TEAMING UP AS NEIGHBORS
The border between Mexico and Arizona is a guiding thread connecting our peoples. The concept of a wall is nonsense.
From 1979 until 2007, residents of both Nacos, in Sonora and in Arizona, gathered along the MexicoU.S. border for volleyball matches, using the fence dividing the two countries as a net.
The losing team had to host a party on its side of the border. A higher fence precluded the matches from continuing, but the camaraderie and the long-lasting bonds uniting border towns remain strong.
Just as the ball used to jump back and forth between Mexico and the United States, goods and people continue crossing non-stop, perpetuating economic growth and understanding. The border between us is indeed a guiding thread that connects our peoples.
Throughout the 375-mile line and 10 border crossings between Mexico and the Grand Canyon state, people coexist and do business together in different fashions.
The value of their bilateral trade surpasses $15 billion annually, while nearly 90,000 jobs in Arizona depend on trade with Mexico. That number equals to filling — one and a half times — the University of Phoenix Stadium. Every day, approximately 65,000 Mexicans travel legally to Arizona for business or pleasure.
Most are day-trip visitors, and close to 90 percent cite shopping as the main reason to visit, spending $7.3 million a day and sustaining almost 24,000 direct and more than 160,000 indirect jobs. Mexican visitors are the main source of revenue for Arizona’s hospitality industry, representing 70 percent of tourists visiting Arizona each year.
I have had the honor of serving Mexico as secretary of foreign affairs, of social development, of energy and of finance. In these capacities, I visited the border on multiple occasions. Every visit reminded me of the importance of further promoting the border as a fertile area for even greater and brighter opportunities.
On Sunday, two divergent projects on the type of Mexico we want for the next 25 years will be decided during a historic presidential election: An even more
open Mexico — which I have been championing on the campaign trail — or a closed, inward-looking one that does not grasp the depth and breadth of integration forces that can greatly benefit both nations.
I believe that the essence of the Mexico-U.S. relationship is precisely to defy borders. More walls are not only nonsense, but futile. My vision for Mexico aims at further integration of North America, particularly when dystopian views of the world seem to prevail. And so, trade and security must shape a 21st century alliance where one does not hamper the other.
We can tackle our common challenges with greater success if we work together, sharing responsibilities and commitments. The more we cooperate along the border in security, the stronger both of our countries will become against external threats.
First, we need to curb the trafficking of firearms. Approximately 57,000 gun shows exist in the United States, of which more than 9,000 take place in the four states bordering Mexico.
These are the main source of the illegal arms ending up in the wrong hands in Mexico. Transnational organized crime operating in Mexico possesses between half a million to 1.5 million arms.
To effectively tackle violence and organized crime in both countries, we need to use nonintrusive, stateof-the art technology to inspect, for example, private vehicles, which are the regular means for gun smuggling. More than a physical wall, I will develop a technology-enabled barrier screening of all light vehicles that would not interrupt the orderly flow of people and trade.
Second, we need better, stricter laws to seize dirty money. In the last three years, over $43.6 million in cash were detected, of which 70 percent was seized at the border.
Although my opponent will give amnesty to criminals, I am crafting policies that would reform the forfeiture law, for instance, to better go after the financial structures of organized crime. As of today, forfeiture results from a criminal responsibility process. So to seize organized crime’s wealth, the government has to prove that it is the byproduct of a crime.
If I’m elected, the forfeiture law would become a more effective mechanism to combat crime given the standard will be on people to prove that their assets were legally obtained.
Together, we can build an impervious system in which arms and dirty money become the exception, rather than the norm. Together, we can continue making our communities safer and the “Ari-Son” trade corridor a prosperous megaregion.
As president of Mexico, I will make sure that technology becomes our best-used, too, so Mexico and Arizona can continue defying borders together.