U.S.-MEXICO: Migration Accord Remains a Remote Possibility

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Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Mar 5 2004 (IPS) - Presidents George W. Bush of the United States and Vicente Fox of Mexico are meeting Friday and Saturday to discuss for the umpteenth time an agreement on migration issues that they promised back in 2001, but which will still has a tense, rocky road ahead, say analysts.

Above and beyond the photos, pomp and rhetoric of the meeting at Bush’s ranch in Texas, a southern U.S. state that borders Mexico, far-reaching results are not expected, according to spokespersons for the two governments.

The important thing is that the presidents are meeting and will review issues of interest to the two countries, which are partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), said Mexican Foreign Minister Ernesto Derbez.

An estimated 25.4 million people of Mexican origin or descent live in the United States. Of that total, 9.9 million were born in Mexico, who are joined every year by another 390,000, most of whom are undocumented immigrants. But the possibility of a migration accord remains remote.

The most recent amnesty for undocumented foreign workers in the United States – mainly Mexicans – was signed in 1986 by then-president Ronald Reagan, after being introduced to the U.S. Congress five years earlier, in 1981.

It must be clear that the debate on migration reform in the United States ”will be long, complicated and sometimes offensive for Mexico,” said Jeffrey Davidow, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

Analyst Sergio Peláez, at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), concurred with Davidow, who left his post in 2002 and a year later wrote a book in which he stated that an agreement on migration issues was never close, even though the Fox administration claimed it was on several occasions.

”There is still a long stretch between Bush’s proposal and what Mexico says, and Washington has yet to present a concrete bill on the issue, the November (U.S.) presidential elections are still to come, and negotiations will have to be carried out with U.S. legislators, which will be very complicated,” Peláez told IPS.

In January, in the context of his re-election campaign, Bush proposed a set of measures on immigration that basically entail the granting of temporary work permits to foreign guest workers. But the Bush administration has yet to draft a legislative bill to that effect.

Observers see the proposal as an attempt to gain support among Latin American immigrants, who number 38.3 million. Of that total, around six million could cast a vote in November.

Five million Mexicans would be eligible for work permits under Bush’s proposal.

But Mexico says that in its negotiations with Washington, it is taking an approach that goes beyond Bush’s potential re-election.

The effort towards a migration accord entails negotiations between states, not presidents, spokespersons for the Mexican government frequently state.

Both Bush, the Republican Party candidate, and John Kerry, the likely candidate for the Democratic Party, say it is necessary to review migration policy in the United States, whose border with Mexico is the main gateway used by tens of thousands of undocumented workers.

In February 2001, when Fox and Bush had recently been inaugurated into office – the former in December 2000 and the latter in January 2001 – they met to discuss a possible migration accord at the Mexican leader’s ranch in the central state of Guanajuato.

On that occasion, Fox said ”the promises (on migration issues) are finished,” and that the two countries were going to move towards ”actions”. On Sep. 9, 2001, he said a migration agreement would be achieved by the end of 2001.

But that did not happen. After the Sep. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, the United States put high priority on border security, which put the negotiations on ice. After that, the U.S.-led war on Iraq, which Mexico opposed, distanced the two countries.

Negotiations on migration issues could take several years, and will be fraught with tension, said Peláez.

A new obstacle was the release Wednesday of the latest work by influential U.S. political scientist Samuel Huntington, whose predictions of a ”clash of civilisations” between the West and Islam generated a great deal of controversy, and who now says the U.S. identity is threatened by the inflow of Latin American immigrants.

In his new book “Who We Are: Challenges to American National Identity”, which has drawn much criticism from academics who believe it is racist and based on scant evidence, Huntington says Spanish-speaking immigrants are not being assimilated into U.S. society, but continue to hold onto their own values and customs.

Given Huntington’s influence, Mexico should take his views into account and forcefully refute them, said Mexican political scientist Denise Dresser.

Peláez said the arguments of the well-known U.S. academic already form part of the thinking of many politicians who are opposed to a migration agreement with Mexico and who constitute a major hurdle that will be difficult for the Fox administration to overcome.