HispanicVista Columnists

By Kelly Arthur Garrett/The Herald Mexico
December 19, 2005

What a sad commentary on the state of the migration policy debated when asimple call for bilateral cooperation loosens an avalanche of anti-Mexico vitriol from misguided Americans who confuse sword rattling with patriotism.

Two weeks ago in this space I wrote about how disappointed most Mexicans and many Americans were when U.S. President George Bush's recent speech on immigration reform dwelt almost exclusively on unilateral enforcement and punishment. The e-mails hummed in, almost unanimous in their negativity - toward me, not Bush.

The notion that Mexico and the United States both have roles to play in working out a regional labor-flow agreement to end the chaos hardly seems controversial. Bush himself has said almost as much in the past. But the mere suggestion that Mexico and the United States should work together to solve this problem struck dozens of e-mailers as advocating surrender to an invading enemy. "Is this another threat from Mexico?" one correspondent wanted to know.

Another informed me that undocumented immigrants from Mexico "are calling for the overthrow of this government, language and culture, and for the eviction of all Europeans from this land," and went on to characterize the situation this way: "Both the illegal inhabitation and treasonous language are acts of war and should be treated as such."

Hmmm. The language of these responders was not only bellicose but often insulting. One typically uncouth e-mailer from Illinois accused President Fox personally of "pimping millions of Mexicans to greedy industrialists in exchange for a payoff of $1.5 billion per month."

Another, from the state of Washington, took a macabre turn: " . . . perhaps if a few thousand die trying to cross from Sonora into Arizona because of dehydration and heat-stroke or exposure to the elements, maybe the people will start taking control of Mexico for its people, instead of just running away."

An especially excitable couple let me know the consequences of advocating a cooperative approach: "If you are an American citizen, you have committed treason by supporting such behavior. If you are not a U.S. citizen, you should be included in those retaliated against in an act of war."

Mercy! As a permanent Mexican resident with a U.S. passport, I'll be both hanged as a traitor and shot as an enemy combatant if these two get their way.

My initial intention was to refrain from sharing these love letters. Why give these yahoos a bigger forum? And why risk promoting the impression that their mean-spiritedness is typical of Americans of any political stripe?

But we have to be realistic here. Their rhetoric may be more over-the-top, but these folks reflect a growing — and perhaps the dominant — U.S. mindset about how to deal with runaway illegal immigration. In this mindset, the basic problem consists of unpunished criminal action, not unaddressed inequities. It is an act of aggression by Mexicans to be met with force, not a regional socioeconomic situation to be handled with diplomacy. The U.S. is the only victim, and therefore the only player with the moral authority to do something about the mess it's in.

Looking at things that way, it's easy to see why all the anti-immigrant e-mailers — even those rare souls who tried to be thoughtful — took the phrase "bilateral solution" to mean giving Mexico the right to tell the U.S. what it can or cannot do to protect its own border. Few advocate any such thing. But if you see immigration reform as simply another word for keeping Mexicans out of the United States, it's easy to assume that we can only be talking about security barriers.

But even here, it's foolish and self-defeating to cast Mexico as the enemy rather than a partner. There are border security issues bigger than migrant workers — crime, drugs, terrorism, the environment — that cry out for binational cooperation. Building huge walls against a friendly neighbor and ally sends precisely the wrong message to Mexico, the American public, and the rest of the world, and the Fox administration has every right to point that out.

The correspondents were also consistent in assuming that those skeptical of an enforcement-only approach clearly don't consider illegal immigration to be a serious problem. That's nonsense. Everyone recognizes that something has to be done. The disagreement is on what that something is, and whether Mexico should have a stake in it.

Actually, there's less disagreement than it might seem. Most experts who have looked at the issue (including members of the Mexico/U.S. bilateral, group that stopped meeting after 9-11) agree that a purely constabulary, or even military, approach won't solve the problem. They also recognize that any solution will have to be the result of an agreement between Mexico and the United States.

Here's the way two researchers put it two years ago: "Offering to work more closely with Mexico on trade and migration, the United States can press its neighbor both to adopt reforms that will help its workforce achieve parity in earning power and to develop common procedures and competencies in law enforcement, immigration policy, and defense. Perhaps integration may then come close to becoming a reality."

Is that a call to treason? Leftist propaganda? Hardly. That plea for bilateral migration cooperation is quoted from a report by the very architect of the conservative ideology that currently reigns in the United State — the Heritage Foundation.

My response to the e-mailers: Calm down. I understand that unilateral aggression and reckless tongue-lashings are all the vogue these days in U.S. foreign policy. But this migration situation by definition involves two countries, and it will take two countries to get a handle on it. Hatred and pointless retaliation won't fix the problem.
_____________________________________________________
Contact Kelly Arthur Garrett at kellyg@prodigy.net.mx
Article at: http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/web_columnas_sup.detalle?var=27330