You've got to be kidding?! Have you done any actual research on this subject? Or are you just a comfortable middle class American who's never been on the receiving end of police brutality in this country, or known anyone who was?

American police are QUITE brutal. They are capable of being every bit as brutal as pigs anywhere, if not more so, and are no more accountable either. I recommend you investigate the reports of groups like Human Rights Watch, study up on the repeated police scandals in cities like New York, Chicago, and LA, and review the findings of your local copwatch organizations. I think you'd be quite surprised at what you'll find there. Also, take a look at the way cops handle large public manifestations of political dissent. Watch "The Miami Model" documentary, for example.

If anything, Mexican cops tend to be less "professional" and thus less relentlessly classist and racist, mercifully, but they make up for it unfortunately by being more corrupt (because they don't get paid as much, and have to make up for it with more petty bribes and shakedowns). But you really are naive if you think that none of this stuff goes on with American cops, or Americans are "nicer" or less brutal. American cops, precisely because they ARE paid so much, tend to be much more rightwing and loyal to the corporate and government establishment than Mexican ones, and much less tolerant of any kind of social nonconformism.

The Guatamelans at the Mexico-Guatemala border are abused in much the same way Mexicans get abused at the US-Mexico border, and for much the same reasons. Once in a while you hear about a scandal, but the perps usually get away with a slap on the wrists. There is endemic racism in Mexico just as there is here, though somewhat less intense. Guatemalan poor people tend to be darker skinned, more indigenous than the average Mexican mestizo, just as the Mexicans who cross the border here tend to be darker skinned than the average anglo on this side. This is a treated as a license for abuse. Guatemalans also emigrate from their country for much the same reasons as Mexicans do from theirs. Guatemala is even poorer than Mexico. Thus, Guatemalans are a reserve army of labor for Mexican capitalists, just like Mexicans are a reserve army of labor for US capitalists. By keeping their residency and work status precarious, they can be pressured into shutting up and accepting worse pay and working conditions, just like Mexicans here. Repression from border officials is just one example of this.

ne1