when will people get the idea that not all illegal immigrants are mexican. and that not all of them are from south of the border. However this is true. helping third world countries would be good. And it would allow buisness to grow as well.

Propose Mexico to build a 20 miles buffer zone all along the border and allow American businesses to establish industrial free zones.

If they can feed their children at home they are likely to stay in Mexico.

this is the only idea on this list that makes sense. you dont fight a monster be being a monster.

If Mexico's economy improved, the incentive to come here would be reduced, perhaps eliminated. And a healthy Mexican economy would buy our products and services. Updating to respond to various posts: Tbonya - I believe that Mexico's is the 9th largest economy, not 9th best. "Better" implies a higher standard of living for the average worker. To clarify, I'm not just talking about "aid." I'm talking about a Marshal plan in which there is international participation in developing Mexico's infrastructure. The construction of a rail system. Utilities. Schooling. Yes, there is corruption, and we support it rather than the reformers. We support the controlling faction for two simple reasons: 1. We have a lot of companies who make big bucks down there (thanks in part to NAFTA which hasn't done anybody any good) and we don't want to burn bridges. 2. The reformers are mostly leftists demanding land reform and checks on the activities of multinational corporations, and push diversification of local economies. And anybody who thinks Mexico is benefitting from the trade agreements, read this article about Mexico's last bicycle tire plant, shut down because hard as it is to believe Mexico's labor is too expensive now to compete with China - which offers the multinational corporation everything from cheap labor without environmental regulation, and repression against anybody who might organize against the order of things in any way. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=203 Here's an excerpt: "For the past twenty years, Mexico has been the premier model of neoliberal reform. The size of government has been reduced and public enterprises privatized; social benefits of all kinds have been slashed, and the country has been opened up to foreign investment with few if any restrictions. For two decades, the national economic strategy has boiled down to one thought: make the country more attractive to foreign investors. Indeed, Mexico has signed more free trade agreements than any other country in the world. During this period, successive presidents have promised the populace that temporary sacrifice would lead to long-term prosperity. For a number of years following the adoption of NAFTA, the country indeed became a magnet for foreign capital, and employment in export-producing maquiladoras grew rapidly. Only ten years after signing that treaty, however, the countrys fortunes have reversed. Despite every effort to attract foreign capital with low wages and little regulation, Mexico now finds itself overpriced in the world market. Even in the maquiladora factories of the border zone, Mexican workers make $1.50-$2.00 per hoursignificantly above the Chinese minimum of 25 cents per hour. The same free trade policies that once promised an influx of export-related jobs now serve as an open door through which the manufacturing base can drain away to lower-wage locales." NAFTA is basically a scam to allow corporations to evade the ravages of democracy. Updating again: If I sound miffed, once again, this whole issue is 90 percent inspired by pols who benefit from scapegoating. These are people, with warm blood, motivated by the same things that motivate the rest of us - they want to keep their children warm and fed and they have hope. Start from that premise, then focus policy around it. One last update: South America's economies have improved dramatically having abandoned the failed IMF guidelines and diversified their economies, and nearly all of them have elected European style social democratic governments. They are talking a South American Union. They've all had brutal and corrupt governments, but they managed to pull out of it largely because we stopped supporting the corrupt regimes at the close of the cold war. Mexico simply appears to be a holdover.

We tried that. It was called free trade and was suppossed to fix everything. Now half of American cars are made in Mexico. Happy?

I've always likes this idea, but the Mexican gov't is so corrupt that it is difficult to gauge how successful it would be. We would have to closely monitor how well our aid helps the Mexican economy.

I think you would have to convince the Mexican goverment to stop being so corrupt before this would work.

Giving Mexico money is like handing over a Cub Scout to Michael Jackson- dangerous as well as pointless. . .

This would be the equivalent of throwing money into a toilet and pushing the handle down. Actually, it would be worse than that because we would be handing money over to a nation that is already getting billions of dollars in money sent home by people who are using our hospitals, social services and public schools for free while only paying a fraction of the taxes contributed by legal U.S. residents.

Mexico's economy is already ranked number 9 in the world. The problem is that while they are swimming in oil down there, the corrupt government is reaping the benifits while the U.S. takes care of the lower 40% of the country (illegals).