When Mexican officials come to the United States pretending to have the moral authority to preach about compassion and human rights for undocumented immigrants in this country, they personify hypocrisy.

Everyone knows that what they preach here they don't practice at home!

They often claim to be coming here to support U.S. undocumented immigrants, mostly Mexicans, in their efforts to gain respect for their human rights and some sort of legalization plan.

With hypocritical indignation, they react to Draconian U.S. measures against undocumented immigrants and encourage this country to have the compassion they don't have themselves. Their double standards are gigantic!

In the United States, immigration policy unfortunately is driven by a few radio jocks, wacky TV characters, xenophobia-baiting politicians and even Minutemen border vigilantes — all of whom look like Boy Scouts compared with the corrupt cops, politicians and drug-trafficking gangs controlling the migration of Central Americans and South Americans going through Mexico on their way to the U.S.

To get here, these immigrants have to go through the Mexican gantlet of abuse, in a country where some law enforcement authorities compete with criminal gangs to see who gets to kidnap, extort, rob and even rape the immigrants first. Thousands of hapless people become their victims every year.

In the U.S., we tend to know a little about Mexico's bloody war on drug-trafficking cartels and a lot about the Mexicans and other Latinos coming illegally through our southern border. But we are extremely uninformed about the treatment of migrants entering Mexico through its southern borders, especially the one with Guatemala, where there have been numerous reports of human rights violations committed by Mexicans for many years.

And we are even less informed about the plight of traveling through Mexico as undocumented immigrants. There are many people who simply have vanished while traveling from town to town, many who have been pulled off trains at gunpoint, many who have been forced to become slaves, many who have been kidnapped en masse and held hostage until they can call their U.S. relatives and pay ransoms, many whose bodies are yet to be identified.

In the United States, undocumented immigrants can end up getting exploited, racially profiled and deported. But in Mexico, they can get massacred!

When Americans who support strict enforcement of U.S. immigration laws respond to my columns that call for compassion and legalization for undocumented immigrants, they often encourage me to "look at Mexico," as if I can't see what goes on there.

Mexico's laws are not only much harsher against undocumented immigrants but also superseded by bribes, intimidation, extortion and mass graves!

You need to stand on high moral ground when you preach to a neighboring country about how it should conduct its immigration policies. Yet Mexican officials try to preach from the basement.

When immigrant rights advocates seek compassion for undocumented immigrants here, Mexico doesn't help!

Knowing that Mexico cannot lead by example, U.S. anti-immigrant advocates often argue that our treatment of undocumented immigrants should be as harsh as Mexico's.

Of course, two wrongs don't make a right. Obviously, we Americans should not resort to uncivilized acts of violence or to creating more exclusionary immigration laws.

But Mexico's blatant violations of the human rights of Central and South American migrants certainly make it harder to fight for the rights of undocumented immigrants here, especially when the majority of them are Mexicans.

Because I encourage compassion for undocumented immigrants, some people probably expect me to make excuses for Mexico. Well, I don't have any. In fact, I find it quite repulsive when I see Mexican journalists and government officials trying to blame U.S. immigration policy for the recent massacre of 72 U.S.-bound Central and South American migrants traveling through Mexico.

The gruesome slaughter of 58 men and 14 women from Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Ecuador — apparently for refusing to become drug-trafficking foot soldiers — was attributed to the gang of murderers known as Los Zetas.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International reported that Mexican authorities had failed to prevent the kidnapping and abuse of migrants by criminal organizations that "often ... operate in complicity or with the consent of public officials." Last week, the organization noted that the 72-person massacre "once again demonstrates the extreme danger and violence that Central Americans face on their treacherous journey north, as well as Mexican authorities' abject failure to protect them."

Mexicans have gangs of drug-trafficking hoodlums trying to diversify their crime portfolios by including human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom, and they have corrupt cops, judges and politicians allowing these gangsters to get away with murder — literally! Yet some Mexicans still are going on TV and blaming the United States. They are so used to blaming U.S. immigration policies for all their problems that they don't know when to stop or when they begin to sound ridiculous.

With straight faces, they tell you that it's our fault because we deported gang members back to Mexico and other Latin American countries. They claim we are to blame because, by making it harder for immigrants to cross the U.S. border illegally, we have created a pool of immigrants in transit toward the United States but stagnating in Mexico. They recognize that Central and South American migrants often are exploited, abused and even murdered by Mexicans, yet they still have the gall to blame the United States because we have chosen to reinforce our borders.

I'm all for amnesty for undocumented immigrants who can prove they can be law-abiding U.S. residents. But blaming the U.S. for deporting criminals and for the crimes they commit in Mexico is beyond absurd.

When Mexican government officials protest against Arizona for criminalizing undocumented immigrants, for using local cops to enforce immigration laws and for promoting fear and hatred of foreigners, they are absolutely right.

But do they have the moral right to do it after having been doing it all themselves?

To be fair, the Mexican government has taken some steps to combat abuses and soften its most Draconian immigration laws. But they are baby steps, certainly not enough to lead government officials to the high moral ground where they can lecture anyone about immigration reform or human rights.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.