MEXICO-U.S.: Undocumented Immigrants Will Have to Wait

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Nov 12 2003 (IPS) - Mexico and the United States took up dialogue again Wednesday after a prolonged cool period, but made only a few adjustments in the relationship, while the most crucial bilateral issue – a migration agreement – has been put off once again.

Mexican and U.S. delegations met Wednesday in Washington to put back on track relations that were derailed by the events surrounding the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March, which Mexico did not support.

The meeting produced embraces and mutual praise, as well as reiteration of already-known plans.

The most important outcome was an agreement to set up a "hotline" between the U.S. Homeland Security Department and the Mexican Secretariat of Interior in order to coordinate actions during security-related emergencies, said spokespersons in Washington.

As for the migration issue, an agreement is being built, step by step, said Mexico’s Foreign Minister Ernesto Derbez, but he added that it will take time, and there will be no formal announcement because neither government wants to create false expectations.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the two sides had discussed migration and they realise that there is much work to do, but he acknowledged that it would be difficult to finalise an agreement on the issue in the short term.

"There are some issues that we think we can achieve some success in the not-too-distant future, but we don’t want to have a high level of expectations that can’t be met," he said.

For now, the estimated four million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States will have to keep waiting for the regularisation of their status promised by President Vicente Fox.

And the emigration from Mexico of some 400,000 people a year will continue. Those who do so illegally often 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.

The most important is that dialogue with the United States is being reinitiated, but expectations must be realistic, given the current international context, said Fox earlier this month.

His cautious tone contrasts sharply with his attitude prior to September 2001, when he promised to make every effort to work with Washington to attain a resolution to the migration question.

"The accord that the government is discussing is a tentative matter, and very difficult to finalise because of the political dynamic of the two countries," says Manuel Castillo, coordinator of migration studies at the Colegio de México.

The dialogue depends on Washington’s willingness, but also in large part on the U.S. Congress, and it must be remembered that security, not immigration, is the higher priority for the George W. Bush administration, Castillo told IPS.

Adolfo Aguilar, the Mexican representative on the United Nations Security Council, says that reaching an agreement with the United States is difficult because the northern neighbour "is not interested in an equal partnership, but rather a narrow relationship of convenience and subordination."

In an address to Mexican university students, which caught observers by surprise for its boldness, Aguilar said Tuesday that the United States has never seen his country as a partner, but only as its "backyard".

Powell reacted Wednesday, saying Aguilar’s words were "outrageous", and that what the Mexican diplomat described was not the type of relationship that Fox and Bush had worked to build.

"Mexico is a partner of the United States, a neighbour of the United States, a great friend of the United States, and we would never, ever in any way treat Mexico as some backyard or as a second-class nation," said the U.S. official.

Although the number of people of Mexican origin is growing exponentially in the United States, Washington has been reticent to negotiate a far-reaching agreement on migration, and has instead focused on maintaining its repressive strategies, particularly along the shared 3,200-km border.

Of the 35.3 million people of Latin American or Hispanic origin living in the United States today, 20.6 million are Mexican by birth or of Mexican descent – 7.1 million more than in 1990.

An agreement on the matter is unlikely in the short term, especially because the United States is immersed in the presidential campaign process for the November 2004 elections, says migration expert Castillo.

According to Pamela Starr, a U.S. citizen and professor at Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology, Bush already has a "full plate", dealing with Iraq and his campaign for re-election, and he is unlikely to pay much attention to the migration question..

The conflictive and asymmetrical relationship between Mexico and the United States is considered unique in the world. The two countries have very different cultures, languages, economies and trade capacities. But they are inexorably linked.

Although they are partners, along with Canada, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, which allows the free flow of capital and merchandise, workers cannot move freely across the border.

Beginning in the early 1990s, the United States has sought to maintain strict control over the flow of people along its southern border. The strategy has included an increase in border patrols, the construction of walls, installation of motion-sensitive cameras and surveillance from helicopters, among other measures.

Since then, 3,000 would-be immigrants have died, 12 million undocumented Mexicans were apprehended and the trafficking of persons has become a highly profitable business for the "polleros" or "coyotes" (traffickers), says Fabienne Venet, director of the non-governmental organisation Sin Fronteras (Without Borders).

As long as the U.S. government and lawmakers continue to treat the migration issue as a police matter, the possibility of an agreement remains distant, Venet told IPS.