[JohnConnor]

I have been considering the unfortunately worsening situation in Mexico and began to consider, will peak oil (I consider that is has happened already in 2008) hasten a mass migration (combined with a medium grade civil war/insurgency) from Mexico to the Southwestern US and then further north or prevent it by making what is in large areas a particularly inhospitable region for large populations without abundant energy and mobility?

[mos6507]

I suspect mexicans will see the US as the lesser of two evils despite water shortages and a tanking US economy. I expect them to push ever northwards rather than stay contained in the southwest as the situation degrades there, forcing regions that didn't really have to worry about immigration before to decide which side of the fence they're going to be on. Some new england states for instance have had the luxury of enacting safe-haven policies. If they were actually flooded with mexican illegals with all the attendant problems you see in southern california they might regret having been so politically correct.

[JohnConnor]

Quite possible and probably the truth - settlers and native americans crossed willingly and unwillingly by foot and horseback and proved it can be done, difficult and no fun but it can be done. The powers that be are already planning for this (National Response Plan DISTANT SHORES) but from the sidelines I have started thinking what will precipitate this? I consider it (a mass migration from Mexico to the US) inevitable and so I consider what should be our response or planning for it?

One quick reaction is to just close the border, allow chaos to reign down south and spend the next 100 years next to smoldering failed state, not a good idea in my mind...

Or behind door number two is to filter and control the flow of migration to sparsely populated areas of the US & Canada (dakotas-wyoming-montanna-manitoba-saskatchewan-etc.) and allowing Mexico and Central America to adjust to an era of low energy and low population carrying capacity and therefore keep those nation-states far more stable

My fear is that option 2 would be construed as surrender or weakness and would never be enacted

[Ludi]

Oklahoma has a law working its way through the channels that makes english the official language, no more bi-lingual crap.

That wouldn't work here in TX.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oaZAtC6cjI


Personally, I'm not askeered of the Mexicans. They look just like my neighbors up the road.

[JohnConnor]

Possible...as Cantarell depletes this theory and the ability of the US to absorb the oncoming mass exodus from Mexico will be tested...

http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2326.cfm

I wonder if the Europeans have planned for this from the Middle East or Africa? Mass migration from formerly wealthy nations or old colonies...

[AgentR]

That wouldn't work here in TX.

Some might argue that we don't speak English particularly well down here to begin with!

Why are people so asceered of multi-lingual people anyway?

[JohnConnor]

Not scared of muliti-lingual people, I'm just scared of 100,000 people crossing the border fleeing a civil war/anarchy and then the next day another 100,000 then another 100,000 etc...

[eastbay]

That wouldn't work here in TX.

Some might argue that we don't speak English particularly well down here to begin with!

Why are people so asceered of multi-lingual people anyway?

Few are. It's the immense and wasteful cost of performing all levels of government and business in two or more languages. In the coming era of forced fiscal restraint it's an easy common sense place to conduct budget cuts.

[ReverseEngineer]

Population pressures are population pressures. People will migrate for opportunity elsewhere if there is no opportunity for survival where they are. You cannot stop this with a fence on the Tex-Mex border. They'll migrate by Kayak around the fence. You can't put enough Coast Guard boats out in the water to stop that.

Thing is, Texas doesn't provide a whole lot more opportunity for survival in the coming years than Mexico does. Water table depleted, drought evident and wildfires all over the place. I wouldn't worry a whole lot about the Mexicans migrating up over the border. You'll have a lot more problems with local US citizens currently in cities who will be migrating out of them looking for a place to live. Poor Americans aren't any different than poor Mexicans, and believe you me, we have PLENTY of poor Americans, and a few more every day.

WHY care about this immigration thing? Its just people looking for a place to live. You want one, right? When they come a knocking in YOUR neighborhood, its you against them of course. We are all here fighting for our own little piece of the earth. They have as much right to the piece you live on as you do. If you can defend it, you'll keep it. If you can't defend it, you will lose it. The piece of paper that Da Goobermint gave you telling you that you "own" the land so long as you pay your taxes is meaningless drivel. You don't own that land any more than anyone else does. You only get to USE the land so long as you can keep control over it. Nobody owns the land. Its the bequest to ALL people as the top of the food chain species on earth. Its up to all people to steward the resource well, and not over burden it with too many people. Do that, the other species you depend on have no room to live.

The immigration issue is a Red Herring. We will soon enough be in just as desperate straights as the Mexicans. You have a lot more to worry about from everybody directly surrounding you than from the Mexicans who manage to Kayak their way here in the future. You either have Friends surrounding you on your Doomstead, or you have Enemies. Make some friends, even if they are Mexicans it will help you.

Reverse Engineer

[AgentR]

Few are. It's the immense and wasteful cost of performing all levels of government and business in two or more languages. In the coming era of forced fiscal restraint it's an easy common sense place to conduct budget cuts.

It'd be more of a waste telling people they couldn't conduct business in Spanish; not like there is any shortage here of people that can speak some butchered version of Spanish. My only complaint is that the schools don't teach it with as much enthusiasm as I'd like. The answer isn't to bury your head in the sand, the answer is to ensure that everyone ends up with some basic communication skills in both English and Spanish.

[stu]

I think America and the whole region will take massive action to ensure the stability of Mexico. It's tipped to become one of the top 10 economies in the world so I'm sure there will be all sorts of efforts to stabilize it, starting with taking on the drug cartels.

Not that these actions are destined to work of course.

[RedStateGreen]

Interesting comment which was left on Dmitry Orlov's blog (can't link directly to the comment, but just scroll down some, it's there):

Living SOTB and having/talking with many Mexican friends, they are more of an integrated society and are quite aware that if, as a group, they decide to leave the states in dismay and protest, the entire nation will be knocked to its knees over the issue of food (let alone gardening and house-cleaning). It could happen. Contrary to propaganda, Mexico's five internal wars brought about a situation where for all its touted poverty, most families still have some land and agriculture free and clear with a 365 growing season. They are not going to run by the million north of the border for starvation, because there's hardly a Mexican alive who doesn't realize the vast quantity of US-destined food grown south of the border. They will head south in search of food in a pinch, believe it.

The really grim aspect is all the guns, which are particularly common out west - something that this born Montanan observes a lot of more genteel eastern people do not realize. My husband grew up in St. Paul, and never saw a gun until Nam. No one had them among family/friends. On the contrary, where I'm from, children are shooting even before the diapers come off. MT has the distinction of some six firearms/person statewide, and in AZ, NM and across the southwest guns are just as common (they consider shooting "sport").

Back to the 98.5% of US people who are not doing any agriculture, but depending on another race/nationality of people to do that for them... the minute the firearms break out, the nation is going to learn what harm was done by eliminating most railroad service, because truckers will not be sufficiently armored to pass through a line of fire. And they won't, either, should internal war break out. And unfortunately an enormous portion of US food passes from the south upward, right through the region where the most guns are concentrated.

Once the trucking stops, there goes food, and a whole lot more. Then all the none-farmers do what? Head to the Walmart to shoot it out for the dregs?

As soon as it comes to that, trust me, every Mexican will be tearing southward to home. Not only that, few realize that entire crops are now rotting on the trees due to so many illegals already having returned. We notice this, our neighbors are streaming back here, and people guess that half the illegals are back already. Mind you, it's not the scions of the Spanish who pick the fruit for the most part. That is mostly "Indian" work. Ahem.

The combination of so many guns and so few railroads (they would be better armored, and perhaps engineers would brave what truckers certainly would not) makes for a very dire situation in a nation of people who do not know squat all about producing food.

If there's a moral to the story on this side of "maybe," it's that the "faith in technology" has perhaps fostered a total illusion of democracy, for when a nation subsists on the ag labors of a disenfranchised class (never mind that the US took half their country) and effectually expatriates agriculture, you end up with something like "the Truman show" for a nation. They are living in a bubble, out of touch.

I see the states as extremely fragile. And I haven't even started ranting about the gummnt's power to shut off electricity to break up internal strife, and what it's going to be like when water doesn't run, sewage doesn't flow, and the freezing weather sets in.

It will not end in a healthy way. And it is uniquely capable of ending in days.

[rangerone314]

I wouldn't worry a whole lot about the Mexicans migrating up over the border. You'll have a lot more problems with local US citizens currently in cities who will be migrating out of them looking for a place to live. Poor Americans aren't any different than poor Mexicans, and believe you me, we have PLENTY of poor Americans, and a few more every day.

You either have Friends surrounding you on your Doomstead, or you have Enemies. Make some friends, even if they are Mexicans it will help you.
Reverse Engineer

Irridentism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irridentism) is a problem that we in the US do not need on top of everything else. When push comes to shove, tribal loyalties tend to overide other considerations. We saw this in Bosnia; we even saw a little of this with Katrina. How about Kosovo? The Romans let Visigoth refugees into their territory; that had a real good outcome - NOT!

Allowing massive immigration, legal or illegal is basically surrendering without firing a shot.

[Ludi]

Allowing massive immigration, legal or illegal is basically surrendering without firing a shot.

I reckon if everyone starts shooting at Mexicans, they will go back to Mexico. Kind of tough on the "Mexicans" who have lived in the Southwest since this region was part of Mexico.

[eastbay]

Allowing massive immigration, legal or illegal is basically surrendering without firing a shot.

I reckon if everyone starts shooting at Mexicans, they will go back to Mexico. Kind of tough on the "Mexicans" who have lived in the Southwest since this region was part of Mexico.

I suspect none of the few living here then are still alive.

[Ludi]

I suspect none of the few living here then are still alive.

Yeah, well, you probably guessed I mean their families have lived here since then.

[eastbay]

I suspect none of the few living here then are still alive.

Yeah, well, you probably guessed I mean their families have lived here since then.

Of course...

But even still, I bet nearly all of the Mexicans here now are other than the descendants of the few tens of thousands once residing in the other-than-California 1800's land acquisitions. Plus, they became Americans the really fast way!

[Ludi]

But even still, I bet nearly all of the Mexicans here now are other than the descendants of the few tens of thousands once residing in the other-than-California 1800's land acquisitions. Plus, they became Americans the really fast way!

Maybe, but several of the families here in TX are descended from the folks who lived here prior to the acquisition of Texas by the US, though many Mexicans were driven over the new border before, during, and after the war. So if not "hundreds" of years, then "hundred + of years" anyway.

[ReverseEngineer]

The Romans let Visigoth refugees into their territory; that had a real good outcome - NOT!

It was good for the Visigoths. In any event, the Romans fell apart from internal rot. This would be different from the US how? Of course somebody can walk in once you can't pay an army to defend "your" rights to "your" land. I just love all these anti-Big Goobermint people who are for the Big Goobermint to protect them from the Mexicans. Laughable.

Reverse Engineer

[rangerone314]

The Romans let Visigoth refugees into their territory; that had a real good outcome - NOT!

It was good for the Visigoths. In any event, the Romans fell apart from internal rot. This would be different from the US how? Of course somebody can walk in once you can't pay an army to defend "your" rights to "your" land. I just love all these anti-Big Goobermint people who are for the Big Goobermint to protect them from the Mexicans. Laughable.

Reverse Engineer

I suppose if large #'s of Americans took up arms to drive them out and battle the drug runners with automatic weapons, that the Big Gov't people would be siding with the Mexicans and the drug runners since that would be the PC-thing to do. That is actually what would be laughable. The government for example, gets much more outraged by vigilantism than by crime since that is a challenge to their authority.