http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impr ... =articulos

A deal I can call victory
BY FRED ROSEN/The Herald Mexico
El Universal
Domingo 04 de junio del 2006


The Immigration Reform Bill passed by the U.S. Senate on May 25 wasn't exactly a heartfelt, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…." For President Vicente Fox, however, strategically visiting California on the day the bill was passed, it was an answer to, "Give me a deal I can call a victory."

The Senate-approved bill would pave the way to citizenship for undocumented migrants who have been in the country for at least five years, allow those who have been in the country for at least two years to return to their homelands and preferentially apply for re-admission, and allow an undetermined number of employer-sponsored "guest-workers" to enter the country each year.

At the same time it called for stricter enforcement of employer sanctions against hiring undocumented workers, made it a felony for an undocumented migrant to hold a U.S. job, called for a longer border fence supplemented with vehicle barriers, authorized an increased number of detention facilities — to be built by private contractors, mainly Halliburton — along the border, and was implicitly tied to President Bush's deployment of some 6,000 National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexican border to back up the Border Patrol.

But President Vicente Fox was euphoric. "Ya está!," ("Now it's here!") he cried to the press corps that accompanied him on his brief U.S. visit, a trip seemingly timed to coincide with both the U.S. Senate vote and the Mexican presidential campaign.

"It's an historic moment, a day of celebration, a marvelous day," exclaimed the president, as his plane was descending to Sacramento, California.

He called President Bush to congratulate him on the passage of the bill, and he made it clear that Mexico was prepared to do its part to stem the outflow of its citizens, both by working to create conditions that would make emigration unnecessary and to help patrol the soon-to-be militarized border.

The first, widely supported at home, is long overdue, though it would require some concrete economic policy measures that would reverse the undermining of Mexico's productive sectors by (among other things) NAFTA; the second raised some eyebrows.

Was the Mexican president really proposing that his troops play a part in keeping Mexican citizens walled in their own country? Or was he simply misspeaking in his momentary euphoria?

That same euphoria may have led him to up the political ante of the moment. Speaking the following day to a largely Mexican-American crowd in Los Angeles, he called those who refused to acknowledge the importance of the U.S. Senate's great achievement "contrarians and anti-Americans." As though Mexican politics has not been polarized enough over the past few months.

But Fox's euphoria was understandable, even if it proves to be short-lived. This was the migratory deal that he has been waiting five years to bring home — Bush's quid for Fox's multiple quos of loyally supporting U.S. political, trade and investment initiatives throughout Latin America. As we argued in this space two weeks ago, he has positioned himself as a president who could get things done through his close, friendly relations with the president of the United States. It has seldom happened, so this was understandably a "day to celebrate."

But there are some hitches when it comes to the wellbeing of Mexican migrants. Under the Senate bill, the million or so undocumented migrants with less than two years in the United States would be immediately subject to detention and deportation. The three-to-four million with two to five years in the country would also be deported, and then face an undefined process of re-entry.

The guest-worker program established by the bill would allow employers to recruit foreign workers, whose temporary visa status would be dependant on their employment. This would leave them with virtually no bargaining rights whatsoever.

Beyond all that, there is no guarantee that the U.S. House of Representatives, which passed a far more punitive immigration bill two months ago, and with whom this bill must be "reconciled," will go along with anything that smacks of "amnesty."

Nonetheless, the Senate at least recognized the plight of some 12 million undocumented workers and the multiple failures and contradictions of U.S. migratory law. In that sense, the day was historic and that's why President Fox has a right to be happy — without gloating.

He should also keep in mind that if any Mexicans are to be congratulated for whatever good emerges from this round of Washington's legislating, they are not to be found among the Mexican political class but among hundreds of thousands who took to streets of Los Angeles, Chicago and dozens of other US cities this spring to demand recognition, rights and reform.

frosen@cablevision.net.mx