U.S. Policy Shifts Wake Up the Neighbors : Immigration: Mexicans are seeking U.S. citizenship in record numbers; now the motherland is mulling dual citizenship for them.

Immigration has always been an ambivalent issue in U.S.-Latin American relations. Countries that generate U. S.-bound migratory flows have preferred not to make emigration a bilateral matter, and Washington has hardly ever put the issue on the regional agenda. Furthermore, there has always been an intrinsic contradiction involved: The United States quite rightly asserts that its immigration policy is an eminently domestic matter; yet, as so-called sending countries point out, that policy can have enormously important consequences throughout the hemisphere.

Now things are changing: The United States is engaged in a thorough, unilateral and, from a Latin American perspective, unquestionably hostile revision of its immigration stance, and, whether by design or coincidence, some sending countries are changing their own policies.

Traditionally, Latin Americans have had little regard for expatriates: Reject the motherland, and she will reject you. But in the relative calm after two decades of civil wars, some countries--notably Chile, Argentina and Uruguay--made an effort to repatriate their prodigal sons and daughters. In Central America, however, the nations of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala have shown no interest in “policies of return.” The last thing they want to face is the prospect of vast numbers of returnees clamoring for jobs, land, services and reparations--and, worse, a potentially destabilizing voice in politics. Moreover, when remittances from expatriates represent a substantial source of hard currency--in the case of El Salvador, the single largest source--it would be financial folly to coax home the hen that keeps laying golden eggs. Were there a less hostile environment in the United States, one that allowed coming and going regardless of one’s status, these countries might contemplate some way of encouraging repatriation while keeping the dollar connection open.

Of course, so-called reforms in migration issues can generate unintended consequences, especially when undertaken for odious purposes, witness Proposition 187. Even new policies theoretically intended to help migrants can backfire. The best new example of this is the shift in attitudes and policies by Mexican nationals and the government of President Ernesto Zedillo on the issue of U.S. citizenship and dual nationality.

Traditionally, Mexican migrants to the United States have been the most reluctant to seek naturalization. They dreamed of returning to Mexico soon, they feared losing their Mexican nationality and the benefits it theoretically bestowed (land, health care, housing, etc.) and they just didn’t see themselves as U.S. citizens. Mexican authorities, for their part, vehemently discouraged naturalization, above all by constitutionally depriving of his or her nationality any Mexican who chose to obtain citizenship in another country. While this was frequently violated--many Mexicans have both U.S. and Mexican passports--the absence of the principle of dual nationality or the unalienable nature of Mexican nationality deterred Mexicans from becoming “gringos.”

Both of these pillars of Mexican nationalism have begun to change, at least in part as a result of the hostile, anti-immigrant sentiment prevailing today in the United States. The fear of being deported, or of being deprived of legal rights, or of being denied the possibility of family reunification as simple U.S. residents is persuading many Mexicans of the benefits of U.S. citizenship. Whether these fears are all well-founded is less important than the perception of a hostile environment that lends credibility to exaggerations that are the stuff of nightmares.

In record numbers, Mexicans are applying for U.S. naturalization. Partly this is a consequence of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which offered amnesty for more than 2 million illegal immigrants, many of whom are now eligible to start the citizenship process. Another reason is the belief that a constitutional amendment is imminent that will allow Mexicans to become nationals of another country without losing their original citizenship.

The Mexican government’s motives are not strictly altruistic. There is a related move afoot to revoke the constitutional prohibitions on foreign ownership of land in Mexico. And, with the government’s remarkable penchant for complicating everything and even doing the right things the wrong way, another constitutional amendment would divorce nationality from citizenship: While Mexicans who take on U.S. citizenship would still be Mexican, they would lose their voting rights here. As if those rights were respected anyway, and as if one could imagine streams of traditionally apolitical Mexicans rushing back and forth across the border to vote in elections in both countries.

These millions of Mexicans--and Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Colombians, and citizens of Caribbean islands, and Guatemalans and Peruvians--might well have waited before taking the plunge into U.S. citizenship, had it not been for 187 and other restrictions recently recommended to a Congress disposed toward xenophobia. And the Mexican government might well have stuck to its traditional stance, archaic and unjust as it was. But, as the United States is about to learn, over-reaction to a real problem can bring about an even bigger one: Soon, the issue Washington will have to face is not how to change the preference system for new immigrants, but rather how to deal with the immediate families of 2 million-plus new U.S. citizens who will all promptly apply for residency. It could decide to adapt the old Mexican policy and refuse U.S. citizenship to anyone intending to maintain dual citizenship in his or her homeland--although this is virtually inconceivable. At the very least, Washington should now reflect on how unwise it is to deal unilaterally with problems that others can also address unilaterally, and given the magnitude of the numbers and of the issue, not always to the neighbor’s advantage.