Social Security Plan Would Aid Mexicans

The Bush administration is taking steps toward a possible agreement that would allow thousands of Mexicans legally employed in the United States, and some who are working here illegally, to collect Social Security benefits -- a program long sought by Mexican officials.

Many Mexicans who have worked legally in the United States routinely collect U.S. retirement benefits. But many encounter problems.

An accord to resolve these snags would put tens of thousands of Mexicans onto the rolls of the U.S. retirement system, officials say. It would increase the flow of dollars into Mexico, while putting new pressure on the program’s trust fund as the first wave of the U.S. baby boom generation nears retirement.

At the same time, an agreement could ease some of the tensions that have developed between the Bush administration and Mexico, and provide Mexican President Vicente Fox evidence that the United States was beginning to tackle a difficult cross-border problem.

President Bush had made improved U.S.-Mexican relations one of his top foreign policy objectives when he first took office. But that effort got pushed aside after last year’s terrorist attacks. Tensions have developed between the two governments. Mexican officials have complained that there has been a lack of progress on complex immigration issues, while the White House was perturbed by Mexico’s reluctance to support Bush’s toughened policy toward Iraq.

But an accord on the Social Security issue could help restore some of the optimism that both countries expressed when Bush and Fox took office a few months apart.

Claire Buchan, a deputy White House press secretary, said Thursday the Social Security Administration and other government agencies had begun discussions on an agreement with Mexico similar to pacts with 20 other countries.

Such agreements delve into complex and arcane rules governing retirement payments and benefits made all the more difficult to resolve when payments cross borders.

At least four issues are at the center of the problem:

* A Mexican worker in the United States may not have been employed in this country long enough -- 10 years -- to collect the retirement benefit. But under a new agreement, that worker may be able to combine time worked in Mexico with time spent on the job in the United States to reach the mandatory 10 years of work.

* Some people work legally in both countries. When Mexicans retire in Mexico, their Social Security checks are mailed to their Mexican homes. But when the retired workers die, family members seeking to collect survivor benefits are forced to prove annually, in visits to Social Security offices in the United States, that they are entitled to the benefits. This creates administrative headaches and a personal hardship for the beneficiaries.

* An American working in Mexico may be required to pay retirement taxes in Mexico as well as the United States. An agreement could make the dual payments unnecessary.

* An estimated 4 million to 5 million Mexicans work illegally in the United States, supplying nonexistent Social Security numbers to their employers. When the Social Security system receives the fake numbers attached to employers’ payments of Social Security taxes, the data -- and what some experts estimate as billions of dollars in payments -- are set aside because accounts for the workers have not been established.

Immigration experts say that under the sort of agreement under consideration, some of these workers could eventually be able to collect retirement payments if they achieve legal status in the United States.

The Social Security Administration says it is in the preliminary stages of figuring out with Mexican authorities the number of people the program would cover.

Determining the number of potential beneficiaries is one of the first steps to be taken before State Department officials and Mexican counterparts can begin negotiating an agreement.

“Our actuaries are working on the numbers,” said Jim Courtney, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration.

He said the United States has reached retirement-pay agreements with 20 countries over the past 19 years that provide an average of $162.80 a month to 94,022 beneficiaries. The agreements have been negotiated with most of the countries of Western Europe, as well as Canada, Chile, South Korea and Australia, he said.

Cecilia Munoz, the vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group, said the question of cross-border retirement benefits had become “a very real issue” in the U.S.-Mexican relationship. It highlights broader U.S.-Mexican labor issues involving immigration and the dependence on Mexican labor in U.S. agriculture and other commerce, she said.

Munoz said the readiness of the U.S. government to take the initial steps that could lead toward an agreement suggested that “there’s a constructive relationship” between the United States and Mexico, and that “the countries are willing to work on long-standing issues.”