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Institute of the Americas President Jeffrey Davidow said Mexico's drug trade is so entrenched that "it may take as much as a generation" to resolve. Davidow made his comments during a May 19 interview on the McNeil Lehrer NewsHour, following a White House meeting between Mexican President Felipe Calderon and President Obama. Obama and Calderon said their meeting focused on energy and border security, but immigration -- and particularly the new Arizona law making it a crime to be in the state without proper documentation -- was also a topic of discussion.

"We will retain our firm rejection of the criminalization of migration ... and we oppose firmly the Arizona law given unfair principals that are partial and discriminatory," Calderon told reporters during a news conference.


Davidow said it was important for Calderon to make a strong statement about the law during his White House meeting. "If he had come up here and not mentioned the Arizona law and made something of a big deal about it," Davidow said, "he would, on his return, be put on a spit and roasted slowly by the Mexican public."