Prop. 187 Gives Texas a Selling Point in Mexico

If California looks at Mexico and sees problems, Texas looks south and sees profits.

Not only have state leaders from across the political spectrum condemned California’s Proposition 187, but they have taken advantage of the controversy over the measure to reassure Mexican entrepreneurs that Texas is a friendlier neighbor--and a better business partner.

“I think there’s a general feeling, even though it’s not necessarily articulated, that California’s loss is Texas’ gain,” said Jose Villarreal, a prominent San Antonio attorney active in civil rights and international trade. “I sure make a point of letting my political and business contacts in Mexico know that Texas is a more inviting atmosphere.”

After the landslide victory of Proposition 187, which would deny most public services to illegal immigrants, the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation whipped together a Spanish-language brochure for all of Mexico’s top exporters, reminding them of the common culture they have shared for nearly 300 years.

Although it doesn’t mention the divisive measure--that would have been “too tacky,” said the group’s president, Mario Hernandez--the implication in the brochure is clear: “If you want to expand your business outside of Mexico, start in a place where you’ll feel at home.”

Even some of Texas’ most conservative voices have been singing Mexico’s praises instead of bashing its emigrants. Newly elected Gov. George W. Bush, who ran on a get-tough, anti-welfare GOP platform, opened his inaugural address last month by paying special tribute to the five Mexican governors whose states are closest to Texas.

“Friends bring out the best in each other,” said Bush, who favors tighter control of the border but opposes denying services to illegal immigrants already here. “May our friendship bring much good to both of our countries.”

The difference is not so much that Texas is more sensitive to Mexico, although the history, geography and demography of this region could support such an argument.

More significantly, Texas’ economic future is bound to its southern neighbor in ways that far exceed that of any other state. As the top U.S. exporter to Mexico--$19 billion annually, compared to California’s $6 billion--Texas ships as much merchandise across the border as the rest of the nation combined. It is a lucrative commercial pipeline that few officials here want to jeopardize, no matter how great their concern over illegal immigration.

“I honestly don’t believe any legitimate political or business leader, Republican or Democrat, wants that kind of antagonism with Mexico,” said George Christian, a veteran political consultant who served as press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson. “Most of the farsighted people in this part of the country look south now . . . if only to preserve our self-interest.”

Nowhere is that truer than in San Antonio, which is jockeying to position itself as Mexico’s front door to the United States.

A cradle of the Latino political movement, where even Anglo powerbrokers lace their conversations with Spanish, the city takes pride in its symbiotic ties with the border and its leading role as an architect of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In a unanimous vote just a week ago, the San Antonio City Council denounced Proposition 187, blaming it for promoting “a climate of fear and suspicion” and urging Texas lawmakers to reject any similar measure.

“We look at the border a little bit more like Southern California looks at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles--our living depends on it,” said John McCray, an expert on U.S.-Mexico trade at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “If California was as dependent on Mexico . . . I don’t think you would have seen any 187.”

Backers of Proposition 187 have insisted that the law was designed only to target illegal immigrants, not Latinos or any other ethnic group. Moreover, its key provisions--denying education and non-emergency health care to the undocumented--have no ostensible bearing on the dynamics of international trade.

But in Mexico, the measure--and its most visible proponent, California Gov. Pete Wilson--have been widely assailed as symbols of bigotry and xenophobia. Just before the November election, high-ranking Mexican officials boycotted a California Week trade exposition in Mexico City, and, in another diplomatic snub, the Tijuana City Council formally proclaimed Wilson persona non grata.

To help repair the damage, one of Wilson’s aides asked a respected Texas banker to deliver a conciliatory note to outgoing Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. “Pete Wilson wanted Salinas to know that he didn’t mean anything against Mexicans,” said the banker, who asked to remain anonymous to not risk souring his own ties with Mexico. “I’m a longstanding Republican . . . but I said, ‘No, thank you.’ ”

The roots of Texas’ relationship with Mexico run wide and deep, shaped by a notoriously porous 1,200-mile border.

Unlike California, where a small corner of the state abuts the western fringe of Mexico, Texas is inextricably linked--physically and philosophically--to the large population and manufacturing centers of Mexico’s heartland. For generations, Mexican and Mexican American families have crisscrossed the serpentine Rio Grande, forging a bilingual, binational culture.

“The land and the families and the blood and the genes all run across that line,” said Anthony N. Zavaleta, dean of liberal arts at the University of Texas at Brownsville. “They are the invisible links, the threads that hold the two economies and two societies together.”

None of which is to say that Texas has always welcomed the flow of Mexicans across that line.

A year before Operation Gatekeeper was unveiled in San Diego--with the goal of shutting down illegal immigration--there was Operation Hold the Line in El Paso, a human blockade of U.S. Border Patrol agents credited with cutting illegal crossings by more than 70%. Like California, Texas also has filed a lawsuit demanding that Congress reimburse the state for money spent on illegal immigrants. And in 1982, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling entitling all children to a public education, it was in response to a Texas law that sought to deny free schooling to the undocumented.

“Texas at times has dealt very harshly with Mexicans, so as to keep them in their place,” said Rodolfo de la Garza, vice president of the Tomas Rivera Center, a Latino think-tank in Austin. “But the state also understands how important Mexicans are to its well-being. You can’t afford to ignore Mexicans in Texas.”

That process of accommodation, experts say, has been aided by the fact that 80% of adult Latinos in Texas are U.S.-born, compared to about 50% in California. Rather than outsiders, Mexican Americans are the political muscle in many corners of Texas, which is home to more than 2,200 elected Latino officials--half of all Latino representatives in the nation.

Although many political consultants say they believe that Proposition 187 would have a fair shot at passage if it appeared on a Texas ballot, voters are unlikely to get that opportunity. For starters, there’s no initiative process in the state, so any new law would need the backing of legislators in Austin. And few of them want to risk alienating their large Latino constituencies--or Texas’ top trading partner across the border.

“The new world is for visionary people, and Texas is cultural-sighted,” said Tamaulipas Gov. Manuel Cavazos Lerma, still basking in the glow of Bush’s public salute on the Statehouse steps. Then, in a cutting reference to Wilson’s support for Proposition 187, the Mexican governor said: “You may want to win an election, but you lose your destiny.”

Despite the rhetoric, there’s no evidence of any long-term harm to California’s economic relationship with Mexico, which is the state’s third-largest trading partner after Japan and Canada. At California’s Office of Trade and Investment in Mexico City, officials concede they have been peppered with questions about the measure by worried exporters. But in the end, “business is business,” said R.C. Schrader, the state’s top trade delegate. “When it hits the bottom line, the Mexican business person is going to make the best decision for his company.”

That’s probably even more true in the wake of the peso’s devastating decline, which has given Mexican investors much more to worry about than California politics.

But that has not stopped Texans from exploiting the belief that Proposition 187 is an undiplomatic slap. Quietly, informally, during face-to-face visits and long-distance chats, they have taken the opportunity to remind their Mexican counterparts that Texas is a kinder, gentler ally in the high-stakes world of free trade.

“I’m never one to prosper at the ashes of someone who has blundered, but Proposition 187 could be a real side benefit,” said Tom Herring Jr., whose San Antonio company holds the exclusive rights to develop the Tony Roma restaurant chain in Mexico. “Texas loves Mexico, and I think the feeling is mutual.”