Writing in the San Diego Union Tribune, Ruben Navarette explains how the Mexican economy and corruption are related to the U.S. immigration problem. After talking with a Mexican born, U.S. citizen, Navarette observes:

In Mexico, the elites take pride in the fact that Mexicans abroad send home nearly $20 billion a year. But for González, that figure is a national embarrassment – an advertisement of a government’s failure to provide sufficient opportunity for its own people.

So Navarette presses him:

Doesn’t Fox deserve credit for reaching out to Mexicans in the United States? Before Fox came along, these castaways had long been ignored by Mexico’s ruling elite. Not so fast, González said. If Fox really wanted to help the estimated 6 million to 8 million illegal immigrants from Mexico living in the United States, he said, the answer is to create jobs at home so that Mexicans don’t have to leave their country and families to search for work.

Mexicans are not your typical immigrants, it seems.

“We’re not here for the American Dream,” González said. “We’re here to survive.”

When Navarette asks him what he would do if he were Presidente for a day, panion sounds a lot like an Acton Institute grad:

(1) Tackle police corruption; people have no incentive to be productive if they’re constantly being fleeced and robbed by those who are supposed to protect them.

(2) Stop penalizing employers and small businesses; cutting licensing fees would panies to create more jobs and pay higher wages.

(3) Clean up the environment by panies that plunder natural resources and lay waste to the countryside and waterways.

Can we sign this guy up for one of our seminars?