Mexico City Residents Protest Gringo Visitors, and DHS Offers Helpful Advice

Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

Ever notice how you run across a news item now and then that just hammers you with some cosmic-level irony?

This is one of those; it seems residents of Mexico City are protesting against mass tourism and "gentrification." Note that this last term is often used to describe the process of turning a given urban area from a marginally habitable craphole and making it into a decent place. But, yes, the irony! Oh, the irony!

A protest by hundreds against gentrification and mass tourism that began peacefully Friday in Mexico City neighborhoods popular with tourists turned violent when a small number of people began smashing storefronts and harassing foreigners.

Masked protesters smashed through the windows and looted high-end businesses in the touristic areas of Condesa and Roma, and screamed at tourists in the area. Graffiti on glass shattered glass being smashed through with rocks read: “get out of Mexico.” Protesters held signs reading “gringos, stop stealing our home” and demanding local legislation to better regulate tourism levels and stricter housing laws.

Marchers then continued on to protest outside the U.S. Embassy and chanted inside the city’s metro system. Police reinforcements gathered outside the Embassy building as police sirens rung out in the city center Friday evening.

One wonders if "mostly peaceful" - or, should I say, "mayormente pacífico" - is used as euphemistically in Mexico as it is by the legacy media here in the Estados Unidos. 

Either way, the irony is palpable. The residents of Mexico City, of course, are entitled to be concerned about some of this, especially since the COVID debacle drove a lot of telecommuting gringos south of the border, where they learned that one can live pretty well in Mexico on a salary that is just tolerable in the USA. 

But what about our concerns about illegal aliens - many of them from Mexico - being in our country? One would think that, out of intellectual consistency if nothing else, some in Mexico might be looking north now and feeling a little abashed.

But here's the chuckle-inducing bit: Our own Department of Homeland Security is offering to help out any Mexican citizens who want to return home to partake in the protests.

Now that's a fine troll, and that's a natural-born fact. This app was originally intended to help illegal immigrants enter the United States by the Biden administration and was repurposed by the Trump administration to help them out - literally. In fact, illegal aliens who self-deport through this app have been offered a one-time payment of $1,000 and a plane ticket home. I think that's more than the Soros organization is paying protesters here.

One X user, replying to DHS, had a great suggestion:

Heck, they don't even have to go back to their country of origin. The old bartender's warning applies: You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.