Move Mexican Labor Deal to Center Stage

We’re all trying to get our lives back to normal six months after Sept. 11. Maybe that explains why President Bush is focusing on the region of the world he knows best--Latin America--even as the war in Afghanistan winds down, another war in the Middle East rages on and policymakers in Washington debate the possibility of a new war against Iraq. Normally, Latin Americans applaud whenever a U.S. president shifts his attention, however briefly, to a region usually relegated to the backwaters of foreign policy. But this time many are holding back until they see what happens during Bush’s visit to Mexico, El Salvador and Peru this week.

That’s because Bush raised their expectations prior to last September--talking about an immigration deal with Mexico, a free-trade agreement with Chile and the like--and then didn’t deliver. Not that he didn’t have good reason for being distracted. But you can’t blame the Latin Americans for not wanting to have their hopes raised, then dashed, again. It’s easy to forget, for instance, how much progress the U.S. and Mexico had made by Sept. 5--when President Vicente Fox arrived for a state visit--toward a labor agreement that would have legalized up to 4million Mexicans working in this country illegally. Bush’s first stop on his Latin American tour is Monterrey, Mexico, where he should try to jump-start those labor talks.

Diplomats and other experts from both countries had been meeting for months before last September to flesh out a simple, gutsy idea that Bush and Fox had agreed on: Let Mexicans working in this country come out of hiding to labor openly, then return to Mexico once their work is done. In exchange, the Mexican government was prepared to start cooperating with our long, futile campaign to slow illegal immigration.

Unfortunately, key members of Congress didn’t share Bush’s enthusiasm for closer ties with Mexico and were preparing to nit-pick to death any new migration agreement. Using the measured language of diplomacy, Bush warned the Mexicans the going was likely to be slow. Fox responded with an undiplomatic insistence that a deal could be struck by the end of 2001. That’s where things stood on the morning of Sept. 11. It’s as good a place as any to start anew this week. There are hopeful signs that progress is possible.

After all, six months ago conventional wisdom had it that conservative GOP leaders in Congress were not ready to give even a Republican president immigration reform that was perceived as rewarding illegal immigrants.

Yet last week the House narrowly approved a long-stalled proposal backed by Bush that would allow several thousand illegal immigrants with family ties in this country to legalize their status without having to return to their home countries.

Six months ago, conventional wisdom also had it that the new Fox government had not convinced U.S. law enforcement that it was really going after the criminal gangs that control the illegal drug trade across the Mexican border.

Yet on March 9 Mexican police finally nabbed one of Mexico’s most wanted drug lords, Benjamin Arellano Felix. It was a blow to one of that country’s most powerful and violent gangs and a symbolic victory in the war against drugs.

And although we need no proof of how hard it is to control the borders of a big, free country, last week it was revealed that the notoriously inefficient U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service had finally issued student visas to two of the terrorists who flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center. The notices arrived at their old flight school in Florida exactly six months after Sept. 11.

What better evidence is there that the INS spends way too much time and effort chasing down Mexican busboys and farm workers and not enough finding the truly dangerous foreigners who would do this country harm?

Bush and Fox need to get that Mexican labor-migration deal done, and fast. Their meeting this week is as good a time as any to get the ball rolling again.

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