Why doesn't Mexico police the country's southern border?

That isn’t where the United States is.

Most European countries do not patrol their borders between them.

@ibstubro: If I’m not mistaken, Southern Mexico is very mountainous and rugged. It would probably be difficult and expensive to patrol effectively.

Most democratic countries do not have militarized borders because they don’t have a bunch of paranoid, right wing fearmongers controlling a large percentage of the government.

^^ Yes, that.

I’ve crossed the border from Italy into Switzerland and from France into Belgium by just crossing the border.

No search, no stop, no issues.

The US should at least have that relationship with Canada.

Mexico has always had at least the idea of wanting to control immigration even if they were not doing it extremely effectively. I remember a story years ago about Cubans floating over to Mexico somehow rather than FL; Mexico deported them right out of the country. I met this Cuban guy in Michigan once, working in a hotel. He got to America by soliciting a Mexican girl to marry him, then he was able to enter Mexico and then he crossed the American border via the Mexican American border. It was a crazy, creative, and funny story.

My Mexican SIL was in favor of Arizona’s new laws about protecting borders, because she feels a country has a right to do so, and that is from her Mexican upbringing.

I don’t know what percentage of Central and South Americans coming into MX keep going up into the US, that would be an interesting number to know. Some probably stay in Mexico.

Nobody wants to get into Mexico permanently.

Why should Mexico close their southern border? How is it in their interest to do so?

It would please their northern neighbor, @elbanditoroso, and could be used as one hell of a bargaining chip.
I imagine that after a while, it would ease some of the pressure on the northern border.

I think that they do patrol the border, at least at major crossings. And I believe that at one time there was talk about building a fence along the border of Chiapas. I don’t know if it was ever done though.

Here is an article from the Dallas Morning News that explains a little more about the southern border and the difficulties in stopping border crossings.

If I were to guess, it would be that it’s mountainous, rugged terrain.