up to ten years in prison. Even worse, if a person was ordered removed after a conviction for an aggravated felony, that person faces a fine and up to 20 years in prison, plus a permanent bar on reentry.

The stiff penalties were supposed to deter illegal immigration. Every undocumented immigrant, without excluding a single one, enters the USA either as a political refugee or as an economic refugee, in the latter case to improve his/her economic well being. If a person spends several years in jail and thus cannot earn a single US dollar while being in jail, the the incentive for breaking the law and entering illegally is removed completely.

If people who have re-entered illegally into the USA keep on re-entering illegally, that is not the fault of the Mexican federal government, nor of the Mexicans who abide by the law and never enter into the USA without proper consular authorization from the US Embassy or a US Consulate such as the US Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. The fault rests entirely upon the US federal government which is not doing its job of throwing illegal aliens such as Miguel Angel Villaseñor Saucedo and taking away from them the economic incentive from entering illegally in the first place. Instead of blasting Mexico, Greg Abbott should take his complaints as Texas Governor directly to the US federal government. Furthermore, in less than two months from now, a new president will take office in the White House who is more sympathetic to the idea of throwing the book at all undocumented aliens and punishing them as harshly as they can be punished. As to how far will Donald Trump will go to keep his promises of ending illegal immigration for good, we will all just have to wait and see.

Let us be clear on this, and I will not resort to euphemisms. Closing down the border completely with a neighboring country as Greg Abbot is proposing is the same thing as breaking off all diplomatic relations with that country. Such is the case between North Korea and South Korea. The border between such two countries is sealed off completely, and there is no illegal immigration whatsoever from North Korea into South Korea despite the undeniable economic incentives. I assume that white supremacist Greg Abbott would very much like to see a similar scenario in the Texas border with Mexico. Well, in such a case, I will make things easy for Governor Abbott.

There is this thing called the US National Guard, and one of the things Greg Abbott can do is to call up the National Guard to seal off the US-Mexico border completely (this will necessarily entail shutting down all of the international bridges between the Texas and Mexico, and prohibiting all flights between Mexico and the USA). Furthermore, the National Guard can be given the orders of shoot to kill anyone who wants to come through a border sealed off by military elite forces. What is Governor Greg Abbott waiting for in order to call the National Guard? Why hasn't he done it already, considering his fierce anti-Mexican stance? Is he dumb, or what?

In Mexico, the kind of attitude displayed by Greg Abbot as the most racist xenophobe white supremacist turned Texas Governor in the history of that state, was always expected from him in Mexico and it was a long time coming. We Mexicans always knew what he stood for, even before he got elected, and it is to be assumed that Texans knew the same, so when Texas voted for him turning Greg Abbott into the Governor of the biggest state of the Union, they voted for his points of view and his white supremacist neo Nazi ideology. This speaks volumes about the real attitude of Texans regarding their neighbors to the South. What white supremacist and anti-Mexican Greg Abbott is asking for is, in essence, a total rupture of all diplomatic relations with Mexico and the Mexican government. And when he does so, he is speaking on behalf of all Texans, not just those who voted for him, because being the Texas Governor he speaks for all Texas and all Texans. No more need be said regarding this fact.

I will not waste time here delving into the reasons of why and how Greg Abbott became such a hater of immigrants. Perhaps it is is an inheritance from a well guarded alliance with such hate groups as the KKK. Perhaps he was always a hidden neo Nazi waiting for the proper historical time to surface, and by golly this is the most proper historical time of them all to let such sentiments come out and flourish. What I do now is that after an accident that left him in a wheel chair, his anti-Christian attitudes grew by leaps and bounds, his hatred not just to Mexicans but to all mankind ballooned, and thus he became even worse than the Grinch. He became a cartoon of the man he once was, a caricature of himself downgraded to some of the worst levels of inhumanity. Why Texans voted for such a man is way beyond me, but it clearly shows that a majority of Texans share with him his anti Christian attitudes besides all the resentments he used to hide until he got elected. Does this mean that we Mexicans are all jumping with joy at the fact that this racist xenophobe became a crippled man after an improbable accident? No, that was his own personal tragedy which he never overcame. But his anti-Mexican hysteria made him mentally crippled long before his accident.

Those of us who live in Mexico take it directly as a personal offense the fierce anti-Mexico attitude of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who speaks on behalf of all the Texans who voted for him and who were clearly a majority. His comments and opinions against Mexicans are something for which no apology can ever be accepted, at least not on this Mexican side of the border.

One thing that now intrigues me is the following: now that Greg Abbott is calling for an end to all diplomatic relations between the USA and Mexico and is letting all his hatred towards Mexicans come out into the open, what does he plan to do with his wife, Cecilia Abbott, a lady with Hispanic origins? Is he getting ready to dump her and look instead for an all WASP (white Anglo Saxon and Protestant) woman who does not carry any Latino blood on her veins? At some time, Greg Abbott touted that “My wife is going to be the first Hispanic first lady in the history of Texas”. Well, that will no longer be necessary, now that a new era is about to begin in the USA coming January 20 2016. To dump her, or not to dump her, that is the question. Cecilia Abbott has always boasted of having devoted her life to serving others as a teacher, a vice-principal and principal at several Catholic schools across Texas. But let this be clear and let this be known to Mrs. Cecilia Abbott: the philosophy and attitudes displayed by all anti-Mexican white supremacists such as Greg Abbott are far away from the teachings of the Catholic Church. Indeed, it is impossible to support such points of view, even from a spouse, without coming into direct conflict with all the teachings of Jesus and the Catholic Church, and may even be a deadly sin.

The hatred towards Mexicans displayed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott is the same kind of hatred that was displayed by the first English speaking Anglo-Saxon immigrants who began to settle in Texas feigning a love to Mexico while they carried deep within them a hidden agenda of proclaiming the independence of Texas from Mexico with the further objective of making Texas join the United States. It was a takeover plan from the very beginning, and Mexico made a very big mistake in letting those would-be immigrants settle and prosper in Texas, such a generous open doors policy -which neither Greg Abbott nor Texas nor the USA for that matter is displaying towards Mexico or Mexicans- had a heavy price tag of Mexico losing Texas. In the end, chewing up Texas was not enough, and the US government acting as a bully stole from Mexico a lot more territory that included Arizona, New Mexico and California. And it would have chewed up more had it not been for the US Civil War.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm not the least worried if Texas Governor Greg Abbott decides to call the National Guard at this very moment and orders a total and complete shutdown of the Texas-Mexico border. Go ahead, Mister Abbott, what's keeping you from doing so? Seal the border completely! Let the entire world know what the new USA stands for! Let the thousands upon thousands of US businesses in Texas who have profited and keep on profiting from their Mexican customers go towards bankruptcy in a matter of weeks if not days! Destroy the Texas economy and keep on promoting the end of all diplomatic relations with Mexico! What are you waiting for, Mister Abbott? Surely that wheel chair is not an impediment for keeping you from doing such things.

Mexico is right now the third biggest trading partner of the USA on a country by country basis, and we Mexicans made another big historical mistake in relying for our trade and commerce in a country to our North that is poised right now to become ever more isolationist, turning itself into an unreliable trading partner. It is time for Mexico to look towards other more reliable -and less hateful of Mexicans- trading partners, looking towards countries such as China, the European Union, and even Latin American countries such as Brazil. All we need in Mexico is the right push and the reasons to do so and break off for good and forever with a country were Mexicans are so despised. And the call of the Texas Governor to terminate all diplomatic relations with Mexico and seal off completely and forever the border with Mexico may very well be just what the doctor ordered. Doctor Greg Abbott, that is. So what are you waiting for, Mister Abbott? You owe it to all those Texans who put you in the Governor's seat in the first place. Don't waste any more time putting your venom in Twitter. Just do it!

On final analysis, it is not Greg Abbott we should worry about in Mexico. It is all those Texans who voted for Greg Abbott and who by casting their vote for him have proven to Mexico and to all Mexicans that they share his points of view. Does this mean that Mexicans including those who travel as tourists are not welcomed in Texas, not even in the shopping stores and the Texas hotels and restaurants and tourist centers? If so, Mexican tourists should perhaps change their travelling plans and travel instead to some other countries were Mexicans are well received, countries such as Canada, Australia, Spain and New Zealand.

As far as I’m concerned, Greg Abbott is no different from the buckaroos that stole Texas from Mexico in 1836, a despicable gringo from whom it is advisable to stay as far away as possible even if he is confined to his wheel chair with all of his psychological traumas and handicaps and racist hatred. And I believe this is a point of view shared by many Mexicans.