It looks as if we’re in for another period of discussion on immigration. The “reforms” of 1986 provided a temporary Band-Aid that ameliorated some of the pressures that had developed and are probably inevitable in a situation where a Third-World country borders on a First-World country and the two have a long history together.
But for various reasons, many of them revolving around cultural and nationalistic fears on both sides of the border, it didn’t put in place policies that would provide anything resembling a permanent solution. So the pressures have built up again – most authorities believe about 3 million Mexicans are living in the United States without the blessing of the authorities – and it’s time to search for another Band-Aid. Or perhaps something more.
Interestingly enough, the immigration debate this time is being led by Mexicans.
President Vicente Fox, the first presidential candidate to defeat the long-entrenched Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has personal charisma and a good deal of political and perhaps even moral authority. He seems to understand that a good deal of the problem is due to the repressive economic policies – socialist policies shaded to make the rich and powerful richer and more powerful – under which Mexico has labored. And whether it’s because President Bush is from Texas or because of personal chemistry, he seems positioned to influence the new administration that came to power in the United States about the same time he took over in Mexico.
Having led and opened the discussion, however, it might be time for him to back off for a while.
A good deal of what Fox has been saying recently about immigration policies and the future of U.S.-Mexican relations is important and constructive. But is it politically wise for Mr. Fox to be quite so aggressive, in the United States, about how the United States might change its policies? It might be more constructive for him to concentrate on bolstering the Mexican economy in ways that facilitate the creation of more economic opportunity there. That could eventually make changes in immigration policy seem inevitable, unthreatening and unobjectionable to most interested parties.
It is certainly true that current U.S. immigration policies have led to problems that need to be addressed. Despite beefed-up border enforcement and other steps, people keep coming to the United States – some to work for a while and return, some to work and send money back to relatives in Mexico, some with the idea of establishing permanent residence.
The Bush administration has floated a trial balloon suggesting it might be ready to consider “regularizing” the status of the currently illegal, irregular or “undocumented” immigrants in some way (nobody wants to use the emotionally charged word “amnesty”). Mr. Fox, along with Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, has talked about giving these immigrants access to U.S. drivers’ licenses and the kinds of protections offered by U.S. regulatory agencies regarding wages, hours, safety conditions and the like. Both governments have discussed some kind of legal “guest worker” program, though the proposals are still in preliminary form and details are a bit hazy.
As Denise Dresser, a visiting fellow from Mexico at USC’s Pacific Council on International Policy, reminded me in a recent conversation, these preliminary ideas flow from President Bush’s meeting at President Fox’s ranch in February, where a working group on future policies including Secretary of State Powell, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Mexican Foreign Minister Castaneda and Interior Minister Creel, was established. It will be meeting again in August, at which time it is likely to issue a draft report. Presidents Bush and Fox will meet again in September.
President Fox has a vision of something like a North American Union embracing Mexico, the United States and Canada, though he is astute enough to realize that anything as ambitious as the European Union is many years in the future. But both presidents seem to want closer, more cooperative relations.
They would do well to consider simply loosening or eliminating restrictions rather than establishing a centralized body of bureaucrats as the Europeans have established in Brussels. The European Union model is too bureaucratic for Europe, let alone for America.
More cooperation in the short run and a closer relationship including fewer obstacles to citizens of all three countries moving about and working where the jobs are, are worthy goals. Having raised such issues, it might be time for President Fox to back off a bit and allow the U.S. political system to struggle with the implications for a while. He has plenty to occupy him in Mexico.
The presence of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the United States suggests several things. The U.S. economy has the capacity (perhaps the need) to absorb more workers and is obviously much stronger than the Mexican economy. And U.S. immigration quotas for Mexican immigrants are unrealistically low.
To be sure, if the current economic slowdown in the United States persists or gets worse, things could change drastically. Immigration is likely to decline somewhat if that happens, but concern over the immigrants who remain is likely to become much more intense. Immigration, like trade and globalization, is one of those issues that tend to be somewhat dormant during good economic times and assume an exaggerated level of importance in most people’s minds when the economy goes south.
But there’s another aspect to the situation. Over the long run, the best way to stabilize migration patterns is for the Mexican economy to grow enough that more opportunities are available in Mexico and fewer Mexicans will want to make the difficult trek to the United States to seek economic opportunity.
It would be a delicious irony if Mexico, which has numerous natural and economic resources and a hard-working population, were to develop into a free market economic powerhouse while the United States drowns in its excessive regulations and bloated government. It might seem unlikely now, but wouldn’t it be amusing if, 20 years from now, Mexico was worrying about uncontrolled immigration from people in the United States seeking the economic opportunity they are no longer able to find in their homeland?
When President Fox was running for office he talked about reforming Mexico’s large, corrupt and enterprise-stifling government bureaucracies, which have for decades mainly served the function of protecting Mexican enterprises and businesspeople who are already successful from competition. To invigorate the Mexican economy President Fox needs to cut taxes, cut regulations and reduce the power of the entrenched bureaucracies.
Nobody believes it will be easy or – even with the best will in the world – accomplished in a day, a week or a year. And while President Fox has spoken bravely of opening up markets and loosening constraints on enterprise, his concrete proposals to date have been feeble and in some cases – new taxes on food, medicine and other items – profoundly wrongheaded.
President Fox has proposed reforms to improve “transparency” in the Mexican economy and begin to break up some of the “good old boy” networks that have dominated Mexican business and politics. He should concentrate on those reforms and let the Bush administration take the lead on immigration issues.
It’s interesting that Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, who can hardly be accused of being a bleeding-heart liberal, should be one of the lead legislators in designing a guest-worker or temporary worker program. The fact that he’s from Texas and used to teach economics from a free-market perspective probably helps. But the fact that he is perceived correctly as a staunch conservative might put him in a unique position to talk sense about immigration. When I talked to some of his staff members a few months ago while preparing a piece for the Orange County Register, I was favorably impressed with how well they understood some of the nuances.
Immigration is an emotional issue and as the debate heats up we can expect plenty of people to use it to polarize Americans. Although Dubya has some good qualities and seems to be a good administrator-manager, he has not yet shown the capacity to use the bully pulpit to seem like an inspirational leader. If the issue is not to be dominated by demagogues, however, he would do well to get in front on it soon rather than relying on leaks and trial balloons to test the waters.
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Chuck Norris