A push for earnest talks
Immigration issue called emotional by Mexican official
MEXICO CITY -- The government has failed to secure an immigration pact with Washington that would legalize millions of Mexican workers in the United States because it has relied too heavily on emotions rather than on economic facts in lobbying its case, Mexico's foreign minister said yesterday.
"The best way to negotiate an immigration accord with the United States is by emphasizing the need to reach an equilibrium between US labor needs and the supply here," Luis Ernesto Derbez said during a breakfast meeting
with foreign correspondents. "There is a demand in the United States. That's why people go. But we need rules." Derbez, a former finance minister who took over the foreign office in January, has favored a more piecemeal style than his predecessor in pushing for legal guarantees for the estimated 4 million Mexican workers residing illegally in the United States as well as for a proposed guest-worker program for hundreds of thousands of would-be migrant laborers.
The previous foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, led an aggressive campaign for immigration reform, arguing initially that US policy violated migrants' rights. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he seized on American national-security concerns to argue that legalizing migrants would make the United States safer.
But when it became clear that neither argument would make immigration reform a top priority in Washington, Castaneda resigned in frustration.
Derbez, a former World Bank official, has said he does not plan to go for the "whole enchilada," a reference to his predecessor's effort to secure sweeping reforms before President Vicente Fox leaves office in 2006. Instead, he said yesterday, he would play up the long-term economic benefits of immigration changes in talks with US officials. Eventually, he said, the United States would recognize the need for Mexican laborers to replace the aging US work force.
"We have to propose immigration accords in the context of the labor market," he said. "This hasn't happened. It's been in the context of `you owe us,' or `we owe you.' . . . This has been the greatest obstacle so far. We've put emotional arguments first."
It is unclear whether the new strategy of focusing on the labor market will prove more effective than appealing to the consciences of US legislators. Nor is the tactic necessarily less emotional, analysts said.
"This is not a simple negotiation. It's not a negotiation that is divorced from politics in either country," said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that studies hemispheric issues. "This is a strongly emotional issue for both countries."
Hakim suggested that rather than changing its language to couch the same demands, the Mexican government should work harder to stop the flow of illegal immigration to the United States. "The real problem is that Mexico has not been willing to make concessions from its side," he said. The Mexican government says any effort to restrict the movement of its citizens is banned under the Mexican Constitution.
Other analysts questioned the logic that the United States should feel grateful to Mexico for providing it with cheap labor.
"US officials will say, `fine, you don't have the ability to employ all these people. This is a necessity for both sides,' " said Marcela Bobadilla, an analyst with the Mexican Institute of Political Studies in Mexico City.
She argued that many US companies preferred to preserve the illegal labor market so that they could get away with paying illegally low wages.
Opponents of immigration reform, meanwhile, say foreign workers are an economic drain on the US economy. The migrants save the US economy between $1 billion and $10 billion a year by driving down wages, but they cost between $11 billion and $20 billion in government services, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.
Derbez disagrees with such arguments. Mexican migrants, an estimated 400,000 of whom cross illegally into the United States each year, "are productive people who contribute to the economy there," he said.
