Writing for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), George W. Grayson, a Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary, reports on how well the corrupt Mexican elite pays itself while they demand that the American people pay for the backwardness of Mexico.

• President Vicente Fox ($236,693) makes more than the leaders of France ($95,658), the U.K. ($211,434), and Canada ($75,582).
• Although they are in session only a few months a year, Mexican deputies take home at least $148,000—substantially more than their counterparts in France ($78,000), Germany ($105,000), and congressmen throughout Latin America.
• At the end of the three-year term, Mexican deputies voted themselves a $28,000 "leaving-office bonus."
• Members of the 32 state legislatures ($60,632) earn on average twice the amount earned by U.S. state legislators ($28,261). The salaries and bonuses of the lawmakers in Baja California ($158,149), Guerrero ($129,630), and Guanajuato ($111,358) exceed the salaries of legislators in California ($110,880), the District of Columbia ($92,500), Michigan ($79,650), and New York ($79,500).
• Members of the city council of Saltillo, San Luis Potosí, not only received a salary of $52,778 in 2005, but they awarded themselves a $20,556 end-of-year bonus.
• Average salaries (plus Christmas stipends known as aguinaldos) place the average compensation of Mexican state executives at $125,759, which exceeds by almost $10,000 the mean earnings of their U.S. counterparts ($115,778). On average, governors received aguinaldos of $14,346 in 2005—a year when 60 percent of Mexicans received no year-end bonuses.

It is noteworthy that the Bush clan has many friends in Mexico's corrupt elite. George W. Bush looks at Mexico's elite and sees kindred spirits.

Returning to the CIS report, Mexico's elite pays itself handsomely while investing little in the education of its people and expecting the American people to pay for the failures of Mexico.

These same politicians turn a blind eye to the fact that, when petroleum earnings are excluded, Mexico collects taxes equivalent to 9.7 percent of GDP—a figure on par with Haiti. In addition, the policy makers (1) spend painfully little on education and health-care programs crucial to spurring social mobility and job opportunities, (2) acquiesce in barriers to opening businesses in their country, and (3) profit from a level of corruption that would have made a Tammany Hall precinct captain blush — with $11.2 billion flowing to lawmakers in 2004 alone.

Many Mexican officials enjoy princely lifestyles, while expecting the United States to solve their social problems by allowing the border to serve as a safety-valve for job seekers.

We should separate and isolate ourselves from Mexico. Otherwise America's racial hierarchy will increasingly come to resemble Mexico's.

Mexico is a very corrupt place.

Corruption. A study by the highly respected Private Sector Center for Economic Studies (Centro de Estudios Económicos del Sector Privado) estimates that 34 percent of businesses made "extra-official" payments to legislators and bureaucrats totaling $11.2 billion in 2004.26 In a similar vein, Transparency International (TI) ranked Mexico as tied for sixty-fifth to sixty-ninth place among 158 countries surveyed for corruption. TI found Mexico to be even more corrupt than nations like South Korea, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil.

The United States should build a large wall with Mexico, not only to keep out Mexican immigrants but also to separate the United States from such a corrupt and backward society. We should also stop voting for the Bush dynasty. The Bush ties with corrupt Mexicans and George W. Bush's ambitions to merge the United States with Latin America are reason enough to put an end to the careers of the Bushes as politicians in America. We deserve better.