Cancun, Mexico – When President Vicente Fox and U.S. President George W. Bush meet during a trilateral summit here this week, Mexico is hoping the North American leader will promise to more forcefully promote a broad migration accord not based solely on security issues.
That hope has been sparked by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s passage Monday of immigration and border security measures that include legalizing some undocumented workers, establishing temporary guest-worker programs and permitting illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s plan must still be discussed in the full Senate and then return to the House of Representatives, where legislators in December approved a measure that would punish migrants and extend security fences along parts of the border.
Mexico’s deputy secretary for North America, Geronimo Gutierrez, said that Fox’s government doesn’t consider the Judiciary Committee’s action a total victory, but instead maintains “a moderate and cautious optimism” that continuing debate on the issue will lead to a favorable outcome in the full Congress.
He noted that migration is Mexico’s “most pressing goal and the greatest opportunity that exists in the bilateral relationship” with Washington, as a result of which the government will take advantage of “all the forums and chances that we have to encourage them to establish new migration mechanisms.” One of those openings will come Thursday, the first day of the summit, when Fox and Bush meet face-to-face. During that encounter, Fox should urge the U.S. leader to do his best to convert Republican conservatives who oppose the Senate committee’s proposal, analysts here say.
The Mexican president “should tell Bush that it is time to go out and demand that his party approve a positive, all-encompassing migration accord,” said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, head of international studies for the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
“Bush has to recognize that the ones who are holding up the most favorable initiative are those in his party, in the conservative wing of his party … and it’s time that he picks up the telephone and speaks to his colleagues so that they modify their positions,” added Jorge Santibanez, president of El Colegio de Frontera Norte in Tijuana.
Although Bush and other Republicans in Congress back the idea of including temporary guest-worker programs in any migration reform, numerous Republicans oppose them because they consider such ideas a type of amnesty for those who violate the law.
