Posted on 12/05/2005 1:03:30 PM PST by DumpsterDiver
Diehard optimists still hoping for a forward-looking binational migration accord based on mutual respect and regional cooperation got hit with a cruel dose of reality last week. As a flood of xenophobia-tinged border security and immigrant-crackdown bills work their way through both houses of the U.S. Congress, President Bush delivered a long-awaited major speech that left no doubt about how Mexico's neighbor and trading partner will deal with reform.
The message comes down to this: The United States will not regularize the millions of undocumented immigrants working in its territory. It will instead seek more efficient ways to find them, punish them, and deport them. It will not work with Mexico to find creative solutions to what's essentially a cross-border job supply-and-demand inequity. Instead it will seal the border against Mexican workers using every means available, from Berlin-style walls to unmanned aircraft.
And it will do these things on its own as it sees fit. Mexico will just have to live with whatever the United States comes up with.
The reaction here to the speech was predictably negative. Spokespersons for mall [sic] three major parties issued statements condemning the shortsightedness of Bush's hardline, unilateralist approach. Foreign Relations Secretary Ernesto Derbez criticized the very idea of border walls, a criticism President Fox has voiced in the past.
Yet the complaints were not as vociferous as might have been expected. It's as though Mexico has resigned itself for the time being to a passive role in an issue the United States is going to dominate one way or another. Perhaps with foresight, Colegio de la Frontera president Jorge Santibáñez Romellón warned a year ago that there was no way to steer the United States away from a hardline border policy that approaches migration as a security issue not open to the give and take of negotiation.
"I think it's better for Mexico to face up to this reality that to obsessively insist on a migration accord that nobody believes in any more and that isn't going to happen in the reasonably short term anyway," he wrote.
A more justifiable dose of reality that sovereignty-minded Mexico should have no trouble swallowing is the United States' right to control its borders and regulate immigration. One can advocate virtually open two-way migration limited only by the job market, and still recognize that the current chaos of clandestine crossings and irregular employment can't continue indefinitely. Bush put it well when he said, "TheAmerican people should not have to choose between a welcoming society and a lawful society. We can have both at the same time."
But there's doubt among pols and pundits on both sides of the border that Bush's plan can lead to either. He may have doomed his efforts at the outset by trying to synthesize two approaches - one that will appease the rabid nativists whose support he still needs, and one that might actually work.
For example, there's skepticism that a beefed-up border will accomplish much more than shifting job seekers to more dangerous entry points. Hence it won't result in fewer illegal immigrants, just more dead ones. A proposed 2,000-mile, border-long wall from Chula Vista to Brownsville might work somewhat better, but at an unacceptably high cost to the treasury, the environment, and what's left of the United States' image abroad. The Bush administration opposes such a fence, but it's included in some of the House bills.
Then there's the question of what to do with all the existing undocumented immigrants. The most realistic (not to mention easiest and most humane) solution would be to regularize their status, which would clear the decks for a smoother implementation of two key elements in the Bush plan — better enforcement of the hiring laws and a guest worker program to fill job slots as needed.
But many are uncomfortable with legalizing the illegals. Right-wing Republicans are horrified by it. Bush opposes it. The concern is that "amnesty" would amount to "rewarding those who have broken the law" (Bush's words).
This seems a hopelessly abstract, pious posture in the face of a complicated on-the-ground situation involving millions of families. We're talking about wage-workers here, not embezzlers or extortionists. As many have pointed out, the blanket rejection of including any kind of regularization in the package reeks of political pandering, not policy.
What was most disturbing about Bush's immigration speech was its total exclusion of Mexico as a nation that might have a stake in the issue. Mexico was merely the place where the problem was coming from, Mexicans the ones causing the problem. Run your find function on the text of Bush's Arizona speech and you'll get no hits for "Fox," "bilateral," or "cooperation." The existence of some 11 million Mexican citizens in the United States is apparently only an American concern.
The speech emphasized criminality, whether it was discussing terrorists, drug runners or immigrants. This fudging of the difference between true security threats and undocumented workers was only part of the speech's strategy. The language of siege and invasion was repeatedly invoked, effectively dehumanizing immigrants. Detailed discussion of the difference between "catch and release" and "catch and return" left little doubt about how far up the evolutionary ladder "illegal entrants" should be thought of.
Keep in mind that Bush is by no means the most extreme voice in this choir. As too often happens, the pursuit of black-and-white solutions to complicated problems and the need for identifiable culprits has created a spreading hysteria. Listen to what one representative said about migrant workers from Mexico in a statement of support for the bipartisan McCain-Kennedy Senate bill, considered the most likely to pass in some form: "They are illegal immigrants — they have broken the law and must be punished. That is why this legislation includes strict fines and penalties for those already in this country illegally . . ."
So we're looking at a round-up of millions of workers, mostly from the same ethnic group, because their papers aren't in order? The image is as frightening as it is familiar. Is that what passes for enlightened immigration reform these days?
We can only hope that Santibáñez was wrong, that all the overblown rhetoric will tone itself down in favor of reasonable legislation, and that diplomats at some level are quietly preparing for some kind of Mexico-U.S. migration summit. Working without Mexico on immigration and border issues is a serious mistake by the United States. Working against Mexico on this issue, as is close to being the case already, would be more than serious. It would be dangerous.
[Shiver me timbers!]
But if they call us names, they think they can get us to give up our rights.
It's a little power game, and only the weak want us to give in.
If only that were true.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
I won't believe a word Bush or the rest of the politicians speak about border control until I see cement being poured at the border for the fence.
So far, its been broken promises and hotair.
Well, as moehoward asked in another post, "Did Sybil write this?"
The entire article seemed out of whack to me.
The Mexican Army would throw everyone in jail and then extort money out of their families for their release. Not a good place to be imprisoned.
-I won't believe a word Bush or the rest of the politicians speak about border control until I see cement being poured at the border for the fence.-
Couldn't agree more. At this point it's just talk, which I believe to be delay tactics.
"It will not work with Mexico to find creative solutions to what's essentially a cross-border job supply-and-demand inequity. Instead it will seal the border against Mexican workers using every means available, from Berlin-style walls to unmanned aircraft."
Amigo spoke with hypocrisy. I haven't noticed ole Mexico inviting in millions of Guatemalans, Hondurans, and other neighbors to its South. Also, I haven't read anywhere about Mexican taxpayers paying emergency room bills for American tourists, etc.
Ignore the broadsides from the Mexican media. Build a fence. Seal the border. Deport the illegals.
Then open the door to legal Mexicans or others who seek a work permit valid for one year only.
ping
Now that this subject of Illegal Immigration has finally reached a White House that has purposelessly deafened it's ears to it for the last six years (for the profit margins of it's highest contributors utilizing neo-slave labor) are we expected to believe that our government is serious about tightening security? All yap and no action has allowed 80,000 non Mexicans in, at least 5,000 from Islamic radical countries posing as physically similar Mexicans. Those radicals, unlike the Mexicans, have a pre-prepared network of mosques ready and willing to hide and support them once they're in country. As 80% of those mosques are supported by Wahabbist fundamentalist Saudi Arabian sources I can't see how this potential crisis remains non-news - especially considering the travesty of how Arabic-appearing men of young age are NOT to be checked out lest they bring up accusations of profiling. WHAT A LOAD! Tick, tick, tick...
Oh yes, they are very racist. The biggest problem in Mexico is their sense of "class" which is of course based on color of skin and $$$$. That is why there is no middle class in Mexico- only rich and poor. They do not care about their poor, so they export them to US.
As a legal immigrant myself I can say it without fear of the PC police: "mutual respect" is possible only among equals. Countries and "groups" who demand it probably have a thousand years of evolution left before they qualify as "civilized", and demand anything.
Yes, U.S. immigration reform is none of Mexico's damned business!
We did exactly that in 1986 and were rewarded with more illegal aliens.
Perhaps the reporter needs a refresher course on the definition of "sovereign"?
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