MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE

MEXICO RELATIONS ADVANTAGE AFFIRMATIVE & NEGATIVE

Affirmative
1AC Relations Advantage ............................................................................................................................. 2

Answers to Neg Arguments

Relations Advantage
Relations not resilient ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Plan Solves....................................................................................................................................................... 8

Negative
Answers to Relations Advantage
1NC Frontline Relations Advantage .............................................................................................................. 9 US-Mexico Relations are Resilient ................................................................................................................ 11 Alternate causes US-Mexico relations ....................................................................................................... 12

MEXICO RELATIONS 1AC RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

AFFIRMATIVE
1AC Relations Advantage
Advantage ___ US-Mexico Relations. Successful cooperation on the border spills over into other areas of US-Mexico relations its the best opportunity to improve relations. Bonner & Rozental 2009 Robert C. Bonner Former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Former Administrator,
Drug Enforcement Administration, Andrs Rozental Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Mexico; Former President and Founder Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI) Managing the United States-Mexico Border: Cooperative Solutions to Common Challenges Report of the Binational Task Force on the United States-Mexico Border http://www.pacificcouncil.org/document.doc?id=30

The 1,952-mile land boundary between the United States and Mexico is the place where the most contentious and difficult issues in the bilateral relationship play out from undocumented migration and contraband trafficking to the allocation of water in a thirsty region. Nevertheless, the border region remains poorly understood both by policymakers in distant federal capitals and by the public at large. Most people who do not live along the border or cross it frequently are
unaware of the challenges of border management or of the ways in which Mexico and the United States are attempting to meet those challenges. Changes on the ground and local responses to them frequently outpace both national policies and public perceptions. The conjunction of a technologically advanced, capital-rich society and a modernizing, labor-exporting country creates the potential for both synergy and strife . The

challenge confronting Mexico and the United States is to mitigate the conflicts that inevitably arise from this dichotomy while seizing all potential opportunities the differences generate. We envision a system of border management that moves people and goods between the United States and Mexico far more quickly and efficiently than the present arrangement but that also enhances the security of both nations. This new system would facilitate trade, encourage the emergence of regional economic clusters, promote wise stewardship of shared natural resources, and enhance efforts to preserve ecosystems that cross the national boundary. Perhaps most importantly, it would invite communities that dot and span the frontier to exploit opportunities for mutual benefit. Ultimately, the border should be as thin and transparent as technologically and politically possible for those engaged in legitimate travel or commerce but difficult to penetrate for those engaged in criminal activity or unauthorized transit. Management of this shared boundary should serve as a model for binational collaboration in confronting shared challenges.

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MEXICO RELATIONS 1AC RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

Now is the time to improve Mexico-US relations, focus on trade can successfully reinvigorate cooperation. Montealegre 2013 Oscar Contributing Writer at Diplomat Courier U.S.-MEXICO RELATIONS: LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/latin-america/408-u-s-mexico-relations-love-thy-neighbor

1/25/13

Currently, Mexico is entering a perfect demographic storm. It has a young and growing population, which is expected to last for several decades. Mexico is no longer only looking north for economic advancement, as many of their multinational companies, such as Bimbo and Cemex, are currently doing business in Latin America and Spain. Mexicos stock market is currently in talks to integrate their stock exchange with the MILA groupthe established stock exchanges between Colombia, Peru, and Chile. The

U.S. must act soon before it arrives at the party too late. It is in the U.S.s interests to have Mexico think northward first, and then the other regions second, but the opposite is developing. The interconnectedness between both countries strongly conveys why the dialogue should revolve around bilateral trade and commerce agendas. For Mexico, 30 percent of GDP is dependent on exports, and 80 percent of exports are tagged to the U.S. Most importantly, one of ten Mexicans lives in the U.S., accounting
for nearly 12 million Mexicans that consider the U.S. their current residence. Add in their descendants, and approximately 33 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans reside in the U.S. Lets put this figure in perspective: Venezuela has a population of 29 million; Greece, 11 million; and Canada, 34 million. Essentially we have a country within a countrythe beauty of Americabut it must be embraced instead of shunned or ignored. Economically, it is a plus for Mexico, because there is a market for Mexican products; it

is also a plus for the U.S. in many areas, including soft power, diversity, direct linkages to Mexico and Latin America. A cadre of American-born and educated human capital are able
to cross cultures into Mexico and Latin America to conduct business and politics. The presidential election emphasized that Latinos in the U.S. are now a vital demographic when concerning local, Congressional, and Presidential elections. It makes practical sense for the U.S. (regardless of political party) to consider Mexico the front door to Central and South America. The most recent U.S. Census discovered that the Latino population in the United States: 1) now tops 50 million; 2) has accounted for more than half of Americas 23.7 million population increase in the last decade; 3) grew by 43 percent in the last decade; and 4) now accounts for about 1 out of 6 Americans. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States. These are extraordinary figures that should be leveraged into something positive. President Obama

cannot respond by merely paying lip

service to the Latino community. Latino voters have overwhelmingly backed President Obama for two elections now, but no favor is done
with complete altruism. Surprisingly, during President Obamas first term, there were 30 percent more deportations than during George W. Bushs second term. Yet there is hope that President Obama will fix the broken system with a more humane approach, contrary to laws that are being pushed and backed by the Republican Party in Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama. Some may askwhat does this have to do with Mexico, or even Latin America? It

is all about messages, and in the next four years the President must use the available tools to solidify relationships with its partners, paving the road for more trade and commerce, which ultimately will further strengthen the U.S. economy. What happens in the U.S. means a lot to many countries, and immigration is perhaps one of the most important matters in Mexico, Central, and South America. The U.S. must first focus on re-branding its relationship with Mexico. President Obama and Mexican President Pea Nieto need to formulate a new agenda between the two countriesone that resonates with the 21st century, linking the two countries economically; where the U.S. can envision Mexico as a vibrant emerging market in its own backyard. Obstacles do exist, like the current Mexican drug war and political corruption. But dont India and China have corruption problems as well? A page will be turned in the next four years. The question remains if progress, commonalities, and cooperation will be spearheaded in unison by both countries leaders.

1AC Relations Advantage

MEXICO RELATIONS 1AC RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

Growing a strong US-Mexican relationship is a prerequisite to continued US power projection and supremacy. Pastor 2012
Robert A. Pastor is professor and director of the Center for North American Studies at American University. Pastor served as National Security Advisor on Latin America during the Carter Administration. Beyond the Continental Divide From the July/August 2012 issue of The American Interest http://www.the-americaninterest.com/article.cfm?piece=1269 Most Americans think that the largest markets for U.S. exports are China and Japan, and that may explain the Obama Administrations Asian initiative. But the truth is that Canada and Mexico are the top two markets for U.S. exports. Most Americans also think that Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are the largest sources of our
energy imports, but again, Canada and Mexico are more important. And again, we think that most tourists who come and spend money here are European and Asian, but more than half are Canadians and Mexicans. A similar percentage of Americans who travel abroad go to our two neighbors. All in all, no two nations are more important for the U.S. economy than our two closest neighbors. From the perspective of U.S. national security, too, recall for a moment that Mexico and Canada made an historic gamble in signing NAFTA. Already dependent on the behemoth next door and wary of the imbalance of power, both countries feared that NAFTA could make them more vulnerable. Still, they hoped that the United States would be obligated to treat them on an equal and reciprocal basis and that they would prosper from the agreement. Canadians and Mexicans have begun to question whether they made the right choice. There are, of course, a wealth of ways to measure the direct and indirect impact of NAFTA, but political attention, not without justification, tends to focus on violations of the agreement.

The U.S. government violated NAFTA by denying Mexican trucks the right to enter the United States for 16 years, relenting in the most timid way, and only after Mexico was permitted by the World Trade Organization to retaliate
in October 2011. And for more than a decade, Washington failed to comply with decisions made by a dispute-settlement mechanism regarding imports of soft-wood lumber from Canada. More recently, the United States decided to build a huge wall to keep out Mexicans, and after a three-year process of reviewing the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline from western Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, this past December 2011 President Obama decided to postpone the decision for another year. This is the sort of treatment likely to drive both Canada and Mexico to

conclude that depending on the United States was the wrong decision. Imagine for a moment what might happen if Canada and Mexico came to such a conclusion. Canada might divert its energy exports to China, especially if China guaranteed a long-term relationship at a good price. Mexico would diversify with South America and China and might be less inclined to keep Americas rivals, like Iran, at arms length. Is there anyone who thinks these developments would not set off national security alarms? A very old truth would quickly reassert itself: The United States can project its power into Asia, Europe and the Middle East in part because it need not worry about its neighbors. A new corollary of that truth would not be far behind: Canada and Mexico are far more important to the
national security of the United States than Iraq and Afghanistan. Beyond the economy and national security, our two neighbors have societal ties to the United States that make all other ethnic connections seem lean in comparison . By

2015, there will be about 35 million people in the United States who were either born in Mexico or whose parents were born in Mexico; that number exceeds the total population of Canada. Canadians in the United States
dont stand out as much as do Mexicans, but nearly a million Canadians live in the United States. And more Americans live in Mexico than in any other foreign country. In sum, the economy, national security and society of the United States, Mexico and Canada are far more intertwined than most U.S., Canadian and Mexican citizens realize. Most Americans havent worried about Mexico in strategic terms since the days of Pancho Villa, or about Canada since the 1814 Battle of Plattsburgh. Thats unwise. Bad relations with either country, let alone both, would be disastrous. On the other hand, deeper relations could be vastly beneficial. We dont seem ready to recognize that truth either.

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MEXICO RELATIONS 1AC RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

Collapse of US leadership causes great power war and extinction Barnett 11 (Thomas P.M., Former Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis & Research
Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at Wikistrat., worked as the Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transformation in the Department of Defense, The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S., and Globalization, at Crossroads, March 7, CMR) Events in Libya are a further reminder for Americans that we stand at a crossroads in our continuing evolution

as the world's sole full-service superpower. Unfortunately, we are increasingly seeking change without cost, and shirking
from risk because we are tired of the responsibility. We don't know who we are anymore, and our president is a big part of that problem. Instead of leading us, he explains to us. Barack Obama would have us believe that he is practicing strategic patience. But many experts and ordinary citizens alike have concluded that he is actually beset by strategic incoherence -- in effect, a man overmatched by the job. It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of arguably the greatest structural change in the global order yet endured, with this historical moment's most amazing feature being its relative and absolute lack of mass violence. That is something to consider when Americans contemplate military intervention in Libya, because if we do take the step to prevent larger-scale killing by engaging in some killing of our own, we will not be adding to some fantastically imagined global death count stemming from the ongoing "megalomania" and "evil" of American "empire." We'll be engaging in the same sort of system-administering activity that has marked our stunningly successful stewardship of global order since World War II. Let me be more blunt: As the guardian of globalization, the U.S. military has been the greatest force for peace the

world has ever known. Had America been removed from the global dynamics that governed the 20th century, the mass murder never would have ended. Indeed, it's entirely conceivable there would now be no identifiable human civilization left, once nuclear weapons entered the killing equation. But the world did not keep sliding down that path of perpetual war. Instead, America stepped up and changed everything by ushering in our now-perpetual great-power peace. We introduced the international liberal trade order known as globalization and played loyal Leviathan over its spread. What resulted was the collapse of empires, an explosion of democracy, the persistent spread of human rights, the liberation of women, the doubling of life expectancy, a roughly 10-fold increase in adjusted global GDP and a profound and persistent reduction in battle deaths from state-based conflicts. That is what American "hubris" actually delivered. Please remember that the
next time some TV pundit sells you the image of "unbridled" American military power as the cause of global disorder instead of its cure. With self-deprecation bordering on self-loathing, we now imagine a post-American world that is anything but. Just watch who scatters and who steps up as the Facebook revolutions erupt across the Arab world. While we might imagine ourselves the status quo power, we remain the world's most vigorously revisionist force. As for the sheer "evil" that is our military-industrial complex, again, let's examine what the world looked like before that establishment reared its ugly head. The last great period of global structural change was the first half of the 20th century, a period that saw a death toll of about 100 million across two world wars. That comes to an average of 2 million deaths a year in a world of approximately 2 billion souls. Today, with far more comprehensive worldwide reporting, researchers report an average of less than 100,000 battle deaths annually in a world fast approaching 7 billion people. Though admittedly crude, these calculations suggest a 90 percent absolute drop and a 99 percent relative drop in deaths due to war. We are clearly headed for a world order characterized by multipolarity, something the American-birthed system was designed to both encourage and accommodate. But given how things turned out the last time we collectively faced such a fluid structure, we would do well to keep U.S. power, in all of its forms, deeply embedded in the geometry to come. To continue the historical survey, after salvaging Western Europe from its half-century of civil war, the U.S. emerged as the progenitor of a new, far more just form of globalization -- one based on actual free trade rather than colonialism. America then successfully replicated globalization further in East Asia over the second half of the 20th century, setting the stage for the Pacific Century now unfolding.

1AC Relations Advantage

MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS TO NEG ARGUMENTS - RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

ANSWERS TO NEG ARGUMENTS

1AC Relations Advantage

MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS TO NEG ARGUMENTS - RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

RELATIONS ADVANTAGE
Relations not resilient
New initiatives are necessary to jump start improvements improving the movement of people and goods is the key location for dialogue. ONeil 2013
Shannon O'Neil is Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), U.S. Exports Depend on Mexico Latin Americas Moment January 11 http://blogs.cfr.org/oneil/2013/01/11/u-sexports-depend-on-mexico/ Hidden behind the troubling headlines, however, is another, more hopeful Mexico one undergoing rapid and widespread social, political, and economic transformation. Yes, Mexico continues to struggle with grave security threats, but it is also fostering a globally competitive marketplace, a growing middle class, and an increasingly influential pro-democracy voter base. In addition, Mexicos ties with the United States are changing. Common interests in energy, manufacturing, and security, as well as an overlapping community formed by millions of binational families, have made Mexicos path forward increasingly important to its northern neighbor. For
most of the past century, U.S.-Mexican relations were conducted at arms length. That began to change, however, in the 1980s and, even more, after the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) spurred greater bilateral economic engagement and cooperation. Mexicos democratic transition has further eased the wariness of some skeptics in Washington. Still, the U.S.-

Mexican relationship is far from perfect. New bilateral policies are required, especially to facilitate the movement of people and goods across the U.S.-Mexican border. More important, the United States needs to start seeing Mexico as a partner instead of a problem.

Relations not resilient

MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS TO NEG ARGUMENTS - RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

Plan Solves
Plan solves pressures on broader relations questions it would create the opportunity for a significant increase in US-Mexico relations. Olson & Lee 2012
Eric L Olson serves as Associate Director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Erik Lee serves as Associate Director at the North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) at Arizona State University. The State of Security in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region Working Paper Series on the State of the U.S.-Mexico Border August 2012 http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/State_of_Border_Security_Olson_Lee.pdf Lasting progress in U.S.-Mexico border security can only come from increased bilateral collaboration and
independent domestic progress on key issues affecting security in the United States and Mexico. Significant progress has been made in increasing and improving bilateral security collaboration between federal agencies on both sides of the border. While a welcome development, these advances can, in some cases, weakened the long-standing cooperation between local U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agencies. While it is important to continue strong federal coordination, encouraging local collaboration can also yield significant and important dividends in fighting crime affecting cross-border cities. Improved border management, a challenge during normal fiscal times, is particularly difficult in the United States constrained fiscal environment and thus requires increased attention and creative solutions. For example, the two governmentsin close collaboration with border communitiesshould focus their efforts on making the land ports of entry from San Diego to Brownsville as safe and efficient as possible to enhance both our physical and economic security. One such effort has been the highly controversial experimental deployment of the SBInet system on the Arizona-Sonora border. While this technology has been deployed on the border between the ports of entry, the governments have not deployed technology in a game-

changing way that could convert the ports of entry themselves into true platforms for economic security rather than highly congested and bureaucratized nodes in our North American commercial network.

Plan Solves

MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE NEGATIVE - ANSWERS TO RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

NEGATIVE
ANSWERS TO RELATIONS ADVANTAGE
1NC Frontline Relations Advantage
1. No Impact the US-Mexico partnership is inevitable areas of cooperation will always overwhelm differences
Rozental 2013
Andrs Rozental, former deputy foreign minister of Mexico, works primarily on global governance issues, U.S.Mexico relations and international migration. He served for many years in Mexicos diplomatic corps. February 1, 2013 Have Prospects for U.S.-Mexican Relations Improved? Brookings Institute http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/02/01-us-mexico-rozental The Mexico-U.S. relationship won't substantially change; there are too many ongoing issues to expect any major shift in what has become a very close and cooperative bilateral partnership in economic, security and social aspects. There will be a change of emphasis from the Mexican side as far as the security relationship goes, with Pea Nieto's declared intention to focus much more on the economy and public safety. He has already moved away from the constant statements made by his predecessor extolling the number of criminals apprehended and 'successes' in the fight against organized crime. The change of message comes as a relief to many Mexicans tired of hearing about violence and crime on a daily basis.

2. No Solvency: improving cross-border trade isnt sufficient problems related to the drug trade will undermine cooperation
Walser 2013
Ray Walser, Senior Policy Analyst specializing in Latin America at The Heritage Foundation Obama in Mexico: Change the Reality, Not the Conversation 5/1/13 http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/01/obama-in-mexicochange-the-reality-not-the-conversation/
Of course there is much value in an opportunities-oriented approach to U.S.Mexico relations. The two countries have unique ties based on patterns of trade, investment, integrated manufacturing, and the movement of peoples . Both nations should continue to deepen this relationship by focusing on everything from trade, global competitiveness, and modernizing and securing our shared 2,000-mile border in ways that advance economic freedom and improve educational quality and energy development. Yet addressing hard, seemingly intractable issues related to the illicit traffic in drugs, people, guns, and money moving with relative ease across the U.S.Mexico border remains a major challenge for both leaders. The Obama Administration has done little to reduce drug demand in the U.S. Consumption of marijuana is on the rise among teens. There is legal confusion in Washington following passage of legalization measures in Colorado and Washington. Resource reductions for drug interdiction and treatment are built into the fiscal crisis. Prior objectives for drug prevention and treatment established by the Obama Administration have not been met, according to the Government Accountability Office. Meanwhile, cash and guns flow south largely unchecked into Mexico. Cooperation with Mexico may be scaled back or waning as U.S. officials are excluded from intelligence fusion centers the U.S. helped to set up. A new emphasis on citizen security may take the law enforcement heat of trafficking kingpins, who will likely attempt to move drugs across Mexico with less violence and greater efficiency as Mexican law enforcement focuses on the most violent criminal elements.

1NC Frontline Relations Advantage

MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE NEGATIVE - ANSWERS TO RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

1NC Frontline Relations Advantage 3. US leadership doesnt solve war. Bacevich, Professor of history and international relations at Boston University, 9 (Andrew, April 30, 2009, Salon, Fairwell to the American Century http://www.salon.com/writer/andrew_bacevich/, accessed 7/10/13, AR)
Had the United States acted otherwise, would Cuba have evolved into a stable and prosperous democracy, a beacon of hope for the rest of Latin America? Would the world have avoided the blight of nuclear weapons? Would Iran today be an ally of the United States, a beacon of liberalism in the Islamic world, rather than a charter member of the axis of evil? Would Afghanistan be a quiet, pastoral land at peace with its neighbors? No one, of course, can say what might have been. All we know for sure is that policies concocted in Washington by reputedly savvy statesmen now look exceedingly ill-advised. What are we to make of these blunders? The
temptation may be to avert our gaze, thereby preserving the reassuring tale of the American Century. We should avoid that temptation and take the opposite course, acknowledging openly, freely and unabashedly where we have gone wrong. We should carve such acknowledgments into the face of a new monument smack in the middle of the Mall in Washington: We blew it. We screwed the pooch. We caught a case of the stupids. We got it ass-backwards. Only through the exercise of candor might we avoid replicating such mistakes. Indeed, we ought to apologize. When it comes to avoiding the repetition of sin, nothing works like abject contrition. We should, therefore, tell the people of Cuba that we are sorry for having made such a hash of U.S.-Cuban relations for so long. President Obama should speak on our behalf in asking the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for forgiveness. He should express our deep collective regret to Iranians and Afghans for what past U.S. interventionism has wrought.

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MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE NEGATIVE - ANSWERS TO RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

US-Mexico Relations are Resilient

Relations collapse is impossible Mexico and the US are too interdependent, they have no choice but to get along Hakim 2013
Peter Hakim is president emeritus and senior fellow of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy organization tank on Western Hemisphere affairs. Which Mexico for Obama? 5/1/13 http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/05/01/which-mexico-for-obama/ Crime and violence are likely to remain unrelenting challenges for Pea Nieto. They could even take central stage again. In fact, public security may not improve anytime soon despite the new governments multiple initiatives. Pea
Nietos predecessor, Felipe Caldern, learned how arduous a task it is to reform Mexicos police and its justice system, and restore public confidence in them. Now, Pea Nieto is making clear his deep dissatisfaction with and his intention to overhaul Caldern U.S.-supported approach to security and drug issues. The

expected changes will almost surely irritate many in Washington and may even become a new source of friction in the bilateral relationship. But neither the United States nor Mexico is perfect. The two nations cannot look at each other only as sources of opportunity and gain; cooperation is needed to address risks and problems. Neither country has much of an option, however, because their economies and populations are so deeply integrated. There is no turning the clock back. Mexico and the United State have to solve their problems together and find ways to
generate and exploit new opportunities jointly. If they can do it, the payoff will be enormous.

U.S-Mexico relations are resilient Corchado 13

Alfredo, On visit with Pea Nieto, Obama pledges to maintain close cooperation with Mexico [http://www.dallasnews.com/news/nationworld/mexico/20130502-on-visit-with-pena-nieto-obama-pledgesto-maintain-close-cooperation-with-mexico.ece] May 2
Pea Nieto, who took office in December, reiterated work under the Interior Ministry a

his campaign pledge to reduce violence and to centralize Mexicos intelligence step back from wider cooperative agreements dating back to the presidency of George W. Bush. He said his government remains committed to taking down kingpins along with reducing violence, and he stressed, There is no clash between the two goals. Over the past 12 years, the United States enjoyed a close relationship with the Mexican government, headed for the first time by the National Action Party, or PAN, which had ousted the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. With Pea Nietos election, the PRI returned to power. Pea Nietos government announced this week that it would limit the access of U.S. security agencies to their Mexican counterparts, centralizing communication through its Interior Ministry. On Thursday, both leaders tried to minimize any controversy, focusing instead on forging a closer economic relationship to improve their nations competiveness. The two men announced a number of agreements on education, people-to-people connections and the economy. They announced a Cabinet-level dialogue to be headed on the U.S. side by Vice President Joe Biden to explore the potential in their economies. The two countries share an inevitable interdependence, with nearly 2,000 miles of common border, blood links and a
close but conflicted history that includes a U.S. occupation, in 1847, of the National Palace, where Obama and Pea Nieto met Thursday. The histories particularly resonate between Texas and Mexico. As the two leaders met, radio and television commentators were struck by their somber faces, as one radio host put it, and rigid body language, in the words of a television analyst. Obama is pressing Congress to pass a broad immigration overhaul that would provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally many of them Mexicans. Obama said Thursday that an overhaul of the U.S. immigration system was important for U.S.-Mexican trade, which totaled half a trillion dollars last year. Obama said hes optimistic that an immigration overhaul will be passed in the United States. If were going to get that done, now is the time to do it, he said. Obama will address students and business leaders Friday and then head to Costa Rica, where he will meet with Central American leaders. In both Mexico and Costa Rica, Obama hoped to showcase economic and energy opportunities to make the region more competitive. But Central American leaders are also concerned about organized crime and migration.

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MEXICO AFFIRMATIVE NEGATIVE - ANSWERS TO RELATIONS ADVANTAGE

Alternate causes US-Mexico relations

The plan cant solve US-Mexico relations, American drug war hypocrisy is poisonous and overwhelms economic ties. Walser 2013
Ray Walser, a veteran Foreign Service officer, is a Senior Policy Analyst specializing in Latin America at The Heritage Foundation May 2, 2013 President Obama, the Drug War, and Mexico: Failure Is an Option http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/02/president-obama-the-drug-war-and-mexico-failure-is-an-option/ In the past six years, more than 60,000 Mexicans have died violently in crime and drug-related deaths. In the
U.S., there is a wider spectrum of issues related to the harm done by drug usage. They range from state-side violence among traffickers, gangbangers, and dealers to drug-influenced auto fatalities and increasing abuse of prescription drugs. Mortality statistics indicate that drug-related deaths now exceed auto fatalities in the U.S. Prescription drug abuse reportedly claims a life every 19 minutes in the U.S. and has reached epidemic proportions. The White House still retains the power to set the national agenda and frame the political conversation at home and abroad. In his last conversation relating to drug issues in December 2012, President Obama,

when asked about the passage of marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and the state of Washington, responded that the federal government had bigger fish to fry. These state laws run contrary to federal law and U.S. treaty obligations. Then-president Felipe Calderon of Mexico angrily fired back, questioning U.S. moral authority. When interviewed by the American Quarterly about his Mexican trip, the President answered no questions about drug trafficking. In Mexico this week, Obama will talk trade, immigration reform, education, and dance diplomatically around the drug issue. Fresh friction has emerged between the U.S. and Mexico over rules for counter-drug intelligence collection and sharing. Mexicos current president, Enrique Pea Nieto appears to be concentrating on more centralized control over drug collection and operations on Mexican territory. Concerned about citizen security, Pea Nieto hopes to reduce the harm done to ordinary Mexicans as drugs flow across his nations territory to U.S. consumers. At the back of his mind also is a recognition that he is dealing with the same Administration that launched Operation Fast and Furious, which let guns walk across the border, and that argues marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is no big deal.

Drug violence overshadows strong US-Mexico economic ties. Roseman 2012

Ethan Roseman, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs Enhanced Reciprocity for the U.S.Mexico Relationship? December 17, 2012 http://www.coha.org/enhanced-reciprocity-for-the-u-s-mexico-relationship/ Although the current trade relationship between the United States and Mexico is unparalleled, the druginduced side south of the border always seems to overshadow such a rapport. Since 2006, Mexico has experienced upwards of 60,000 deaths, including at least 3,000 police officers and soldiers who confiscated over 114 tons of cocaine,
11,000 tons of marijuana, 75 tons of methamphetamines and close to 100,000 large and small-scale firearms. Given the structured control of 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States and an estimated annual income of 18 to 39 billion USD,

it is the Mexican drug cartels that truly govern these political units and furthermore, utilize extortion, corruption and extreme violence in order to bring about current hostile stereotypes that the rest of the world associates with Mexic o.[3]

Alternate causes US-Mexico relations

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