Is Mexico being hypocritical when it demands that its citizens who are here in the U.S. illegally be treated with respect and dignity, when Mexican authorities don’t even treat illegal immigrants in their country that way? As the Associated Press reports, illegal immigrants in Mexico have it much worse than their counterparts in the U.S.:

Considered felons by the government, these migrants fear detention, rape and robbery. Police and soldiers hunt them down at railroads, bus stations and fleabag hotels. Sometimes they are deported; more often officers simply take their money. And though Mexico demands humane treatment for its citizens who migrate to the U.S., regardless of their legal status, Mexico provides few protections for migrants on its own soil. . . .

The Mexican government acknowledges that many federal, state and local officials are on the take from the people-smugglers who move hundreds of thousands of Central Americans north, and that migrants are particularly vulnerable to abuse by corrupt police. The National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency, documented the abuses south of the U.S. border in a December report.

“One of the saddest national failings on immigration issues is the contradiction in demanding that the North respect migrants’ rights, which we are not capable of guaranteeing in the South,” commission president Jose Luis Soberanes said.

Although I am firmly for basic rights and humane treatment for illegal immigrants in the U.S., Mexico does appear to be either unwilling or unable to do the same thing in regard to their own illegal immigrants domestically. As I’ve always said, if you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.

If Mexico demands that expects humanitarian treatment of their citizens in the U.S., they need to practice the same thing inside their country. I understand that Mexico has a different history, political culture, socioeconomic characteristics, standard of living, etc. However, those differences are not an excuse, since humane treatment is universal. Anything less is blatant hypocrisy.