U.S.-Mexico Effort Called Better Tack for Border Ills

A coordinated effort by the United States and Mexico would be more effective in stemming the flow of illegal aliens than unilateral U.S. efforts, such as the immigration reform bill passed last week in the House of Representatives, said a Mexican senator attending a meeting here Saturday.

Sen. Hugo Margain, co-chairman of the independent Bilateral Commission on the Future of United States-Mexican Relations, said the Simpson-Rodino bill, which would impose criminal penalties on U.S. employers who knowingly hired illegal aliens, only addresses the issue of illegal immigration from one side of the border.

“We believe a unilateral solution to this problem is not the best system,” Margain told reporters through an interpreter. “Worldwide experience demonstrates that it is much better to have government-to-government negotiations of a bilateral nature. . . . Dialogue is the best way to foster understanding. If we know each other better, we’ll make fewer mistakes.”

Margain, a former ambassador to the United States, and co-chairman William Rogers, former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, spoke briefly with reporters during a break in the commission’s meeting at UC San Diego’s Institute of the Americas.

The commission, formed in September with a $600,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, held its first meetings Thursday and Friday in Tijuana. The 18-member panel will meet periodically over the next year, after which it will make recommendations on the direction U.S.-Mexican relations should take during the next quarter century. The commission will issue its report late in 1988 to coincide with the inaugurations of new presidents in both countries.

Rogers said, “The results of the commission’s work will have a wide audience, both in the governments, which will be new just about the time the report comes out . . . and with the general public. I think we can be certain we’ll be heard. Whether our recommendations for action are followed depends on our skill in proposing something that’s operationally viable.”

Neither Margain nor Rogers would discuss details of the sessions, which are closed to the public and the press. They said, however, that Saturday’s meeting dealt primarily with the problem of illegal immigration and included testimony by high-ranking U.S. Border Patrol officials.

The commission also will study Mexico’s economic crisis and efforts to curb international drug trafficking, Rogers said.

Members of the U.S. delegation include Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kans.), San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros and Robert McNamara, former secretary of defense and president of the World Bank. Mexican delegates include newspaper editor Hector Aguilar Camin, opposition political candidate Fernando Canales Clariond and Juan Jose Bremer, chairman of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies’ committee on foreign relations.

Rogers described the commission’s membership as “a very high-powered group . . . of private citizens, speaking in their own names, with no political commitments.” The commission’s recommendations will not be binding, but Rogers said members may wield enough influence to help shape national policies.

“I’m optimistic,” Rogers said. “This is, on both sides, a commission of considerable stature. Both governments are aware of the existence of the commission and have sent messages praising our efforts. We also have members who are active, at least in the legislative side, in the two governments.”

Rogers also cautioned: “Nothing guarantees that our proposals will be accepted. We have no promises from the two governments. We don’t even know who the two presidents are going to be . . . but we will try.

“If this group can’t do it, I don’t know of any other group that can.”