MEXICO-U.S.: The Mirage of a Migration Accord

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Nov 3 2003 (IPS) - The Mexican government boasted two years ago of having taken the initiative in negotiating with the United States a broad-based migration agreement, covering issues ranging from human rights to work passes and residency – but so far has nothing to show for it.

The issue has returned to the bilateral agenda, with talks scheduled to take place Nov. 12 in Washington. But the Vicente Fox administration is warning against high expectations and says now is not the time to make demands of Mexico’s powerful northern neighbour.

What is important now is that the two countries are returning to dialogue, though one should not “build up unrealistic expectations” about its results, Fox told foreign journalists in Mexico City on Monday.

Tuesday through Thursday, Fox will tour the U.S. border states of Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, home to more than seven million Mexicans and descendants, to discuss immigration-related problems with the states’ governors, lawmakers, business communities and immigrant groups.

In the new negotiations, Mexico will make no demands of the United States in regards to migration, because “they are our partners” and will be treated as such, said Fox.

On Nov. 12, after a prolonged period of relatively cool relations, officials from both governments will meet in Washington to talk about migration, according to what Fox and U.S. President George W. Bush agreed at a meeting in October when both attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Bangkok.

Bilateral relations began to deteriorate after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, as the United States beefed up border controls as part of its “Homeland Security” efforts. And they worsened this year as a result of Mexico’s refusal to support its neighbour in the United Nations Security Council on the war against Iraq.

Mexico considers the migration issue a top priority. Already residing in the United States are 25 million people who are Mexican by birth or of Mexican descent. An estimated 390,000 Mexicans cross into the United States each year – legally and illegally,

Of that population, more than four million do not hold legal residence papers and more recent migrants have had to deal with stricter border controls.

The tighter controls at the official crossings have led Mexicans who try to enter the United States illegally to risk their lives as they cross dangerous rivers, vast desert areas or treacherous mountain ranges. Last year, 342 Mexicans died in their attempts to enter the United States illegally.

“We are going in the spirit of partners” to the migration talks, and will discuss respect for migrants’ human rights, the documentation they need, and facilitation of their residence and employment in the United States, whether temporary or permanent, Fox said.

In early September 2001, Fox patted himself on the back for having put the migration issue at the top of the agenda in dialogue with Washington, and even won applause from the political opposition in Mexico for the strategy and his show of leadership.

The Mexican president said he aimed to negotiate a broad agreement on the issue, which was also well received by lawmakers in the United States.

Bush said at the time that Fox was one of Latin America’s main leaders and that for the United States there was no other relationship in the world more important “than the one we have with Mexico.”

But all of that changed after Sep. 11, 2001.

Fox told the foreign reporters Monday that his government’s strategy today is to make progress on key areas of the migration issue, instead of seeking a broad agreement as he had proposed in 2001.

“It’s a shame that he is abandoning the integral strategy, which is what Mexico needed. I hope the new approach does not mean that everything will continue as it has been, with only superficial changes,” Fabienne Venet, director of the non-governmental group Sin Fronteras, told IPS.

“But it is understood that the Mexican government no longer has the drive and the force that it used to, because with the Sep. 11 attacks everything changed, and with it Fox’s plans,” the migrant rights activist said.

A survey conducted in October by Zogby International throughout Latin America and the Caribbean found that among people of middle and upper incomes that Fox is among the least popular figures as a regional leader.

Just last year, the same poll – of 537 people – put Fox as the number-one leader in the region, a position now held by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“Reality has imposed a different strategy on the president of Mexico in dealing with the United States, but we hope that he does not renounce his ambitions for a ‘macro’ agreement on migration,” said the Sin Fronteras director.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said it would be very difficult to achieve substantial progress in migration talks with Mexico either this year or next.

Powell said that the grand plans of the two governments had been cut short by the need of the United States to maintain greater control over who enters, works and lives in the country.

The trafficking of persons and goods across the 3,200-km border between Mexico and the United States has slowed in the past two years, according to several studies. Stricter border controls since Sep. 11, 2001 have not resulted in the arrest of any terrorists.

Nevertheless, research by the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a Mexican academic institution specialising in migration issues, shows that the beefed up border controls have not halted the entry of undocumented Mexicans into the United States.