| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Monday, November 22 2004 |
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| Just days before presenting his resignation, Secretary of State Colin Powell headed a delegation of high-level officials who paid a visit to Mexico. Even though there were many issues on the table during the bilateral meetings, it was inevitable that immigration would once again dominate the agenda, and it did.
For Mexico, immigration reform in the United States is the single most important foreign-policy concern. For the United States, it is one of the most polarizing post-9/11 issues. Not being able to solve the immigration problem of millions of Mexicans north of the border has been a dark cloud hanging over Vicente Fox's presidency. President George W. Bush has not been able to reconcile his proposed guest-worker program with national-security anxiety.
While warning not to be overly optimistic, Powell told Mexican officials that the timing and the environment for renewing the immigration debate have improved. He reiterated Bush's commitment to giving immigration reform high priority in his second term. But what Mexico wants to hear and what the United States has to offer are two different things.
The Fox administration has been relentless in trying to convince the Bush administration to consider legislation that would lead to legal status for millions of Mexicans living in the United States. The most Bush will offer is a temporary-worker program that would allow undocumented immigrants to work in the United States for a maximum of six years and then go back to their own country.
But there's reason to believe that both Fox and Bush are either living in a fantasy world or playing politics in their respective countries. After Powell's trip to Mexico, Rep. John Hostettler, the Indiana Republican who heads the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, warned that there is not enough support in Congress to pass a guest-worker program.
Although Bush has said time and time again that he is against blanket amnesty, his guest-worker program is seen by conservatives as a "veiled amnesty." Bush's toughest challenge will be to convince Republicans in Congress whose constituents would rather see all undocumented immigrants rounded up and shipped back to Mexico -- whether they are Mexican or not -- to introduce and support a bill that would give them any kind of legal status, temporary or not.
President Bush has nothing to lose. Even if the proposal never sees the light of day, it can be viewed as a goodwill attempt to address an issue that concerns millions of Latinos who helped re-elect him. We'll also have to wait to see if the White House helps push any of the immigration bills pending in Congress right now, including: the Dream Act, which would benefit thousands of student immigrants; the AgJOBS bill, which would legalize about half a million agricultural workers; and The Land Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act of 2003, co-sponsored by Republican moderate Sen. John McCain. McCain's proposal is also a guest-worker program, but it leaves room for earned legalization.
If there has been no progress toward reaching a consensus on immigration reform, it could very well be because of a flawed approach. "Historically, legislation originating in the U.S. has been viewed as providing the answers to the problem," said Arnoldo Torres, political analyst and former executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "However, the problem is that Mexico causes the 'push factors' and the U.S. controls the 'pull factors,'" he said.
Torres is among the most optimistic and pragmatic voices when it comes to immigration reform. For the past year, he has been heading a group of advocates from the immigrant community that developed a policy paper that suggests a new and different approach to solving the problem.
Torres' group believes that Mexico has to be responsible for taking care of the reasons that drive its citizens to emigrate to the United States: poverty, inequitable income distribution and employment opportunities, among others. "Unless the U.S. Congress hears a different approach to the problem of undocumented immigration, there is no compelling reason for them to deal with the challenge," he said.
It is a novel approach that makes sense. The policy paper is being presented to all parties involved. One can only hope that political interests on both sides of the border don't get in the way of trying a new solution to an old problem. |
