And again Mexico
MEXICO CITY, May 26 -- President Vicente Fox appealed today for action on a long-delayed immigration accord with the United States, now that the Iraq war is over and more than 20 months have passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Fox said the deaths earlier this month of 19 illegal immigrants in a sweltering tractor-trailer in Victoria, Tex., the worst such tragedy recorded in the United States, are testimony to the urgent need for a new immigration agreement.
In an interview, Fox urged Washington to broaden its focus from security issues and start increasing the number of work visas for Mexicans, which would help the United States "avoid having to deal with problems like Victoria, with people dying on their territory."
"To see people die following their dream is very sad," Fox said in his office in Los Pinos, the wooded presidential compound in central Mexico City. "Something must be done."
Fox said he understood that "the world changed on September 11th" and that many in Washington, particularly in Congress, now view increased immigration as a threat to homeland security.
"It's understandable that the worry exists, but we must be pragmatic and objective in evaluating the situation: No terrorists have come from Mexico, and none has been a Mexican," said Fox, who also wants the legalization of some of the estimated 4 million illegal Mexican immigrants already in the United States.
Fox said that the vast majority of Mexican immigrants travel to the United States with "a clear dream to work." He called them "reliable people" who have helped drive U.S. economic success in recent years, whether by picking produce or caring for the elderly. Noting that soldiers of Mexican descent fought in the Iraq war, he said, "Many migrants participate in the U.S. Army, participate in the defense of U.S. security."
Fox said the people who died in the Texas truck disaster, including a father and son, underscored the benign intent of immigrants from Mexico: "How do you conceive a father and a 5-year-old son would harm U.S. interests?"
Fox and Bush, who took office within two months of each other, promised early in their administrations to make the flow of Mexican workers into the United States more "safe and orderly," and to begin giving legal status to millions of Mexican immigrants working and paying taxes in the country.
But relations between the United States and Mexico have cooled dramatically in the past year and a half. Mexico was frustrated when progress on new immigration rules died after the Sept. 11 attacks. And relations between Fox and Bush further soured when Fox, following overwhelming antiwar sentiment among the Mexican public, became a vocal critic of military action against Iraq. Mexico refused to support Bush's Iraq plans in the U.N. Security Council.
Fox has not met Bush in person since an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit last October in Los Cabos, Mexico. They have spoken on the telephone several times, but people familiar with the calls said they were businesslike and lacking the warmth of their earlier encounters, when Bush used his first White House state dinner to host his rancher "amigo" from Mexico.
The two men are scheduled to see each other this weekend at a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries in Evian, France. Fox said he and Bush would have only an informal meeting but that he would raise immigration if he had the chance.
Fox said he did not believe that the disagreement over Iraq would cause lasting damage to relations. He said goodwill between the two countries "cannot be erased by once in a while having a conflict."
He said that while Mexico did not support U.S. strategy in Iraq, the country has a "very solid, clear partnership with the United States in working together against terrorists."
Looking tanned and robust after a trip to South America last week and nearly three months after major back surgery, Fox said Mexico had gone to great lengths to strengthen border security and anti-terrorism measures, reflecting Washington's top priority.
Now, he said, "we will be insisting on our priority, which is migration."
Fox said he was not asking the United States to solve Mexico's economic problems, which lead to a vast flow of citizens abroad, but simply to have "co-responsibility." He said Mexico has spent billions of dollars this year alone on roads, energy and housing to improve economic conditions. There has been special focus, he said, on the poorest areas of Mexico, which send the most immigrants to the United States.
Fox said he was encouraged that the United States seemed to be focusing more attention on economic matters since the end of the Iraq war. Improvement in the U.S. economy would benefit the Mexican economy, he said, easing some of the pressure to emigrate.
"When you are neighbors you have commitments and you have to share and you have to be co-responsible," he said. "There should be no misunderstanding: It's as important for the United States to deal with the migration issue as it is to us in Mexico."
Fox proposed starting with a "sector-by-sector" approach to granting work visas to Mexicans, perhaps beginning with nurses and bilingual teachers, who are in short supply in many parts of the United States. Some U.S. hospitals facing severe shortages of nurses have begun recruiting in Mexico.
Fox said he has been disappointed by some in the United States who consider increased legal immigration of Mexicans a threat. He called that "thinking from 50 years ago" that does not take into account the economic partnership and intertwined economies of the two nations.
"We will keep insisting until the final day of this administration," Fox said, "that the migration issue can be solved with big opportunities for both countries."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
This one is not going to go away. Mexico is the #1 foreign policy issue facing the US.
Now our problem on this is a mixture of inertia, PC and insisting on looking at a seamless whole piecemeal.
1. Expecting to solve the ‘problem’ on the border is a joke and a stupid one at that. Given the differences in standard of living and the relative ease of finding work here, people will keep trying to get in. All the BP can do is run up the costs in blood and money. To stop people coming over would take an East German type frontier guard. The US public wouldn’t pay for it. The US public would be sickened by the amount of bloodshed. It would mean permanent semiwar with Mexico [which is really dumb unless we are left no choice]. Our Greens would have public fits over construction in wilderness areas and over every dead animal. It would simply kick the ‘problem’ to the Texas and California shores as people starting doing a maritime end-run. The only way that limits can be placed on the movement of people is from the Mexican side of the border. Mexico will not do so in return for us stopping threats. It will take a negotiated deal. So let us look at the outline of such a deal.
2. What Mexico can give the US. First a security frontier much further South without the burdens of the US Constitution getting in the way. People, drugs, Al Qaeda biobombs – the US cannot be defended without active willing Mexican cooperation. Second, energy: the instabilities in the Middle East and West Africa are only going to accelerate over the next few decades. Mexico may not love us. However a Mexico that makes a strategic bargain to stay linked to us is a far safer supply source in an uncertain world. To make this part work we need to get beyond the shrill free market wailings of the GOP right. Mexico is not going to denationalize its energy industry. The most we can reasonably expect is slow privatization with Mexican ownership guaranteed and a majority stake for the Mexican government. It is not in our interest to push for that. It is pushing a hot button nationalist issue in Mexico for the sake of ideological purity here. There are infinite ways around the problem. Subsidiary joint ventures, preferred stock, golden shares, various sort of bonds…the net answer is full development of Mexican energy with a guaranteed market here. Hypothetically we agree to pay $1 / barrel over world price on oil with whatever would be the correct ratio on natural gas. Mechanisms aren’t hard but I won’t bore you folks with them. Third, we can reasonably expect a formal acceptance by Mexico of the current border as permanent. What the rest of Europe got from Germany when the EEC formed – forget ‘historic justice’, what is is what remains. Fourth, we can expect that if labor mobility to the US is going to be a major part of their development strategy, then all Mexican schools should teach US English as a second language as a mandatory subject. Fifth, as part of a labor mobility pact we can reasonably ask that work permits do not equal social benefit rights or naturalization rights. Labor mobility should have time limits. The number of people who can move should be subject to enforceable limits.
3. What can Mexico expect from the US? First, labor mobility at some mutually acceptable limit, not a US diktat subject to Congressional whim. This is not foreign aid we are handing out. It is a real bargain between equals where the result should have teeth under US law and not be subject to endless Congressional quibbling, certifications…And the limits we are talking about are probably in the ten million range for adult workers. Second, Mexico must be given massive US aid to ease the disparity in standards of living. Either Mexican wages must be over time brought up to US levels or US wages and living standards will decline to Mexican. We are both better off with Mexico rising. However this can only happen by freezing out others. This is a zero sum game. The EU raised the standards of its Club Med members by giving them a protected market. We must do the same with Mexico. That means higher prices at the mall folks. Mexican production is cheaper than the US but China is cheaper than everyone. We also need development aid to Mexico. The easiest mechanism [as all three NAFTA members would find a supranational NAFTA [that would be seen as a castration of sovereignty to US hegemony by the other two and as a castration of our constitutional sovereignty by the US public] to be a BAD idea] is Mexican dollar bonds guaranteed by the US Treasury with the Mexicans pledging their energy reserves as collateral. With USG guarantees you could float say $75 billion / year at a quarter of a point or so above whatever the US Treasury was paying. Mexico could build roads, airports, railroads, sewers, environmentally clean up at least the common watersheds it shares with the US, rebuild its public utilities, and fortify its southern border to keep out 3rd country nationals. Third, there is going to have to be yet another ‘final amnesty round’ on legalizing those already here who have ties. The rule of law people are going to scream. Bargains don’t work by declaring legitimate accommodations to be matters of principle. Fourth, we are going to have to do this in such a way that all the changes we make benefit Mexico / Mexicans, not everybody equally. So the amnesty is for Mexicans, not everybody here. The labor mobility and protected market are for NAFTA and not the world and if NAFTA is expanded Mexico always has a better deal until their GDP / capita hits some agreed ratio of that of the US [80% sounds reasonable but this would be a negotiated matter]. Fifth, we would have to get serious about all this for Mexico to get the real benefit of its concessions – a NAFTA wide ID card system so that out of NAFTA illegals could be spotted, denied employment, etc. Preference for cash transfer rules to NAFTA nationals. Accepting that Mexican Spanish is a legally recognized second language in return for their acceptance that North American English is the dominant language. Sixth, we are going to have to either live up to our water sharing agreements [Rio Grande, Colorado] or buy them out. Seventh, we are going to have to accept that the drug market is demand driven and that the solution is mostly domestic to the US. We can ask reasonable cooperation [which we have never gotten]. We must in return accept that the vast amounts of money destabilize them and flow from us. The WOSD is a separate discussion. The US avoidance mechanism – focus of foreign kingpins to avoid dealing with our own insane illogic – is not. Eighth, we are going to have to accept that reasonable nations can differ on policy issues. For example – we believe in the death penalty. Most others do not. We can not put this entire structure at risk every time Mexico will not extradite a suspect or fugitive until the death penalty is taken off the table. Similarly the benefits cannot be withheld or threatened to be withheld every time they won’t vote our way in the UN, host Castro at a state dinner or do other things that remind us that they are a sovereign nation. Ninth, enforcement must be taken away from Congress. No one of the three nations will let their sovereignty be diminished by making this agreement forever. However, the only reasonable option to leave the legislatures is a one year [or some agreed time period] vote to renounce the pact. Short of that they can not hobble it with statute or drain it of enforcement personnel via lack of appropriations.
4. Yes this is all extreme. However, on a cost / benefit basis it is the best path. The alternative is to dither with piecemeal approaches on each issue until Mexico melts down and we are faced with a war of national liberation in our Southwest.
posted by scott 6:30 AM