On January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) withdrew from the European Union (EU).        

The United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since January 1, 1973.

The vote had been a long time coming—and a major reason for it lay in the unrestricted immigration—legal and illegal—of Central and Eastern Europeans, who are allowed by EU regulations to freely live and work in any member state.

The United Kingdom

So the United Kingdom decided it would no longer be an EU member state. 

Britons believed that migrants were clogging Britain’s health-care system and schools, while also depressing wages. By leaving the EU, Britons believed they could gain more control over their borders and drastically reduce immigration.

Immigration, the economy and health care had long been the top three issues on British voters’ minds.

The number of foreign-born people living in the UK went from 2.3 million in 1993 (when Britain joined the EU) to 8.2 million in 2014.

By 2020, the non-UK-born population was 9.5 million and the non-British population was 6.1 million. Most of these came from other EU countries: Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were the top three countries with the highest number of UK passport holders.   

Critics of Brexit have blamed xenophobia for Britain’s leaving the EU. While that may have been true, it ignores a vital truth: People feel most comfortable around others like themselves. 

In schools and prisons, it’s commonplace to see white sitting among whites, blacks sitting among blacks and Hispanics sitting among Hispanics.

In addition, people feel most comfortable among those who speak their own language. In the United States, there has been widespread resentment over having to “Push 1 for English” when calling government agencies.

Two factors are driving unprecedented levels of world migration: 

• The world’s population at 8.1 billion, which puts unprecedented stress on available food, housing, medical care and other essential services; and 
• The rapid escalation of climate change has brought drought/flooding to major parts of Africa, Asia and Latin and Central America.

Added to these must be an insight into human character offered by Niccolo Machiavelli, the sixteenth-century historian and political scientist, in his work, The Discourses: 

Niccolo Machiavelli 

It was a saying of ancient writers, that men afflict themselves in evil, and become weary of the good, and that both these dispositions produce the same effects. 

For when men are no longer obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition, which passion is so powerful in the hearts of men that it never leaves them, no matter to what height they may rise. 

The reason for this is that nature has created men so that they desire everything, but are unable to attain it.  Desire being thus always greater than the faculty of acquiring, discontent with what they have and dissatisfaction with themselves result from it. 

This causes the changes in their fortunes—for as some men desire to have more, while others fear to lose what they have, enmities and war are the consequences.  And this brings about the ruin of one province and the elevation of another.

In addition: Those who have spent their lives as law-abiding citizens resent it when immigrants—especially illegal aliens—gain advantage by breaking the law. 

Such a case occurred on January 1, 2024.

That was when California became the first state to offer health insurance to all illegal aliens. All of these uninvited foreigners, regardless of age, now qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes.

Previously, illegal aliens could receive only emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.

In 2015, then-Governor Jerry Brown allowed illegal alien children to receive coverage under Medi-Cal.

The final expansion starting January 1 will give full coverage to at least 700,000 illegal aliens who have no right to be in the country.

At the same time, about 3.2 million California citizens remained uninsured in 2022. 

Meanwhile, California faces a record $68 billion budget deficit. Tax collections are off by $26 billion,  combined with the economic slowdown California has been facing since 2022.

News stories announcing this taxpayers’ giveaway don’t refer to the recipients as “illegal aliens.” That’s because “illegal alien” is—for all its accuracy—Politically Incorrect. 

Instead, those who defend the wanton violating of American immigration laws prefer the term “undocumented immigrant.”

As though these lawbreakers had valid citizenship documents but somehow lost them during their swim across the Rio Grande.   

It’s entirely natural that those living in abject poverty—as millions do in Asia, Africa and Latin/Central America—want to escape it.

It’s also entirely natural that those who have escaped poverty want to hold on to all they have worked hard to attain.

The refusal of liberal politicians—in England, Italy, France, Germany and the United States—to accept these truths has led to the rise of authoritarian, Right-wing movements in those countries.

By refusing to address rising anger over such invasions, liberal politicians throughout the world are endangering the very democracies they cherish.

n May 20, 2010, Mexico’s then-President Felipe Calderon addressed a joint session of the United States Congress—and attacked a recently-enacted Arizona law that allowed law enforcement officials to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.       

According to Calderon, the law “introduces a terrible idea: using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement. 

“I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”

The hypocrisy of Calderon’s words was staggering. He was condemning the United States for doing what Mexico itself has long done: Strictly enforcing control of its own borders.

Felipe Calderon 

World Economic ForumCopyright by World Economic Forum / Photo by Remy Steinegger 

Mexico’s immigration laws state: Any foreigner that enters the country to stay less than six months is considered a visitor. To meet immigration requirements, you must: 

• Have enough money to pay for your stay in the country;
• Have an invitation from a private or public interest organization.   

If you want to stay more than 180 days, you must obtain a temporary residency visa in Mexico. This requires you to:

• Have a family relationship with a Mexican citizen.
• Have a job offer issued by a Mexican employer.
• Have an invitation from a private or public institution.
• Have enough money to pay for your stay in the country.
• Own real estate in Mexico.
• Have investments in Mexico.

After being a temporary resident for four years, you can apply for permanent residency.  To obtain this, you must meet these requirements:

• Be a refugee or under the condition of political asylum.
• Have a family relationship with a Mexican citizen.
• To have been a temporary resident for four years.
• Be a pensioner with enough monthly income to pay for your stay in the country.
• Be related in a straight line up to the second degree to a Mexican by birth.
• To have been a temporary resident for two years in the case of a conjugal or concubine relationship with a Mexican citizen or permanent resident.

Eight years after Calderon demanded that Americans repeal their immigration laws, Mexicans suddenly discovered they hated illegal aliens, too.

On October 13, 2018, a caravan of at least 5,000 men, women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras set out for the United States.

On October 18, President Donald Trump closed the U.S.-Mexico border to keep the caravan from entering the country.

By November 19, migrants had begun piling up in Tijuana, which borders San Diego.

Suddenly, Tijuana residents began carrying signs reading “No illegals,” “No to the invasion” and “Mexico First.” And marching in the streets wearing Mexico’s red, white and green national soccer jersey and vigorously waving Mexican flags. 

“We want the caravan to go; they are invading us,” said Patricia Reyes, a 62-year-old protester. “They should have come into Mexico correctly, legally, but they came in like animals.”  

The El Paso Times noted the resentment of many Mexicans toward the increasing numbers of Cuban illegal aliens in Juarez, which lies across from El Paso.

“They don’t get along with Mexican people,” said a burrito seller. “They get in a little group by themselves. A lot of people don’t like them here.”

And a business consultant complained, “There are people who are coming looking for a handout, who want us to help them, when they could also look for work.”

Over the weekend of October 12-13, 2019, a National Guard commander addressed his platoon before confronting the latest caravan: “No one will come to trample our country, our land!”

In the past, Mexicans comprised the largest group of illegal aliens entering the United States. But the Mexican economy has grown and developed to the point where fewer people see the need to emigrate. 

Most illegals are now mostly from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. And there are growing numbers from Haiti, Cuba, various African countries, and even the Middle East. 

During the first eight months of 2019, the number of asylum applications submitted to Mexico’s refugee agency (COMAR) more than tripled, compared to the same period in 2018. As a result, the refugee agency removed the how-to-apply video it once hosted on its website.

In the past, the Mexican Government refused to halt illegal immigration to the United States.

It remembered the bloody upheaval known as the Mexican Revolution. This lasted 10 years (1910-1920) and wiped out an estimated one to two million men, women and children. 

Massacres were common on all sides, with men shot by the hundreds in bullrings or hung by the dozen on trees.

A Mexican Revolution firing squad

All of the major leaders of the Revolution—Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Alvaro Obregon—died in a hail of bullets.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa

Emiliano Zapata

As a result, every successive Mexican Government lived in the shadow of another such wholesale bloodletting. These officials quietly decided to turn the United States border into a safety valve. 

* * * * *

No other nation has ever allowed itself to become a dumping ground for the world’s unwanteds. And no law—religious or secular—obligates the United States to do so.

Space is limited in schools, hospitals and housing, and the more people who cram into limited spaces, the more frictions they inevitably create.

As native-born Mexicans are angrily finding out.