[ahenry]

First, Mexico has begun paying their water debt, and that made news here in Texas so I am surprised that you didn't know that.

I did know that, and in fact posted that very information in another thread. However as I said in the other thread, Mexico is barely paying more than one quarter of the debt they actually owe and even if they paid the entire thing it would still be over 12 years late in coming. How does that meet the any portion of the full and timely part of my question?

If you are saying that the United States is economically impotent to put a squeeze on Mexico, then I think you and I differ in the size and importance of the US economy and the dependance upon it by Mexico.

I am certainly not saying the United States in incapable of recovering its debts. What I am saying is that we can only base future performance based on past actions, and past actions tell us that Mexico will stall at best and default entirely on any charge we try to force on them. Of course we can go through steps to try and force compliance, but that is extremely costly to us and has the potential of spiraling way out of control.

Right now, Mexico suffers no ill effects from the current situation. It doesn't hurt them one iota, and in fact they reap billions.

I totally agree. I disagree that the proper way, or the most effective way to cause Mexico to suffer “ill effects” of their fostering of illegal immigration is to give them a bill for our services rendered. There are other vastly more simple and effective ways that we can shoulder Mexico with the appropriate burden. The easiest and simplest is to simply send 100% of all the illegal immigrants that cross the U.S.-Mexican border to one specific location in Mexico. At the same time focus an inordinate amount of Border Patrol in that area to minimize as much as possible any re-border crossing. Whether it is a Mexican, Honduran, Russian or any other nationality. If you cross our border with Mexico, you will be sent back to Mexico. By sending 100% of the 1.5 million illegal aliens caught each year to one location, Mexico will be forced to implement their own immigration enforcement and we will be better able to focus on a single area that poses the highest risk of border crossings. That is a virtually zero costs measure that would give Mexico an enormous impetus to control illegal border crossings.