Border Politics Just Shifted in Three Countries

Is immigration reform dead? Not if President Bush is willing to challenge conventional wisdom that says the groundbreaking immigration talks underway with Mexico before the Sept. 11 attacks are now moot.

To be sure, the terrorist attacks have led to some backlash against foreigners. Congress is likely to approve measures that will make it more difficult for foreigners to enter this country. Different proposals would require more thorough background checks of applicants for business or tourist visas, and even more stringent limits on student visas.

But that’s a far cry from closing our borders and deporting everyone who looks or sounds foreign.

Can it be that immigration is no longer the “hot button” issue it was when the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 divided California in the early 1990s? Or has our view of foreigners softened with the realization that many of the victims in the aptly named World Trade Center were immigrants--whether British bankers or Mexican busboys--who contributed to this nation before they died?

Whatever the reason, Americans’ views on immigration are more nuanced than restrictionists think.

The negotiations with Mexico aimed to legalize the status of 3million to 4 million Mexican workers in this country, an admirable goal sought both by Bush and his Mexican counterpart, President Vicente Fox. Given all that has happened in the last month, those talks would now have to be conducted differently.

For a start, Canada should be included. And with all three signatories to the North American Free Trade Agreement at the table, the goal should be what the new U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, calls a “North American security perimeter.”

Precisely what this security perimeter entails varies, depending on who you talk to. Some hard-liners envision a Fortress America, self-sufficient in food supply, Mexican oil and Canadian water (Canada has one-fifth of the world’s fresh water supply). But Cellucci and other specialists would be satisfied with harmonizing the immigration laws and regulations of all three North American nations.

Ardent nationalists in Mexico and Canada will surely raise a fuss. Fox already is under pressure to fire his controversial foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, because of his outspoken support of the United States. And shortly after the terrorist attacks, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien rejected calls to tighten his nation’s liberal immigration and political asylum laws.

But the average Mexican has always been more pro-American than Mexico’s political elite; witness a recent poll in the respected newspaper Reforma in which 78% of Mexicans who responded said they feel a sense of solidarity with their northern neighbor.

A Canadian poll, reported in the Wall Street Journal, found that 81% of Canadian respondents think their country should adopt “common entry controls” with the U.S.

There also are pragmatic reasons why even skeptical Mexicans and Canadians might be more inclined to discuss mutual security nowadays.

Mexicans know that jobs in el Norte are the lifeblood of many Mexican villages, even whole states. Fox is just the first Mexican leader honest enough to acknowledge that and look for ways to regulate a migratory labor system that has persisted for generations. Castaneda even has insisted that Mexicans sign up for U.S. drivers licenses and other official identity documents that would help track their movement in and out of the United States. We should take him up on that, along with offers to jointly police our 2,000-mile-long border.

The border with Canada is nearly twice that long but not nearly as heavily policed. There are 9,300 Border Patrol agents on the Mexican border but only 300 on the Canadian line--a number Congress may triple.

It’s a cliche by now to say everything changed Sept. 11. But if it did, one result should be a willingness throughout North America to look beyond traditional borders for innovative ideas. Fox’s proposal for open borders still may be too radical for most folks. But a North American security perimeter is not, and we need to start talking about it with both our neighbors.