U.S. and Mexico to Open Talks on Freer Migration for Workers
By GINGER THOMPSON
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 15 - After they meet on Friday, President Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico are expected to announce the start of high-level discussions aimed at addressing the web of immigration issues that have long bedeviled relations between the neighboring nations.
American officials said that an "immigration working group" would discuss a range of proposals including Mexican goals to open the border to a freer flow of Mexican guest workers and to grant legal residency to hundreds of thousands of undocumented Mexicans now working in the United States.
The formation of the group, to be led by Mexican and American cabinet members, signals the importance of immigration issues to the newly inaugurated administrations on both sides of the border. American officials said it demonstrates that the Bush administration views immigration not only as a domestic issue, but as a concern best addressed by both countries.
"We are compelled to take a deeper look at the whole question of migration," the United States ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, said in an interview. "There's going to be an interesting debate about amnesty" and the guest-worker programs, he said.
The meeting on Friday will be Mr. Fox's fourth meeting with President Bush, but their first encounter as presidents. The two men met previously, when Mr. Bush was governor of Texas.
The setting for their latest encounter will be Mr. Fox's ranch in his home state of Guanajuato, which ranks fourth among Mexican states in the number of people who migrate to the United States each year.
The Mexican foreign minister, Jorge G. Castañeda, said that immigration issues would be the focus of Mr. Fox's agenda during the meeting. Among the Mexican government's goals, Mr. Castañeda said, is an easing of United States law enforcement efforts along the border that have forced Mexican immigrants to try to cross through isolated desert areas where they die by the hundreds each year from exposure to the heat or cold.
He said that the Fox government is "closely monitoring" talks among members of Congress and immigrant advocates over granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants already living in the United States. Some 3 million of the 8.5 million Mexican-born people in the United States are living there without any legal residency status.
And Mr. Castañeda said that Mexican Foreign Ministry officials have been involved with discussions of proposals to reform United States guest-worker programs so that more Mexicans would be permitted to seek jobs on American farms.
"We think that the broad immigration and labor agenda includes humane, civil and adequate treatment for Mexicans: Mexicans here, going there; Mexicans as they cross the border; Mexicans when they start work and Mexicans who have already been in the United States for a long time," Mr. Castañeda said.
"The best way to ensure this is for them to have papers," he said. "There is no better way for Mexicans to defend themselves than for them to be legal."
Mr. Castañeda acknowledged that carrying out and enforcing many of the proposals would depend almost entirely on the will of the United States government. But he said that Mexico would be more vigilant in monitoring the enforcement of immigrant protections and more involved in efforts to set new policies for the benefit of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
"Every country, by definition has the prerogative to enforce its own laws inside its own territory," Mr. Castañeda said. "But the fact is that a large number, about half perhaps, of the people in the United States without papers are Mexicans. This is something that concerns us, and we think it is something that is legitimately on the negotiating table."
In a briefing on Wednesday, a senior Bush administration official said that the United States government was eager to hear Mr. Fox's ideas on immigration issues. The official stressed that high-ranking officials would be assigned to address both nations' concerns.
President Bush, in an address today at the State Department, reiterated his pledge to work with America's neighbors to build a hemisphere of "freedom and prosperity."
"Some look at the south and see problems," Mr. Bush said, referring to Mexico. "Not me. I look south and see opportunities and potential."
Immigration issues have been a priority for the Mexican government since Mr. Fox won the presidency last summer from the Institutional Revolutionary Party after 70 years in power. The Mexican president has pressed the United States to begin opening the border to more Mexican workers in the same way that it has been opened to goods and services under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
He has walked along border crossings from Ciudad Juárez to Nuevo Laredo, to shake the hands of immigrants and hail them as Mexican heroes. And he has expressed outrage at the violence that Mexican immigrants have endured from United States Border Patrol agents and ranchers in Arizona.
Aides to the Mexican president said that when he talks about the problems and trends of immigration, he rarely refers to government studies. Instead, Mr. Fox draws from the lives of the families around his ranch.
"This is not a guy who has to study about immigration," Mr. Castañeda said, referring to President Fox. "This is a guy who comes from a state that has been sending migrants to the United States for 100 years."
An estimated 150,000 undocumented Mexican immigrants enter the United States each year. Their labor - in Florida orange groves, Georgia onion fields, Las Vegas hotels and Oregon nurseries - has fueled growth in many parts of the American economy. And remittances from Mexican immigrants - between $6 billion and $8 billion a year - is Mexico's third largest source of foreign revenue, behind oil and tourism.
Aides to President Bush and President Fox said that their meeting was aimed mainly at building a personal rapport and would not produce new agreements. The two are expected to be together for about seven hours, including a half-hour visit by Mr. Bush to President Fox's mother, Mercedes Quesada.
Other than immigration, the presidents are expected to discuss a range of issues including drug trafficking, possible energy agreements and ways to resolve water disputes. Relations with Cuba and Washington's military aid to Colombia are also likely to come up, aides said.
In the last few days, the two leaders have received dozens of letters from advocacy groups urging that the governments consider human rights and family needs when setting immigration policy. And on Wednesday, a panel of immigration experts from both sides called on the two presidents to negotiate new ways to manage the border.
The United States-Mexico Migration Panel was led by Andrés Rozental, former deputy foreign minister of Mexico, and by Mack McLarty, who was a special envoy to Latin America for former President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Rozental said, "The U.S. and Mexican governments have never wanted to sit down and say, `Here is the reality of immigration.' Instead they have let it grow into the chaos that it is."
In recent months, there has been increasing support among both Republican and Democrats in Congress for measures that would increase the numbers of Mexicans granted temporary agricultural work visas each year. One proposal, forged by a Democratic Congressman from California and a Republican from Oregon, has won the support of labor leaders and several American grower associations.
Rep. Howard L. Berman, an architect of the proposal, said that it would increase the numbers of guest workers from around 40,000 last year to some 150,000 in five years. The proposal would also allow migrants with a certain number of years of agricultural service to apply for legal residency. And the proposal calls for granting legal residency to undocumented agricultural workers already employed on American farms.
A proposal by Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas also seeks to increase the number of guest workers. However, he has said that the proposal does not allow the migrant workers to apply for residency, nor does it call for any amnesty.
In a briefing on Wednesday, a Bush administration official said that the president had expressed interest in the various guest-worker proposals.
However, the official said, President Bush has said that he did not believe that amnesty agreements were the best way to address abuses against illegal immigrants.
"While the president does not believe that amnesty is the only means by which humane treatment and the status of migrants can be addressed," the official said, "I can assure you that we believe that the issues of migration are going to be an ongoing discussion between the two countries.
"I can assure you that it's going to be addressed at a sufficiently high level that they can make some real progress on this."