Candor on Cross-Border Labor

A small group of U.S. senators paid a visit to Mexican President Vicente Fox and some members of his Cabinet earlier this month with the aim of sorting out some of the more contentious issues along the border. Immigration and drug trafficking topped the list.

During their meeting, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) spoke with refreshing candor about the realities of illegal immigration. “It is delusional,” he said, “not to recognize that illegal aliens [from Mexico] already hold millions of jobs in the United States with the implicit permission of governments at every level, as well as companies and communities.”

Fox was equally direct, pointing out that two out of every three families in rural Mexico have no men of working age at home. Fox did not have to point out where the absent men were. The answer to that one is clear on both sides of the border, and the effect is dramatic. The Mexican leader, a business executive before turning to politics, pointed out that in towns and villages where remittances from Mexicans working north of the border are high, other economic activities have largely disappeared, a negative for Mexico.

Neither the U.S. nor Mexico would contemplate an open border, but it’s increasingly clear that both capitals must deal with the realities of movement of labor. With newly elected presidents in both capitals, and with both of them familiar with the issues of labor, meetings like this can deal frankly with the possibilities. What’s required is control of the borders and managing the movement of labor within the law.

This means reforming a system that drives the U.S. to assert that it does not want illegal Mexican labor while accepting its benefits nonetheless.

On the Mexican side, if Fox seeks to re-energize his country’s economy by enticing home the men and women who have learned new skills and built some capital through work in the U.S., the migrant labor issue will have to be approached through a different system.

The meeting in Mexico could be a first step. It outlined a preliminary proposal for a guest-worker program that would function on an annual basis and would require Mexican workers to return after the season ends. If the scheme is to be further examined, agricultural and immigration officials on both sides of the border will need to test out a managed program.

This would be another of many so-called guest-worker programs employed in a number of countries, as often in industry as in agriculture. Many have experienced problems of workers overstaying their commitments. The potential for a regularized system of cross-border labor still has this and other hurdles to clear, but each new contact is building possibilities.