Annex Mexico

Annex Mexico!

A radical statement? Colonialism? Maybe it’s both of these but please read on and see what you think about my reasoning.

One of the most pressing issues in the United States right now is illegal immigration. Actually, there is a plethora of issues that stem from this one. An email that is circulating now details the costs of many of the issues associated with illegal immigration; such as 11 to 22 billion dollars spent in welfare to illegal aliens yearly, 2.2 billion dollars spent on food assistance programs for illegal aliens and 200 billion dollars in suppressed wages caused by workers who illegal immigrated. The total annual expenditure caused by illegal immigration this email claims is 338.3 billion dollars.

Three of my four grandparents were legal immigrants and they told us all the time what a struggle it was to come here and start over again. Still they preferred it to the situations they left in Lithuania and the UK. Nobody gave them free medical care or any other handouts. Why aren't our lawmakers looking at improving the process of immigration?

Why don't we just annex Mexico and have done with it? Then everyone there would automatically be living in the United States and there'd be no reason to pay coyotes to smuggle them across the border. Our Southern border would shrink to 1,212 km instead of the current 3,141 km and we would gain some much-needed natural resources including under-developed oil reserves. Annexation would allow us to solve some problems besides the illegal immigration problem.

The extradition problem would go away immediately and it would be much easier to deal with the drug smugglers who bring their poison into the U.S. and then run back into Mexico to hide from the just punishments they deserve. Of course, we'd need to change our flag to reflect 31 more states and we'd need more than double our Coast Guard with 9.33 more kilometers of shoreline to patrol, but those would be minor considerations compared to what we would save and what we would gain.

Green card applications and the number of workers necessary to administer them would be greatly decreased. Our country would start garnering tax revenues from the billions of dollars spent by snowbirds who fly to Cozumel and Acapulco every winter. Of course, annexation would mean that we would only immediately save $245 billion of the $338.3 billion outlined below, but when you consider that all $245 billion saved would be taxable; the loss would be negligible compared to the gains.

Then there are the concerns of colonialism or downright imperialism. Of course, I’m not advocating annexation in the Nazi manner of just moving in militarily and then calling it an annexation of kindred peoples. Any annexation of Mexico by the United States would need to be a lawful and peaceful process requiring the full cooperation of both countries. The question I have is this: Has anyone even brought this up as a solution to the problems that exist between our country and Mexico? Why would that be so hard to do?
Would it be any stranger or more difficult than proposing a union of thirteen independent states that would eventually grow to 50? This union was formed to “establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” according to the Preamble to the Constitution. Why would it be difficult to bring up the idea of forming such a union with one of our neighbors?

The United States of America is the original home of outside-the-box thinking about government; what it is, how it should affect the lives of the citizens it governs and how the opinions of those citizens should affect the government. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we missed one of the most earth-shattering opportunities in history to apply that type of thinking?