US Kids Get No Status in Mexico -- Lesson for Immigration Reform

http://news.yahoo.com/us-born-kids-migrants-lose-rights-mexico-163418022.html

I cannot think of a more blatant, insulting, and inhumane hypocrisy than the Mexican federal government's refusal to recognize the legal status of children born in the United States to Mexican national who entered the country without receiving naturalization.

The Mexican government has imposed harsh restrictions on residents who wish to use state services, like enrolling one's children in school. Parents who wish to enroll their children in a local public school actually have to show proof of citizenship!

Yet when the state of Alabama enforced a similar law on its public schools, politicians and pundits on both sides of the border cried foul!

The terrible limbo of undetermined legal status for young children -- born in one country to illegal parents, who then return to the parents' country of origin and do not receive the same legal protections as the parents -- should be enough to discourage our lawmakers from enabling anyone from coming the United States without first earning citizenship.

Children do not deserve to be served up in this over-heated political process, in which embattled incumbents like Barack Obama and Jerry Brown want to offer an easy sop to one interest group, only to harm the same group of people and their children in the long run.

This country needs serious, comprehensive leadership that will stand up to emotional civil rights activists, business conglomerates, without resorting to hyperpartisan race-baiting and ethnic discouragement, and provide a comprehensive plan which will discourage illegal immigration while streamlining the naturalization process.

An executive who will pressure Mexico to relax its sclerotic rules regarding citizenship and demand the liberalization of markets and the concerted limitation of state power is also warranted. No Mexican president has the authority to lecture the citizens and state of the United States of America for taking a humane yet sensible approach to illegal immigration.