Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Mexicans waving their home country's flag danced and beamed with pride as President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox climbed onto a stage.

Migrant workers - many wearing stickers on their shirts with the names of immigrants who died while crossing Mexico's border to find work - cheered as Fox made a case for a swift overhaul of U.S. immigration laws.

That was in 2001, five days before Sept. 11.

Since then, momentum for rewriting immigration laws for noncitizens working in the United States has been stalled by government worries about homeland security and foreign visitors. Now, supporters of immigration overhaul are hoping to revive their efforts.

Baldemar Velasquez, leader of a migrant worker union that has been lobbying the Bush administration to give immigrants more flexible work permits, said the attacks pushed efforts back two years.

"It's going to take that amount of time for people to get over the shock and to re-educate people about the practicalities of the immigration laws," Velasquez told The Associated Press. "But I think the issue is waking up again."

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee has been lobbying the Bush administration for changes that would give immigrants more flexible work permits.

Before the terrorist attacks, the United States and Mexico had been negotiating to allow undocumented workers to work legally in the United States and possibly earn legal status.

This could allow the government to keep track of the 3 million Mexicans now in the United States unlawfully.

The union, which represents nearly 10,000 field workers in the South and Midwest, wants temporary residency for immigrants as long as they are working and paying taxes.

"It just says you have to be working for any employer," said Velasquez, president of the Toledo-based union. "So if they don't like how they are treated, they can go to another employer."

He has met twice with Bush aides and plans to travel to Washington in May, along with other supporters of immigration overhaul, to lobby Congress.

Some Republicans prefer a guest worker program that allows immigrants to have a work permit only if they are committed to a specific employer because it allows the government to keep closer track of the workers.

Velasquez said that gives too much control to the employer.

"They know that if a worker has a right to complain by choosing another employer, that would drive wages up and improve conditions," he said. "They don't want a worker to have that kind of leverage."

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said immigration overhaul may be a long way off because lawmakers are far apart on some key details.

"There's no way the Democrats will ever accept a guest worker program that doesn't include amnesty, and there's no way Republicans will agree to that," he said. "That makes it virtually impossible for any agreement to be reached. I don't see any way out of it."

But Krikorian added that there still are those in Congress and inside the Bush administration who want some type of guest worker program because they see it as a way to attract Hispanic voters.

"The White House thinks there is an opportunity if they do address this successfully," he said. "The danger is in being seen as supporting amnesty for illegal aliens."

Anti-immigration groups say more people would enter the United States illegally if there is a guest worker program.

"The problem is that they're permanent and they're not well enforced," said Craig Nelsen, director of the Washington-based Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement.

"We're able to run a country without importing cheap labor," he said.

Velasquez said politicians cannot ignore the issue any longer because the Hispanic community is more influential than ever before - especially in the voter-rich states of Florida, California and Texas.

Hispanics have leaped past blacks as the country's largest minority group, accounting for 37 million people or 13 percent of the U.S. population, according to U.S. Census figures released in January.

"That's why I see the immigration issue coming to the forefront," he said. "They're going to have to respond to it."

But he said promises and proposals won't be enough.

"The group that responds to this immigration issue in the best way is going to get the votes of the Latinos," Velasquez said.