Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

7/16/01 News Report -- The Dallas Morning News

CHICAGO -- Mexican President Vicente Fox said Sunday that he needs a migration policy based on an open border, where Mexicans can legally work in the United States but freely return to Mexico to help rebuild the nation.

Mr. Fox's vision falls short of support for an amnesty that would give more than 3 million Mexicans living in the United States without proper documentation the opportunity to become American citizens.

"Mexicans deserve a legal status in which they don't have to hide from anyone anymore and in which they don't have to be invisible anymore," said Mr. Fox to the gathering of immigrants, many of whom chanted "amnesty" during his speech. "In and out of Mexico, your rights will be respected."

An immigration task force of top Justice and State Department officials planned to send President Bush a report as early as Monday on the broad outlines of U.S.-Mexico border issues.

Scott McClellan, deputy White House press secretary, noted Sunday that Mr. Bush long ago "indicated his commitment to reforming the guest worker program."

He said the administration was pleased with the ongoing discussions among U.S. and Mexican officials. But he said there still was much more work to do.

"No decisions have been made," Mr. McClellan said.

Many of the 10,000 people gathered at a local park Sunday and later at Benito Juarez Elementary School cheered Mr. Fox's approach, but his words were interrupted by jeers from groups that demand an outright amnesty program.

"These people are here working toward the economic development of this country," said Luis Gutierrez, executive director of Latinos Progresando, one of several organizations pushing for amnesty nationwide. "We won't stop until we get full amnesty. That's only fair in a country that promotes human rights around the world."

Many came to greet the man whose historic presidential election victory a year ago ended the 71-year grip on power by the once-mighty Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and ushered in a new era of U.S.-Mexico relations.

"We love him. We adore him," said Camarina Acosta, 71. "He's given us hope that finally someone will do good things for these people here."

Mexican negotiators have said a comprehensive agreement, which includes border safety and immigration, is groundbreaking and bold.

Mexican officials, who will meet with their U.S. counterparts in early August, cautioned that such a plan faces many obstacles, not just from anti-immigrant groups but also immigration advocates, unions and influential Republicans in Congress. Any guest worker or amnesty program proposed by Mr. Bush would require approval by Congress.

'Regularization'

The Fox administration is pushing to "regularize" Mexican workers currently living illegally in the United States. While officials remain vague on the meaning of "regularization," it would include providing workers with benefits, allowing them to freely choose employers in specific U.S. industries and possibly even allowing labor union membership.

"We'll push amnesty as far as necessary, as far as possible," said one Mexican negotiator in Mexico City who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But we also have to be very realistic."

On Sunday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he would back the kind of legalization program now under consideration.

"I believe that these people are living here, and it's a recognition of reality. They are working here," he said on NBC's Meet the Press .

Urging caution

But Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., sounded a more cautious note.

"Just to summarily grant legal status to 3 million people, many of them that got here illegally and have violated the law while they're here à I'd want to make sure we do this carefully," he said on Fox News Sunday.

Mr. Fox will travel Monday to Detroit to meet with top auto company executives and union leaders. He ends his Midwest trip Tuesday with a key address to members of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's most influential Hispanic civil rights organization.

The hope for changes in the migration policy was especially poignant in Chicago. Unlike other cities, such as Dallas or Los Angeles, immigrants in Chicago tend to be more politicized, less acclimated to U.S. life and more nostalgic for their homeland.

Local offices represent all three major Mexican political parties, with the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution enjoying widespread support.

The groups have held mock presidential elections for years and now lead the nationwide fight for the right to cast absentee ballots in Mexican presidential elections while remaining in the United States.

"Don't sell us short again," said Sergio Moreno of the Union of Bracero Workers, one of a half-dozen groups across the country dedicated to helping veterans involved in the landmark guest worker program of the 1940s. "Grant us the full rights that we as human beings deserve. Full amnesty, and nothing less than that."

Figures from the 2000 U.S. census show Hispanics now number 4.7 million in the Midwest, with thousands of Mexican immigrants branching out to the nearby states of Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, making the U.S. heartland one of the regions undergoing an explosive population growth of Mexican immigrants.

Leaving ghost towns

The dramatic numbers, Mexican officials have said, led them to conclude that seeking immediate amnesty may not be the answer and could spark even more immigration to the United States.

The current exodus has transformed huge sections of the countryside in Mexico into a series of ghost towns with freshly painted homes but no one to inhabit them.

Victoria Almanza of Guerrero, who works as a maid in an upscale hotel in downtown Chicago, timidly points out the difficulties of crisscrossing the border because of a U.S. crackdown along the 2,000-mile-long region.

"It's not easy going home," she said. "We feel trapped here."