Don't make Mexico like Cuba

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - Page updated at 02:44 PM
Eugene Robinson / Syndicated columnist

Don't make Mexico like Cuba

WASHINGTON — It was 6 a.m., I was at Jose Martí International Airport in
Havana, and there was a problem.

This was a few years ago. I had spent two weeks in Cuba, one of several
trips to research a book, and the first leg of my trip home was an
early-morning hop to Mexico. I had just slipped my passport through a
teller-style window to a uniformed officer who would examine it, check
his computer to make sure I wasn't some notorious Enemy of the
Revolution, then push a buzzer that opened a locked door. Beyond the
door lay the departure gates — and, more urgently, a little cafe where I
could get a desperately needed cup of coffee.

Except the unsmiling officer wasn't pushing the buzzer. As I said, there
was a problem.

"Step back against the wall, please," he said, and then he picked up his
telephone to make a call. I did as I was told. The exit door remained
firmly locked.

I'm not what you'd call a morning person, so it was a while before it
dawned on me what the problem was. The few words I'd exchanged with the
officer had been in Spanish, and after two weeks on the island I was
speaking pretty fluently, with a Cuban accent. I was wearing jeans, a
loose silk shirt and loafers — not your typical American tourist garb,
the officer must have figured, since I displayed neither sandals nor
fanny pack. My passport is thicker and more battered than most. And of
course, the typical visitor from America is white, and I'm not.

The guy suspected I was a Cuban trying to escape the island.

He kept me cooling my heels for a while, then called me back up to the
window. He asked in Spanish what had been the purpose of my stay in
Havana, but now that I had figured it out, I pretended not to
understand. From then on, my side of the conversation was English-only.
He asked where I was from, I told him Washington, and he began quizzing
me about current events. It was like one of those old war movies where
they unmask the German spy because he didn't know who won the 1937 World
Series. (Then they shoot him.)

"What is the important news of this week that has reached you from
home?" the officer asked.

Too easy. "The sniper," I said. My trip had coincided with the
Washington-area sniper shootings. The killings were covered even in
Cuba's tightly controlled press, so my knowing about them didn't prove
anything, but by then the guy was probably just prolonging the encounter
to save face. He handed back my passport and pressed the buzzer, opening
the magic door. I was free to leave the country.

The episode lasted no more than 15 minutes, though it seemed longer at
the time, and in the end amounted to nothing more than a minor
inconvenience. It left an impression, though. And I tell the story to
explain why I get so angry when the extremist xenophobes in the
Republican-controlled Congress — the likes of Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.,
Steve King, R-Iowa, and J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz. — rail at the government
of Mexico for supposedly encouraging illegal migration to the United States.

If Mexicans want to leave their country, for any reason, what right does
the Mexican government have to stop them? The only answer, of course, is
no right at all. Imagine the situation in reverse: Imagine that before
boarding a plane for a vacation in Cancun or a cruise ship heading to
the Bahamas, Americans had to ask permission from government officers
who could arbitrarily say no, you're not going anywhere.

Our congressional right-wingers don't quite call for Mexico to imprison
its citizens. But they sputter with rage when Mexican officials provide
migrants with practical advice on how to avoid dying of thirst in the
Arizona desert, or try to look after Mexican citizens' practical needs
at consulates in Phoenix and elsewhere.

This is no revanchist Mexican "invasion of America," as the xenophobes
claim. It's just a matter of the Mexican government doing what any
reasonable government would do, and in fact must do: let citizens leave
whenever they want, and try to provide for their health and safety abroad.

What if I had been a Cuban that morning at the Havana airport? I'd have
been detained, though probably not sentenced to prison. And if I still
wanted to leave the island, I would have had to build myself a raft.

I guess some House Republicans don't see why that would be a problem.

Eugene Robinson's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The
Times. His e-mail address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com

2006, Washington Post Writers Group

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003133455_eugene18.html?syndication=rss