Quality of Government and Poverty: Factors in Mexico Fueling Illegal Immigration to the United States: Lessons for Developing and Developed Nations based on the Chilean Experience

Abstract

The kidnaping, rape, mutilation, and murder of more than 400 women and girls in Juárez, Mexico since l993 expose the dismal weakness of all the institutions responsible for criminal investigation, prosecution, prevention, and justice. If the inept handling of the femicides were confined to Juárez, that would be tragic enough. However, the 2007 report of Amnesty International suggests that this is a national situation, with implications for Mexican poverty and the pressure to illegally migrate. A theory of national poverty (political elasticity theory) is put forward to link injustice in Juárez to Mexican poverty and illegal immigration, suggesting that Mexico is politically inelastic, without the capacity to effectively decentralize (like a rubber band) and to influence and control national behavior (like a balloon). Corruption is therefore uncontrollable (i.e., secondary in nature) and forms of decentralization cannot be used to facilitate business and rural development. At the conclusion, a comparison with Chile is made, indicating that, because it is far less corrupt than Mexico, its globalization efforts have been far more effective than those of Mexico in improving living conditions for the majority of its population.