Mexico Won't Pay for the Wall

The reactionary white contingent in the United States has become braver with the recent arrival of one of their “own” in the White House. And at this point it has become clear that to underestimate Trump is an error. For Trump and his followers, Mexicans are to blame for most of the ills in the U.S. Undocumented workers are treated like the lowest of the low and the New York billionaire like an honest worker.

In these times of darkness for immigrants and refugees, undocumented workers, who are disparaged by all sides, are experiencing an extra dose of stress. Trump is clarifying the unclear future of undocumented workers by bringing the threat of deportation to the forefront. With the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, the attacks against immigrants, Muslims, women, and minorities have just begun.

The United States creates immigrants and refugees in other countries and then blocks their entry into this country. In the end, it is not Mexico who will pay for the wall, but undocumented immigrants and the 50 million poor citizens who live in Mexico.

If the corrupt government of Mexico hasn’t been able to defend its undocumented people for dozens of years, if it hasn’t been able to use its own resources to become self sufficient, if it hasn’t been able to create living wage jobs for its own citizens, what makes us think it will do so now? Mexico should have stopped looking to the North, should have stopped trying to emulate or depend on the North, should have stopped trying to satisfy imperialism a long time ago.

In Mexico it is said that Trump is making national security more vulnerable, but in reality it is the corrupt Mexican government that has made its own national security more vulnerable through their ruthless capitalism.
Trump will find a strong rival in Mexico—not within the Mexican government, but within the organized and united Mexican community. He will encounter this rival in the very streets of the United States, when Mexicans, along with their American brothers and sisters, take to the streets to send a strong message of defiance to the Trump administration.

With his attacks against human rights and dignity, Trump has ignited the spark of rebellion within sectors of the population that have never attended a protest, march or rally and who now feel that their basic human rights are being threatened. Within days of taking the presidency, marches are beginning to break records with their attendance across the nation.


Mexico should stop trying to placate its imperial neighbor as it has done in the past. The resistance of the North American people has just begun. The resistance will be on both sides of the border and at the same time beyond it. Undocumented immigrants are not alone. They are supported by the most conscious and militant layers of the working class in the United States.

>> The article above was written by Marco Davila, and is reprinted from Socialist Action.