Mexico remains the top country where kidnapping occurs, where it has long been a part of the nation’s crime culture. A survey from Control Risks reported that in 2013 Mexico was numero uno in kidnap for ransom in absolute terms.

These days however, Mexican kidnappers are downsizing from snatching children of wealthy parents to working class people.

Below, the front page of Saturday’s Washington Post highlighted Mexico’s kidnap epidemic.

Like other elements of Mexican culture, kidnapping has migrated north just like enchiladas. In 2007, 13-year-old Clay Moore was taken from a Florida school bus stop by an illegal alien with a gun, but the boy managed to escape. In 2008 it was reported that Americans have been kidnapped by Mexican drug gangs in Texas and held for ransom in Mexico.

Kidnap for ransom was a crime rarely committed in the United States because the penalties have been traditionally harsh. Caryl Chessman was executed in 1960 for a violent kidnap in which nobody died, although it’s a sure thing that punishment would never happen today. But now, kidnapping is back, because of immigration.

When wealthy Mexican take up residence in the US, ransom kidnappings tick upward, as has happened in San Diego and Phoenix.

In 2012, 33.7 million hispanics of Mexican origin resided in the United States, including 11.4 million immigrants born in Mexico and 22.3 million born in the U.S. who self-identified as Hispanics of Mexican origin.

America has been foolish to allow so many Mexicans to reside permanently in the US, given their fondness for crime in addition to their stubborn misogyny, disdain for scholarly pursuits and refusal to embrace patriotic assimilation.