Mexicans Tell U.S. Delegation of Resentment

Secretary of State Warren Christopher led eight other Cabinet members to Mexico on Monday in a show of confidence in U.S.-Mexican relations. But the team ran immediately into Mexican resentment over recent bloody incidents involving the treatment of illegal immigrants in California.

“We are deeply concerned,” Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Angel Gurria Trevino told the Americans, “by the emergence of trends that could jeopardize our relations and lead us down the road to confrontation and complaint.”

Alluding to recent incidents in which police chases have led to the deaths of 10 migrants hidden in smugglers’ vehicles and to the televised beatings last month of two suspected illegal migrants by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies, Gurria said Mexico intends to protect its citizens.

“We will always ask for the identification and punishment for those that abuse their rights, as well as the appropriate compensation for damages,” the foreign minister said.

The Americans were in a far more upbeat mood. Christopher, noting that so large a group of U.S. Cabinet members had never come to Mexico before, said the United States and Mexico have now “forged the closest partnership in our history.” While hailing signs of the Mexican economic recovery, he also paid tribute to Mexico for its cooperation in the battle against drugs and illegal migration.

The two Cabinets on Monday convened a periodic two-day meeting of what is known as the U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission. For the past 15 years, officials have been overseeing a series of working groups discussing issues involving the two countries.

The American delegation, the largest ever to attend a commission meeting, includes Christopher, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros, Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner and Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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The size of the delegation, which also includes several undersecretaries and White House Counselor Thomas “Mack” McLarty, reflects how complex, extensive and close the relationship between the two countries has become in recent years. In all, the meeting is being attended by 300 officials from the two countries.

Despite the high-level cast of participants, the Cabinet members plan to sign only a handful of minor agreements today that have been worked out by subordinates in recent weeks. The conference, as a result, may be more symbolic than substantive. But the Clinton administration clearly believes it does not hurt to nurture the U.S.-Mexican relationship with a heavy dose of symbolism.

The administration, which put together a massive bailout of the Mexican economy a year and a half ago, is obviously pleased with the recovery so far.

“The tough and decisive measures taken by President [Ernesto] Zedillo,” Christopher told the opening session, “have earned the confidence of the world and put the Mexican economy back on the road to long-term growth.”

Earlier, on Christopher’s plane en route to Mexico City, Undersecretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers, echoing the World War II words of Winston Churchill, told reporters that Mexico has reached “the end of the beginning” in its road to economic recovery.

Mexico is making regular payments on its debt, has tripled its foreign-exchange reserves in the past 16 months and can borrow again from international lenders, Summers said.

American officials also have been pleased in recent months by the cooperation of Mexico with the United States in various areas, especially drug interdiction programs. In sharp breaks with historical patterns, the Mexicans have even extradited some of their citizens to the United States on criminal charges recently, and agreed to allow the Pentagon to train and equip some of Mexico’s military units.

But the air has been made tense by what the Mexicans look on as the growth of an anti-immigrant mood in the United States and by recent accusations that Mexican banks are laundering millions of dollars in drug money.