Mexico Looks At The U.S. Immigration Debate

KWAME HOLMAN:

Most members of Congress agree that improving security along the U.S. border with Mexico is a critical component of any immigration reform legislation.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist has introduced a bill with security as its central element. And as debate on immigration reform began this morning, New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg was among the first to take the floor.

SEN. JUDD GREGG (R), New Hampshire: You can't move to any sort of effort to try to redress or address the issue of people who are here illegally unless you have more control over the borders, because you simply will create more of an incentive for even more people to come in illegally.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But what lawmakers don't agree on is how to deal with the more than 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country. A growing bipartisan group of senators supports the general concept of a guest-worker program, advocated by President Bush. It would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country temporarily.

Majority Leader Frist, however, did not include a guest-worker program in his bill, which would make being in the country illegally a criminal act. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin rejects that approach.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), Illinois: We are saying to people, who are here in the United States under a myriad of different circumstances, that they are going to be treated as criminals amongst us? To what end, to arrest them, to apprehend them, to prosecute them, to incarcerate them? Of course, we can't do that, 12 million people; it can't be done.

But by branding them as criminals at the outset, it is a guarantee they will never come out of the shadows. They will stay lurking as part of our culture, part of our economy, in illegal status indefinitely.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Durbin and many Democrats support an immigration bill written by Arizona Republican John McCain and Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy, who held a news conference today. McCain stressed the importance of what Congress is undertaking.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), Arizona: This legislation is a defining moment in the history of the United States of America. Are we going to continue a rich tradition of hundreds of years of welcoming new blood and new vitality to our nation, or are we going to adopt a protectionist, isolationist attitude and policies that are in betrayal of the very fundamentals of this great nation of ours, a beacon of hope, and liberty, and freedom throughout the world?

KWAME HOLMAN:

But any Senate bill must be reconciled with a House immigration bill passed last year that criminalizes illegal immigration and contains no guest-worker program. It also calls for completing a 700-mile-long fence along the southern border and funding for more Border Patrol agents.

About two dozen House members rallied this afternoon and warned Senate colleagues not to pass a guest-worker program that their constituents will see as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

California Republican Dana Rohrabacher…

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R), California: Now, I would hope that the American people are smart enough to smell the foul odor that's coming out of the United States Senate.

They are again being lied to; they're being lied by the very people who caused the problem in the first place.

We need enforcement internally, and we need a strong and secure border. There's no reason whatsoever to have to tie that to a guest-workers program, unless your purpose is to undermine strengthening the border and strengthening our enforcement efforts against illegal immigration.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Nonetheless, yesterday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert signaled that House leaders might be open to accepting a guest-worker program when the two chambers meet to hammer out a final bill.

MARGARET WARNER:

Nearly 60 percent of the 11 million undocumented workers in the U.S. are believed to be Mexican. So how has the debate in the U.S. over immigration reverberating in Mexico?

For that, we turn to Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a professor of political science at the Autonomous Technical Institution, a university in Mexico City, and Jose Carreno, Washington correspondent and columnist for the Mexican newspaper, El Universal.

Welcome to you, both.

Professor, so answer my question: How is this roiling debate over immigration here being seen in Mexico?

RAFAEL FERNANDEZ DE CASTRO, Technical Institute in Mexico City: Well, I will say that we're very attentive to the debate. Migration has become in the last five years perhaps the single most important issue for Mexican foreign policy.

That has been very much where Vicente Fox has been trying to do, to really to put migration at the center, not only of U.S.-Mexican relations, but also at the center of the domestic agenda here in Mexico.

So now we Mexicans are very attentive to what's going on in the U.S. capital. And in December, we have very bad news when the Sensenbrenner bill was passed, because that is a bill that criminalized migration and will erect a lot of physical barriers between Mexico and the U.S.

Just this past Monday, I will say there was very good news for us Mexicans, because we know that the Specter bill was passed by the committee, the judicial committee.

And we believe there's going to be a tough battle in Congress, but we all hope that Congress will come with a comprehensive bill on migration that will allow Mexicans to continue to go to the U.S. in a legal and orderly fashion.

Nowadays Mexico is changing, and I will say the Mexican government is more interested in having a legal flow of migrants come into the U.S.

MARGARET WARNER:

And how about the Mexican people, Jose Carreno? I mean, President Vicente Fox, or his government, took out a big ad saying — essentially calling for, you know, big guest-worker program and legalizing all the Mexicans here.

Do you think the Mexican public feels that way? Do your readers feel that way?

JOSE CARRENO, Correspondent, El Universal:

I tend to believe that the Mexican public in general is more attentive at what is the end result. Will they be able to keep doing what they hope to be a circular migration, coming to the United States, working, and maybe returning and establishing themselves with the money that they have earned in the U.S.?

Or they will have to either get across and will not be able to return, or what is going to happen to them? In the Mexican press and the Mexico in general, we are full of tales of mistreatments and militant attitudes in the United States, Minutemen, all these kind of things, so…

MARGARET WARNER:

And particularly the security having gotten a lot tighter after 9/11, you're saying?

JOSE CARRENO:

Yes, but if you want the truth, the problem of security has been there before that. One of the big problems for the circularity of the migratory flows was the tightening of security of the U.S.-Mexican borders in the early '90s.

MARGARET WARNER:

So, Professor, explain to our viewers how important immigration is to the Mexican economy and Mexican life?

RAFAEL FERNANDEZ DE CASTRO:

Well, it's very, very much important. I will say — I mean, the flow of Mexicans coming every year to the U.S., In the last seven years, has been about 400,000. It's a lot of people, close to half a million Mexicans coming to the U.S.

Just last year, we received $20 billion U.S. dollars in remittances to Mexico, so migration is really key for Mexico. We believe it's also key for some sectors of the U.S. economy. And I believe that what we need is to buy time.

Mexico, because of its demographics needs, I mean, is still going to have pressures for Mexicans to migrate to the U.S. In the next 10 to 12 years. After that, there's going to be much less pressure for Mexicans to migrate, demographically speaking.

So what we believe that we need now is to enact a good reform in Congress, a reform that creates a guest-worker program, a big program in which Mexico and the U.S. could accommodate the current flow of Mexicans.

MARGARET WARNER:

Jose Carreno, you talked about circular migration. What you're saying is a lot of Mexicans want to come work here but have the ability to go home.

Of the two approaches being pursued, just very roughly, one is the House bill, you know, very toughen enforcement, higher fences and walls, and criminalizing people here illegally. The other is more the matter being discussed in the Senate now which would be guest worker, plus tougher enforcement.

What would be the differing impacts of those two approaches on Mexicans in Mexico?

JOSE CARRENO:

I think that it would be more in the attitudes towards the United States. I believe also that it would be a matter, also, of collaboration, of cooperation, the kind of cooperation that you would get with the second approach, what some people call the McCain-Kennedy bill, meaning the Judiciary Committee bill.

We get more cooperation, more help, more aid, if you want the truth, or more willing help.

MARGARET WARNER:

You mean from the Mexican government on the security issue?

JOSE CARRENO:

From the Mexican government and the Mexican people, in general. The backlash against the wall, and for that way let me use that code word, the backlash would be very, very strong, not only in Mexico, but in the rest of Latin America.

MARGARET WARNER:

What would it do to Mexican — just a minute, Professor, I'll get right back to you — but what would the impact just on Mexican families, who have members here now, of the two approaches?

JOSE CARRENO:

Huge. Huge.

MARGARET WARNER:

Explain it.

JOSE CARRENO:

Just think of it this way: Think to have the breadwinner — it is estimated that about one out of every six Mexican families have a degree of dependence from the money that one or more of their members earn in the United States.

MARGARET WARNER:

And those are the so-called remittances?

JOSE CARRENO:

Those are the remittances that Professor Fernando de Castro was speaking about. If those remittances were to be over, you might have maybe a fifth, one-fifth percent of the Mexican population thrown into poverty.

Then, in the other hand, there is about 6.6 million of American families where one or two of the fathers, of the parents, are in undocumented. That is the other side of the impact. We are talking 6 million American families.

MARGARET WARNER:

Professor, briefly, just being on the ground there in Mexico City, is there an understanding among the Mexican people of the backlash that's also occurred here amongst some Americans when they see or hear about hundreds of thousands of Mexicans crossing here illegally?

RAFAEL FERNANDEZ DE CASTRO:

Well, no, that is not well understood in Mexico, unfortunately. That happened in California, for example, in the 1990s. There was a big backlash against migration there, especially in the San Diego area, and now that is happening in Arizona.

No, I will say no. We Mexicans tend to idolize migrants. We do believe — I mean, they're risking their lives to come to the U.S. and to have better living conditions, and we know they work very hard. And you will ask any employer, and they will tell you, I mean, yes, Mexicans come with a lot of incentives to work very hard in the United States. So it's hard for us to understand the backlash.

MARGARET WARNER:

Professor, thank you so much. Mr. Carreno, thank you both.

RAFAEL FERNANDEZ DE CASTRO:

Thank you.