INTRODUCTION

The United Mexican States, the third country in North America, is considerably different in many important ways from the United States and Canada. Unlike the United States and Canada, the initial European explorers, who were from Spain rather than England, France, and the Netherlands, found a large indigenous population made up of Aztec, Mayan, and Olmec cultures. Those differences, along with others, have resulted in a contemporary society that is quite distinct from the two other North American countries. Mexico's population in 2005 was over 105 million, with a per capita gross national income, in U.S. dollars, of $6,613. Some 11.6 million people born in Mexico live in the United States, with about six million Mexican immigrants in the United States not documented. In 2005, about five hundred thousand unskilled workers crossed the border illegally, with only two receiving permanent visas. Julia Preston, Rules Collide with Reality in the Immigration Debate, www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/us/29broken.html.4 (hereinafter Preston, Rules Collide with Reality). By comparison, the gross national income per capita for Canada's population of over thirty-one million is almost four times as large at $24,470. In the United States, the population is over 290 million people with a per capita gross national income of $37,870. See World Bank, World Development Indicators 2005, www.devdata.worldbank.org.