All of a sudden, Mexico is warmly welcoming the ‘migrant’ caravan

American Thinker: The New York Times today has an interesting long piece about the Mexican government wheeling out the welcome wagon for the Honduran caravan migrants in a big volte face of policy. Since this is the Mexican government, the conclusions can be only cynical.

Here’s what the Times found:

Ever since the caravan crossed into Mexico three weeks ago, the country has faced a reckoning over the way it treats Central American migrants. Contradictory impulses are in play.

In Mexico City this week, doctors and dentists were on hand for free checkups, and children spent the mornings drawing and coloring. A mariachi band played after breakfast, young men sparred with retired boxers and, this being Mexico, masked wrestlers turned up for a lunchtime bout.

It wasn’t always this way. For decades, successive administrations used strong enforcement measures to control Mexico’s borders. The migrants tried to travel out of the sight of authorities, putting them out of mind of most Mexicans.

Now, Mexico City’s embrace of the caravan has thrown an opposing idea into sharp relief, an acknowledgment that the country’s asylum laws require the government to protect migrants, who are vulnerable to criminal gangs.

The Times goes at length to explore all the possible reasons for the strange shifting behavior of the Mexican government, which, through most of the 20th century, held a dour view of migration of its own nationals, even as it eventually came to view migration as a safety valve for its own potentially revolt-prone nationals, and a remittance bonanza. Not too long ago, Mexican presidents considered migrants traitors.

And as for Central Americans, Mexico had no trouble slapping them back and keeping them out. It didn’t permit immigration for decades, owing to its supposed interests in maintaining the country’s racial balance.

But Mexico is always a strictly self-interested country, it’s the only way to understand the place, and now we see two things:

First, they allowed the Honduran migrants to push their way in, opening the gates for future caravan migrations (which certainly got started, about three more of them), making Mexico a migrant highway. Then they with President Trump making noises and sending troops to the border, they tried to stop them. Witness the incident where the Mexican governor offered them all free buses to Mexico City and someone from that federal capital got him to stop.

At the time, I attributed it to President Trump’s resolve.

But things continue to shift.

Now Mexico is wheeling out the welcome wagon for the migrants, providing them with all manner of free stuff and attempting to harvest some free P.R. for it.

The Times speculates that the Mexicans don’t want the migrants taking the dangerous route to the Gulf states, even though it’s shorter. For the Mexicans, that could be a public relations problem, according to the sources quoted, because the latter is such a dangerous route. Already it’s been reported that 100 migrants have already been kidnapped in those parts for ransom. The migrants are not only good for money for traffickers, their kids are good for securing illegal entry on the hip of some illegal entrant, to be followed by catch and release. Either way, the kidnappers win, so one can surmise the Times is at least partly right that there will be a lot of kidnappings, so it might make sense to wheel out the Mexico City welcome wagon. Migrants in Mexico City have their choice of routes to el norte, and can pick any port of entry.  more here