Mexico Joins Suit Against Arizona: Calling the Kettle Black

Mexico should have re-examined its own immigration policy carefully before joining in on a lawsuit filed against Arizona's proposed immigration law ... Mexico may very well be setting itself up for lawsuits from other countries due to its own tough immigration regulations.

From FoxNews, that gloriously evil bastion of biased reporting (emphasis added):

Mexico Joins Suit Against Arizona's Immigration Law, Citing 'Grave Concerns'

Mexico on Tuesday asked a federal court in Arizona to declare the state's new immigration law unconstitutional, arguing that the country's own interests and its citizens' rights are at stake.

Lawyers for Mexico on Tuesday submitted a legal brief in support of one of five lawsuits challenging the law. The law will take effect July 29 unless implementation is blocked by a court.

The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.

Until recently, Mexican law made illegal immigration a criminal offense -- anyone arrested for the violation could be fined, imprisoned for up to two years and deported. Mexican lawmakers changed that in 2008 to make illegal immigration a civil violation like it is in the United States, but their law still reads an awful lot like Arizona's.

Arizona's policy, which President Felipe Calderon derided during a recent U.S. trip as "discriminatory," states police can't randomly stop people and demand papers, and the law prohibits racial profiling.

Mexican law, however, requires law enforcement officials "to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country before attending to any issues."

Amnesty International recently issued a report claiming illegal immigrants in Mexico -- typically from Central America -- face abuse, rape and kidnappings, and that Mexican police do little to stop it. When illegal immigration was a criminal offense in Mexico, officials were known to seek bribes from suspects to keep them out of jail.

But Mexico said it has a legitimate interest in defending its citizens' rights and that Arizona's law would lead to racial profiling, hinder trade and tourism, and strain the countries' work on combating drug trafficking and related violence.

Citing "grave concerns," Mexico said its interest in having predictable, consistent relations with the United States shouldn't be frustrated by one state.

"Mexican citizens will be afraid to visit Arizona for work or pleasure out of concern that they will be subject to unlawful police scrutiny and detention," the brief said.

It will be up to a U.S. District Court judge to decide whether to accept the brief along with similar ones submitted by various U.S. organizations ...

Let's take a look (again) at Mexico's immigration policy and its own track record of human rights violations ...

• Mexico's army is under attack by the UN and other activists groups for human rights violations of its own citizens and human rights activists (go here, here, and here)

• Illegal immigrants from Central America passing through Mexico are quick to make it to the U.S. to avoid Mexico's harsh immigration policies (go here and here)

• Consider Mexico's own dark history of human rights violations -- this from El enemigo común:

Current human rights concerns in Mexico include arbitrary arrest, torture and ill-treatment, violations in due process and denial of fair trials, the investigation and trial of military officials accused of human rights violations in military courts and the role of the military in law enforcement functions, violence against women, harassment and killing of journalists, intimidation of human rights activists and discrimination and marginalization of Indigenous peoples.

Impunity for human rights violations remains constant, stretching back to crimes from the “dirty war” of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, whose victims are still denied justice.

So, with Mexico joining suit against the State of Arizona, the Calderón administration may very well be opening itself up to a flood of suits against the Mexican government ... the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.