There’s an article on Mexico at The Federalist that’s so good, that it tempts me to play the lazy blogger. That would mean excerpting large chunks of it, interspersing commentary, then calling it a day. Instead, let me just offer a few strategic paragraphs that should scare the skin off you. Then I’ll trust the reader to go see for himself. And I’ll venture a few solutions. But I think you’ll agree that the ongoing collapse of the government in Mexico turns the immigration issue from a festering sore into a gaping national wound.

John Daniel Davidson’s new piece should alarm us deeply. He comments on the election of hardcore socialist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Davidson notes that conservatives seem alarmed at Obrador’s policies. His leftist populism would import the same corrupt, oppressive system that ruined Venezuela. Hugo Chavez’s thuggish socialism drove 4 million people (out of only 30 million in 2012) into exile as immigrants. That’s 13% of Venezuela’s population. Since socialism would work about as well in Mexico as did in Venezuela, we could expect that Mexico, with 130.7 million residents, would send out 17 million immigrants. Virtually all of them would seek to enter the United States, legally or illegally.

Mexico is Quickly Becoming a Failed State

But the reality is much worse than that, Davidson notes:

Obrador is no Fidel Castro — or even a Chávez or Maduro. [Worried conservatives] ascribe far more agency and ability to Mexico’s president and central government than is warranted. The Mexican state as it exists is almost entirely incapable of the sort of strategic vision and planning that Obrador’s detractors in the American press ascribe to it. Conservatives with hawkish views on immigration especially write about Mexico as if it’s a healthy, functioning country with control over its own borders, north and south, not a place where civil society is in a state of collapse.

…

Cartels across the country no longer limit their activities to drug smuggling or human trafficking, but have branched out into fuel theft, illegal fishing, mining, and logging. Ordinary Mexicans, especially those in rural areas, are often left with few options except to work for cartels, sometimes growing opium poppies or working as lookouts and drug mules. In some parts of the country, the “social controls” that might prevent mass crimes are simply gone, drawing comparisons to places like Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Somalia.

Meanwhile, violence is rampant across the country and on track for a record number of homicides this year. In the state of Guanajuato, an agricultural and manufacturing hub northwest of Mexico City that had one of the lowest murder rates in 2010, there were more than 2,000 execution-style killings last year and more than 1,000 in the first four months of this year. In 2007, there were only 51.

Failed States Make Bad Neighbors

As of 2016, Mexico took only second place to war-torn Syria on the list of the most violent countries on earth. Open borders advocates admit this when they try to use social collapse and gang violence as pretexts to offer asylum to virtually every illegal alien who gets caught in the U.S. They rarely want to face the implications of their argument. Are we ready, willing, and able to take in 17 million people?

Do we have any way of sorting out which people are linked to the violent cartels? Remember that it’s the cartels’ human trafficking arm that controls illegal immigration. In fact, the cartels de facto control the U.S. southern border. So it’s only sane to assume that they’ll know how to seed the 17 million (or more, maybe many more) Mexicans likely to cross our border with cartel enforcers. In fact, the cartels would make sure to put their people at the very head of the line.

Investigating the claims of 17 million people, most of whom will bring along children, could bankrupt the U.S. government. In reality, if an influx this size began, we’d have to revert to “catch and release.” Watch the crime rates skyrocket across the U.S. as cartels planted their operatives from Seattle to Sheboygan. Watch our poverty programs, public schools, and public hospitals collapse under the strain. We’d be well on the road to “failed state” status ourselves.

The Cartels Will Take Over Big American Cities

We must face facts. Mexico is quickly becoming a failed state, like Libya or Somalia. It has just elected a president for whom the best case scenario is that he will use brutal, Castro-style means to gain control of the country. The more likely outcome is that he will fail. That the cartels will continue to run the place — perhaps in a de facto coalition with Obrador. They’ll unite to fight their common enemy: the U.S. Border Patrol. With leftists leaking the names and addresses of these brave professionals — and a Homeland Security official in D.C. finding a decapitated animal burned on his front doorstep — expect more Border Patrol agents to die. Along with their families. That’s how the cartels roll.

Build Enough Military Bases, Then Link Them With a Wall

What does all of this mean? That building a wall on our southern border will soon be a military emergency. President Trump should bypass the Swamp on Capitol Hill. He should declare a state of emergency on the border, and plant military bases at the main crossing points into the U.S. Then use Defense Department funding, eminent domain, and whatever else it takes, to cut off illegal entry into the U.S. from the south.

We have helped seal the borders of Iraq that touch the failed state of Syria. We spend uncounted millions trying to seal Afghanistan’s borders. How much more desperately urgent that we at last secure our own?

We must back also back reforms to asylum policy along the lines of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent proposal. We cannot let people who snuck into the U.S. use mostly bogus asylum claims as a “get out of jail, free card.” The same goes for adults with children — their own, or kids they’ve stolen and smuggled. Nor can we possibly accept the millions of Mexicans who will flee the spiraling chaos there. They must stay, and fix their own once-great country, with our help.

First Put On Your Own Mask

Just as on an airplane that has lost pressure, we must get our own oxygen mask on first. Then and only then can we offer help. Once we have secured entry into the U.S., we can and must work with responsible parties in Mexico to help restore order there. I don’t know how we would do that, or how successful we’ll be. I do know that we can’t let Mexico be the domino that topples the United States. That won’t help anyone, least of all the people of Mexico.

John Zmirak is co-author, with Al Perrotta, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration.