The United States is being 'Mexicanized' as we watch. I am not talking about race or demographics at all.  I mean that our system of governance is being undermined, and that if we let matters continue, we will end up with a political economy like Mexico's  — unable to provide good lives for most of its people, but very good indeed for the wealthy elite.

I have no objection to any number of immigrants from any nation, if they enter the United States by following the rules. My objections center on the idea that our laws can be ignored by government officials when they deem them inconvenient to their own agenda. 

The concept of equal rights for all Americans also revolves around the idea that our laws are applied equally to all of us.  When governments ignore certain laws, they are in effect repealing them. They have accomplished through fiat what no one could do in the legislatures or the courts. The Constitution is bypassed.

Once this idea becomes accepted, lodged into theory and practice, your rights as an American are subject to the whim of government officials.

By allowing certain law—breaking activities to go unpunished we send a clear message to everyone that it is acceptable to ignore laws that you do not agree with.  Once individual government officials establish the principle of deciding for themselves what laws will (or will not) be enforced, the 'culture of corruption' will be established.  It will not matter which political party is in power. 

This creates the environment where government officials can be bought or coerced by 'greasing the wheels' with a little influence money.  We will have given up a great, if flawed, tradition of rule of law, replacing it with rule of the strong and rich. It will take bribes and favors to get anything accomplished just as it sometimes does in the governments of some of our southern neighbors. 

A corrupt system that entrenches the wealthy and powerful leads to economic failure, as it has in Mexico and would in the United States.  Our class structure would evolve toward Mexico's, with our middle class shrinking in the process. 

The only way to prevent such events from occurring is to insist that our government officials follow the rules and laws without exception.  We are already on a slippery slope. Arbitrary or capricious disregard for the laws should be met with expulsion from office in all cases.   If the law is not working for the country, then we should change it. 

Our elected officials should be forced to go 'on the record' if they want to change laws. Then we can register our verdict the next time they run for office.

It is plainly time for us to move the debate over illegal aliens to center on this point.  Many other points in this issue are worth discussion, but this one is where we will either save our country or lose it.