Mexico’s Border Betrayal
How Aiding and Abetting with Mass Migration Created Its Own Humanitarian Collapse
It didn’t have to be this way. The camps. The kidnappings. The exploitation. The aid cuts. The headlines detailed women’s screams in the jungle and children lost at sea. These tragic events are often framed as fallout from U.S. immigration policy, particularly under President Donald Trump’s administration. But that analysis overlooks a glaring truth: Mexico is not an innocent bystander in this crisis—it is a co-conspirator.
Crisis of Mexico’s Own Making
By failing to enforce its own southern border, by allowing thousands, more than likely millions to flood through from Guatemala and beyond, and by participating in soft agreements that enabled mass caravans toward the United States, Mexico invited this humanitarian disaster upon itself. The suffering now engulfing Tapachula, Mexico City, and its northern borders is not an accidental byproduct—it is the direct result of a decision to abandon sovereignty in favor of appeasement, ideology, and tacit coordination with mass migration efforts.
Mexico’s Open Door Was Never Neutral
At the heart of the crisis is a moral inversion: Mexico allowed foreign nationals to traverse its territory under the pretense of humanitarian compassion while making no serious attempt to enforce its immigration laws. It opened its borders to hundreds of thousands from Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Venezuela, and as far as India and China—not to resettle them, but to facilitate their movement toward the United States.
That’s not neutrality. That’s strategic collusion.
And Yet—The United States Screamed Warnings for Four Years
To be clear: the migrant crisis was not born under Trump. It was magnified and militarized under the Biden Administration, whose policies—by design—opened the floodgates to every sort of illegal alien, from economic migrants to traffickers and cartel-linked individuals. The border wasn’t just neglected. It was strategically dismantled. Entire federal systems were turned into conveyor belts of entry, not gates of defense.
This was not theoretical. It was televised. It was debated. It was condemned—loudly and consistently by the U.S. Conservative movement, whose cries and concerns were broadcast across international media, congressional hearings, community town halls, and border state press conferences.
The entire world saw it coming. And yet, Mexico did nothing.
Despite the chaos spilling over the Rio Grande, despite the massive increase in irregular crossings, and the cries of U.S. governors declaring states of emergency, Mexico refused to adopt, enforce, or take accountability for the crisis it was helping to manage, facilitate, and expand. The number of violent gang members as well as other evil perpetrators of illegal entry to the US created rape, sexual assault, murder, robbery, and theft that could have been avoided if there wasn’t complicity. Economic costs are only a part of the issue on both sides, but the Biden Administration as well as the complicity of Mexican leadership are now paying the price of this invasion.
Some hint that the coyotes, the human traffickers that profited by getting illegals to the US Southern Border are linked, and controlling the government of Mexico and other countries supporting this catastrophe.
It is no longer acceptable to blame the resulting suffering solely on American deterrence. What we are witnessing is Mexico paying the cost for its willful abdication of national responsibility. Every migrant in limbo in Tapachula, every woman violated in the Darién Gap, and every orphan on the street in Tuxtla Gutierrez is a life affected by a government that opened a door without preparing for the flood—and now wants sympathy for drowning in its basement.
The CBP One App Was Never a Solution—And Its Shutdown Is Irrelevant
Much has been made of the CBP One app, the legal pathway used by nearly a million migrants to schedule entry into the United States. Critics of Trump point to its shutdown as a catalyst for the current crisis. But this argument collapses on inspection.
The app was a band-aid applied to a massive bullet wound bleed. It did not prevent illegal crossings –it organized them. It did not relieve Mexico of its duties—it incentivized passivity. And when it was inevitably shut down, Mexico had no backup plan, no infrastructure, and no policy muscle to respond. Why? Because it had already handed over its migration strategy to American political cycles.
Mexico’s current turmoil isn’t due to CBP One’s termination. It’s due to Mexico relying on a foreign app instead of a national border.
Self-Inflicted Suffering: Predictable, Preventable, and Political
Let’s be clear: The migrant crisis engulfing Mexico is real, brutal, and heartrending. The sexual violence, the mental trauma, the destitution—these are all documented. But these tragedies are not merely “side effects” of American policies—they are self-inflicted wounds caused by Mexico’s failure to:
- Enforce its southern border with Guatemala.
- Dismantle illegal transit networks instead of turning a blind eye.
- Reject the narrative that it’s just a “transit country” with no responsibility.
- Develop and implement a sustainable national migration policy.
- Refuse participation in public relations theater with the United Nations or global NGOs that push ideological open-border frameworks without offering durable resettlement options.
Mexico chose political expedience over national coherence. And now, the people suffer. Not just the migrants. The Mexican citizens of Chiapas and Oaxaca, whose communities have been destabilized. The Mexican police, forced into violent confrontations. The cities stretched to their economic and social breaking points.
This is what the abdication of sovereign enforcement looks like. And it is not noble—it is negligent.
Cartels, Corruption, and the Consequences of Complicity
The report highlights how migrants are routinely kidnapped and extorted by cartels. It also describes how local police routinely abuse them. These are not isolated incidents; they are systemic symptoms of a state that let the wolves in through the front gate of the entire farm.
Every time a migrant is ransomed, raped, or robbed; it is a reminder that Mexico’s permissiveness fed criminal ecosystems. It handed human lives over to organized crime by creating a pipeline with no guardrails. Now, with foreign aid drying up and NGOs retreating, the vacuum is being filled by those most willing to profit from despair.
This is not a crisis of resources—it’s a crisis of responsibility.
The Fantasy of Repatriation and the Cost of Naivety
Mexico now finds itself in a surreal position: attempting to organize repatriation programs for people it never should have let in. Programs like the Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) run by the International Organization for Migration sound nice in theory. But the reality is that most migrants are undocumented, impoverished, and unwilling to return—either for fear of persecution or lack of options.
Mexico can’t even get its consular coordination to work, let alone enforce border policy for others. As aired reports illustrate, discrimination against non-Spanish speakers, the absence of translators, and bureaucratic chaos make resettlement nearly impossible. The result is a legally and morally unsustainable status quo: thousands of stateless individuals, all trapped in the country that invited them in but cannot now protect or process them.
The Moral Clarity of Borders
Here’s what the global commentariat won’t say: borders are not just lines on maps—they are moral boundaries. When a nation refuses to enforce them, it doesn’t just lose control over territory—it loses the ability to care for people properly. No nation can serve as a corridor and a caretaker simultaneously. Mexico tried—and failed.
Trump’s policies may be politically polarizing, but they sent a clear message: national security begins at national borders. Mexico sent the opposite message—and now faces a human catastrophe of its design.
To Mexico: The Bill Has Come Due
It’s time for Mexico to stop pretending it is merely a “victim of Trump” and start reckoning with its complicity in the chaos. It is not noble to let people flood through jungles, deserts, and cartel checkpoints with no plan and no promise. It is not humanitarian to facilitate human trafficking with a wink and a nod.
Mexico’s open-door policy was not compassionate. It was cowardly. And now, having enabled the migration surge, it must confront the consequences: overwhelmed shelters, cartel violence, destroyed families, economic strain, and international embarrassment.
This is not America’s fault. This is not CBP One’s fault. This is Mexico’s fault.
Despite the chaos spilling over the Rio Grande, despite the massive increase in irregular crossings, and the cries of U.S. governors declaring states of emergency, Mexico refused to adopt, enforce, or take accountability for the crisis it was helping to manage, facilitate, and expand.
To Mexico: The Bill Has Come Due
Mexico’s open-door policy was not compassionate. It was cowardly. And now, having enabled the migration surge, it must confront the consequences: overwhelmed shelters, cartel violence, destroyed families, economic strain, and international embarrassment.
This is not America’s fault. This is not CBP One’s fault.
This is Mexico’s fault—and the Biden Administration’s strategy of national self-destruction only made it worse.
Image Credit: The Guardian
Opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect any on this platform
