Mexico was an authoritarian state and barely a top 10 United States trade partner. Now Mexico is a flourishing democracy. a partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement. and our No. 2 trade partner in the world. Over 300 million legal border crossings occur between the United States and Mexico each year. and trade across the border totals $650 million a day. Yet this relationship and our broader regional interests are jeopardized by this humanitarian crisis at the border and by the exploitation of immigrants within the United States. President Bush is traveling to Mexico this week. and the crisis of undocumented immigration. including the enormous strain it places on our partnership with Mexico. will be at the top of the agenda. And. of course. the 9/11 attacks remind us that undocumented immigration creates a crisis of insecurity. America spends billions of dollars tracking entries and exits at our ports of entry. but we have no idea about the identity of millions of immigrants already living among us. The vast majority of these undocumented immigrants are honest and hardworking. but our national security requires that we identify and monitor those who are not. We all agree that the time has come for Congress to act. but how shall we do so? Fundamentally. we must choose between two alternatives. Some would have us build higher and longer walls at the border. They would have us further restrict migrants legal rights and make these hardworking men and women not just subject to deportation but also do time in U.S. prisons for the crime of living and working in this country. They would go much further. actually making felons of people such as Cardinal Mahoney and tens of thousands of other clergy and social workers who are offering counseling or humanitarian support to undocumented immigrants. Yet the United States lacks the resources or the political will to actually remove all of the 11 million undocumented immigrants among us. Doing so would cost $240 billion. it would wreak havoc with our economy. and it would destroy millions of American families. Nor in a global economy do we truly have the desire or the capacity to build an impenetrable wall around ourselves. The idea that blunt enforcement will disrupt this deeply entrenched system of undocumented immigration flies in the face of history and economics. Rather. this enforcementonly approach would simply replicate the policy failures of the past. Down this road lie further undocumented immigration. further insecurity. further economic polarization. and further exploitation of the poorest and most vulnerable among us. I must say. on the issue of the wall. all we have to do is look at our recent history. We have spent $20 billion over the last 10 years.
Identified stereotypes
The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are honest and hardworking, but some pose a security threat.