Talk about a blast from the past—seeing Mark Steyn discuss border enforcement with Juan Hernandez, the one-time advisor of Mexico Presidente Vicente Fox, brought back memories of someone best forgotten. A dual citizen of Mexico and the US, Hernandez also advised John McCain during his failed presidential campaign—perhaps not the senator’s best personnel choice, since McCain got only 31 percent of the Hispanic vote.

As Mark Krikorian reported in a 2008 CIS article titled “Mexico First”:

“I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’ ” These are the words of Juan Hernandez, John McCain’s “Hispanic outreach director,” on Nightline June 7, 2001.

So it appears that the bi-national Hernandez favors his Mexican side.

On Tuesday, he tried to use his oily open-borders shtick on Mark Steyn (hosting the Tucker Carlson show), who wasn’t buying it.

When questioned about the provision of the law that requires asylum seekers to stay in the first safe country they reach, Juan answered, “My friend, we all know the United States is today the most powerful nation in the world: it is their dream of many, many people who are just trying to get out of dire poverty, violence, to be able to reach the United States.”

Of course, dire poverty and general violence don’t qualify a person to receive asylum. Otherwise, billions would be entitled.

Unlike many talking heads, Steyn is familiar with the worsening threat of world population growth and isn’t afraid to bring it up in conversation. The many problems of Honduras haven’t slowed its reproductive activity: numbers have more than quadrupled since 1960.

MARK STEYN: But everyone with a dream—the seven billion people on the planet—and as you say, America is the most powerful, wealthiest, all the rest of it. Does that give six-and-a-half billion people the right to move to the United States? JUAN HERNANDEZ: It’s not that it’s the right—although many would claim that it is a human right, that if you are in a dire situation, you are going to try, even if you have to break some administrative rules, but they have not committed crimes, they are just seeking asylum. STEYN: You are now part of the state government in Mexico. What is wrong with your state then? If they just want a better life, why can’t they move to your state? Your state is better than Honduras, wherever they come from. HERNANDEZ : Yes it is, but the dream for them is the United States. . . The United States needs about 350,000 new people every year. These 10,000 are good people. I met them. . . STEYN: There are plenty of good people. If you go to these airport diners by the way, you enter your meal order on a machine. Nobody needs people anymore; it’s all automation.

Hernandez seemed unduly stuck on the “dream” of the caravansters, but that’s not a convincing argument to admit them when they have no right to be here even under the asylum scam.

Plus, a recent Gallup poll found illegal immigration to be the top problem facing America, more than healthcare. People are sick of the lawlessness.