Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

WASHINGTON An intense campaign is under way to get President Bush to embrace a guest-worker and immigrant legalization program before he meets Mexican President Vicente Fox this month in Monterrey, Mexico.

The leaders last discussed the controversial immigration initiative when they met Sept. 7 in Washington. At the time, political resistance in the United States had already begun to slow. The events of Sept. 11 seemed to delay - or even derail - the initiative, which is a high priority for Fox.

With the Monterrey meeting two weeks away, the White House is seriously considering a limited agricultural guest-worker proposal that might include a legalization component.  Workers who complied with the provisions of the program eventually would get green cards and be put on track toward citizenship.

Any such proposal would face an uphill battle in Congress.  Its success would depend on the ability of proponents to persuade critics that Fox badly needs an immigration victory to bolster his political standing in Mexico.

"Fox is in a lot of trouble," said Robert Leiken, a scholar with the Nixon Center. "He needs some kind of an agreement, some kind of a package from the United States, and I think they'll be happy with whatever they get."

Leiken and other proponents already have reframed their arguments for the proposals to fit post-Sept. 11 political realities.  They argue that knowing the identities of foreign guest workers would increase homeland security, while maintaining vast pools of unknown and undocumented workers provides a potential cover for foreign terrorists.

They've also fashioned an answer to the argument that the economic slowdown in the United States has dampened the need for foreign workers. The slowdown, related to the collapse of the Internet boom, has affected high-tech workers far more than low- skill, service-oriented immigrant workers, they argue.

"Nothing that was on the bilateral agenda before Sept. 11 has changed in terms of the economics or the relationship between the United States and Mexico," said Andrés Rosental, a former deputy foreign minister of Mexico.

"This is as good a time as any to put the agenda back on track," he said.

Bush and Fox are scheduled to meet March 22 at the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, which will draw many other heads of state from the region.

Critics discount arguments that a guest-worker program will protect America against terrorists, and question whether the United States will get anything significant in return for the immigration concessions.

"What would serve our purpose the most is for the Mexican government to prevent people from crossing the border," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. "We get nothing if that doesn't happen."

Mexico has a long political tradition of resisting the idea of helping the United States enforce its immigration laws.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge just completed a visit to Mexico to discuss improving cooperation and security on the border without impeding the legal flow of people and commerce that is vital to the border region.

Regardless of what Bush decides on the immigration proposals, he and Fox are widely expected to announce in Monterrey a "smart borders" accord similar to one the United States signed with Canada in December.

However, the smart borders agreement is expected to be somewhat lighter than the 30-point Canadian accord, which called primarily for more sharing of security information, greater harmonizing of immigration policies and expanded use of commuter lanes for frequent crossers who had been through a security screening.

Also, the White House has stepped up pressure on Congress to resume a program that allowed some undocumented immigrants to stay and work in the United States while waiting for visas.
The Mexican government would like Congress to resume the program, known by the section of the law where it's found, 245(i), because many of the estimated 4 million Mexicans living illegally in the United States could be permitted to stay and work in the country under the program.

Many regularly send money to family members still in Mexico.

But some Mexican observers say the 245(i) extension isn't enough and that just words of support for a guest-worker program alone will leave Fox without the bilateral victory he needs to bolster himself politically.

Both presidents will face intensified opposition within their respective congresses to an immigration accord next year, when midterm elections are held in Mexico and Bush begins his own re- election efforts, said Rosental, the former Mexican official.  "There isn't a big window of time to act here," he said.