Mexican Official Touts Amnesty as a Security Booster for U.S.

A high-ranking Mexican official said Thursday that the U.S. would improve its own security through an immigration agreement granting some form of legal status to millions of undocumented migrants in the country and providing an orderly system for workers to come here in the future.

Interior Minister Santiago Creel, in Washington for private meetings with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, told lawmakers and a gathering of Roman Catholic bishops that it was in the best interest of both countries to revive a proposed immigration pact placed on hold after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There are nearly 4 million Mexicans working in the United States with no record of who they are, where they live, where they work and when they entered,” Creel said in a speech to the bishops. “Does it not make sense to improve security through allowing them to become fully recognized and legal? Migrant regularization would provide the United States with a greater margin of security than the one it currently has.”

Creel’s broad portfolio includes internal security in Mexico and immigration. His pitch was in line with the views of many U.S.-based immigrant advocates, who argue that a new amnesty program would improve security. Since millions of people would come forward to disclose their identities, the government would be able to review their backgrounds, the advocates say.

An immigration deal with Mexico would create a “safe neighborhood” in North America, Creel said.

Lawmakers who oppose amnesty and support restrictions on immigration said they were impressed by Creel during his meeting with members of Congress but were unswayed by his arguments.

“Blanket amnesty? Absolutely not,” said Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego). “If anyone [from the U.S.] goes into Mexico, [the Mexican government] wants to know who’s in there. We expect the same thing.”

Cunningham said he would prefer a program that returns undocumented immigrants to Mexico and lets them back into the U.S. “if they can prove they have a job, so they’re not feeding off the economy’s resources.”

The Homeland Security Department had no comment on Creel’s meeting with Ridge or on the minister’s speech. Bush administration officials have said they want to continue a dialogue with Mexico on immigration. However, many observers here believe the agenda would be limited, focusing mainly on a guest worker program.

Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) said that type of program alone is not enough and that Democrats want legal remedies for immigrants already in the country.

“We want to legalize those people who are here now before we bring in other people from Mexico,” Solis said. “Business and trade is driving a lot of this on the Republican side, so they would set up some type of guest worker program. We want [immigrants] to be able to regularize [their immigration status] after three to five years, with provisions and protection.”

Creel said America’s hard-line approach to border control, with fences and more patrols, has been ineffective.

“The policy of containment implemented by the United States in its southern border has not been able to stop the migration flow,” he said. “The widespread surveillance has only changed the traditional routes taken by the migrants and increased the price they have to pay to get across.”

Mexicans come to the U.S. to work, he said, not to create security problems. “The Mexican migratory flow represents no risk whatsoever, even less if it is documented,” Creel said. “That is the policy that Mexico is proposing.... It is here precisely where migration and security meet.”