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Immigration debate gets big play in Mexico

Last Sunday's rally was front-page news
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 16, 2006

TIJUANA – Photos of demonstrators marching through the streets of major U.S. cities as the U.S. Congress considers legalizing the status of millions of undocumented Mexicans have filled the pages of Mexico's news publications in recent weeks.

In cities like Tijuana, where many residents have close and frequent contact with communities in the United States, the topic has received top coverage in papers such as Tijuana-based Frontera, where last Sunday's demonstrations in San Diego got front-page treatment.

“This is a very important issue for our readers,” said Ariel Montoya, who oversees the daily publication's news department. “Lots of our readers live or work there, or have family over there, or go to study there . . . and when decisions are made that impact our readers, we carry it on the front pages.”

The debate also carries into Mexico's interior, where the country's major newspapers and publications have run columns – most of them in favor of a guest-worker program – in their editorial sections.


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In a column published in El Universal newspaper, one of the country's leading papers, former Mexican ambassador to the United States Jesus Reyes-Heroles characterized the protests and demonstrations in the United States as an awakening.

“It confirms the profundity and the penetration of power acquired by the Hispanic population in the United States during the last decade,” Reyes-Heroles wrote.

The governor of the Mexican state of Zacatecas, home to a large percentage of Mexican immigrants living in the United States, weighed in as well, in another El Universal editorial:

“They came out to protest, but also to claim a stake in the social acknowledgment of their labor. . . . Without them the economy of the United States, and of California in particular, would not be what it is,” wrote Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina.

While it's hard to find voices in Tijuana that support the House of Representatives bill that would criminalize those living and working in the United States without proper documentation, Mexican media appear to be refraining from emotional, hyperbolic debates.

The media have been focusing on a proposed guest-worker program rather that examining other important elements of the discussion such as border security, said Jorge Santibáñez, president of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a Mexican academic institution near Tijuana that is a leader in the study of the Mexican-U.S. border.

“There is a premature and partial analysis, and it's somewhat optimistic in some cases, but for now they aren't based so much on emotion,” Santibáñez said.

The topic isn't dominating news coverage on the Mexican side of the border. As the country prepares for a presidential election in July, political stories – not immigration stories – have dominated the pages of Proceso, a well-regarded weekly news publication.

In a recent edition, the magazine wrote about the demonstrations held by pro-immigrant groups in major U.S. cities, and how congressional elections in the United States could be influenced by the heated debate. Neither story was mentioned on the Proceso cover.

Some columnists in Mexico have explored the debate's political implications south of the border. Some see President Bush's interest in reaching an agreement on the immigration issue as being a nod to Mexican President Vicente Fox and his political party. Fox can't run for re-election, but his party could benefit from a notable shift in U.S. immigration policy before this summer's elections.

Most of the opinions being expressed in Mexican media are in the form of columns by individual writers, rather than as editorials that represent the viewpoint of the newspaper. Tijuana's Frontera newspaper does not run its own editorials, Montoya said, unlike most newspapers in the United States.

At La I newspaper, a franchise of Frontera that targets Tijuana's lower-income residents, Editor Juan Carlos Ortiz said the topic is particularly relevant – and is being covered vigorously.

“I would say that perhaps 60 or 70 percent of our readers are people who come here hoping to cross into the United States,” Ortiz said.

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Anna Cearley: (619) 542-4595; anna.cearley@uniontrib.com