The recent blustering by Mexican president Vicente Fox in response to the modest and sensible immigration reform proposals pending in the U.S. Congress is sickening to watch, and not just because these proposals are not altogether dissimilar to Mexico’s policy vis a vis its own southern border. What is really audacious is his hypocritical and erroneous insinuation that these policies are motivated by race, calling it “shameful, disgraceful” and a “violation of human rights.”

Has anyone noticed that the Mexican emigres mowing America’s lawns and busing our table’s at Red Lobster look nothing like Mr. Fox? This is because, with apologies to C.S. Lewis, these proud and industrious people are not exactly the “sons of Cortes”, or the “Daughters of Isabella.” Rather they are part of an oppressed underclass in Mexico akin to our own (Native American) Indians. And as a result of disastrous social and economic policies of successive, corrupt, and Euro-centric Mexican regimes they are mired in poverty and stream across our borders for a chance at a better life.

For the racist descendants of the Spanish Conquistadors who hold the reigns of power in Mexico, sending millions of it’s teeming underclass north across the border serves two cynical and complementary purposes: They unload the burden of millions of unemployed people in exchange for billions of U.S. dollars in the form of remittances. Indeed should the U.S. ever effectively shut the southern border it would decimate the Mexican economy and perhaps force real political change in that country.

Meanwhile, on the right, domestic critics of tougher border enforcement argue that illegal immigrants fill the jobs Americans wont. This is simply not true, they just fill those jobs more cheaply. There are, in fact, millions of high-school and college students, retirees, stay-at-home moms, and others who would gladly fill these service industry jobs at a higher wage. On the left, we have the Democrats who wield the race card like a political weapon to bludgeon Republicans and also believe they’ll benefit at the polls with more poor, Latino voters in the country.

The ultimate losers in this twisted game of human hot-potato are the hard working Mexicans who sneak into this country, work at slave-wage jobs and never fully integrate into American society. They, in effect, relegate themselves to familiar second-class citizen status in a new country. Secondary losers include U.S. taxpayers who must foot the bill for the myriad social services used by illegals who pay little in taxes and those Americans who are priced out of entry-level and service industry jobs.

Fortunately, there are some in congress who recognize the manifest injustice inherent in current immigration policy and are politically brave enough to fix it.