The massacre earlier this week of 72 migrants in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas by the mafia organization known as the Zetas dramatically and tragically underscores at least four major points related to immigration policy and Mexican politics and society.
First, as long as there exists such a considerable disparity in wealth between the United States and the countries of Central America (from where an overwhelming majority of the murdered migrants originated) and Mexico, migration from Latin America to the United States will continue, regardless of the risks, personal and financial costs, and investment in security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Second, these deaths can be directly linked to the failure of President Obama and the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. This failure is due principally to the lack of desire among many Democrats (including President Obama) to prioritize reform combined with a near-universal intransigent attitude among Republicans regarding immigration reform. In particular, the presence of a substantial, and at the same time closely monitored, guest worker program — something which many Democrats and their union allies continue to oppose — would obviate the need for many of these migrants to pay smugglers what is for them a fortune (between $5,000 and $15,000), only to endure hardships and risk their lives on the perilous trip between Central America and the United States.
Third, this regrettable event highlights the utter failure of the Mexican state to protect the basic human rights of migrants passing through Mexican territory on their way to the United States. These migrants are regularly victimized by criminal gangs, corrupt police and common criminals, with the Mexican state turning a largely blind eye to their suffering. Mexican politicians who roundly criticize — often, but not always, with merit — the treatment of Mexican immigrants in the United States should spend substantially more energy practicing what they preach in their own country.
Fourth, the impunity with which criminal gangs such as the Zetas operate in many regions highlights the weakness of the Mexican state and raises the alarm over the gradual erosion of the capacity of the Mexican government to adequately control its territory and enforce the rule of law, especially along the U.S.-Mexican border. The societal need for the Mexican state to safeguard its citizenry has only grown over the past few years as the rising drug-related violence and increased involvement of the drug mafias in other illicit activities (e.g., extortion, kidnapping) has escalated.
Mark P. Jones is a Baker Institute Rice Scholar, the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.