[url]www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0622castaneda22.html[/url]

Mexico says legalize crossers or no deal


By Tom Zoellner
The Arizona Republic
June 22, 2001


Mexico will not sign any border agreement that fails to include the legalization of the 3 million to 4 million undocumented Mexican citizens already living in the United States, Mexico's foreign minister said Thursday.


"It's the whole enchilada or nothing," Jorge Castañeda told Latino journalists meeting in Phoenix. "We can't slice it one piece by one piece."

[B]Mexico will ask for a full range of civil rights benefits for Mexicans in the United States, including Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, health care, resident college tuition and the right to join trade unions.

Legalization is the most crucial point in Mexico's four-pronged immigration agenda, which includes establishing an effective guest-worker program, ending border violence and exempting Mexico from quotas on visas.[/B]

Castañeda will represent Mexico in negotiations Sept. 4 with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin Powell on a comprehensive agreement on border issues. Some of the specific civil rights proposals, such as driver's licenses, are already being sought in Arizona and other states by Juan Hernandez, head of Mexico's Office for Mexicans Abroad.

The dehydration deaths of 14 migrants in the desert east of Yuma last month lends a "sense of urgency" to the talks, Castañeda said.

It is the first time in recent history the United States has lifted immigration policy to the level of international diplomacy. Previously it was treated as a domestic issue.

"This is totally, radically new," Castañeda told the annual gathering of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at Phoenix Civic Plaza.

Already, some progress has been made. Specific agreements on border safety issues will be made public today at joint announcements in Mexico City and Washington.

Mexico's overarching goal in the immigration talks is to "restore the concept of circularity" and allow Mexican workers to circulate freely from job sites in the United States to family homelands in Mexico, Castañeda said.

(continued)

Those seasonal migration patterns have been in place for more than a century. Recent immigration policies have discouraged circularity, giving Mexicans added incentive to stay in the United States once they have made the dangerous border crossing.

Castañeda shied away from discussing the politically charged topic of amnesty for border crossers during his remarks in Phoenix, choosing the words "regularization" and "legalization," instead.

Much hinges on the exact meaning of these words, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

Proponents of guest-worker programs, such as Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, have balked at using the "A" word, "amnesty," which is favored by some advocates for immigrants. Amnesty would provide access to green cards, which signify permanent residence and are a step toward citizenship.

Gramm proposes to allow Mexican guest workers to stay in the United States for a limited time, after which they would be required to go home. They could apply again to be guest workers once they had stayed south of the border for a prescribed period, but could not become citizens.

Some advocates for immigrants are seeking to achieve effective amnesty by promoting "earned adjustment." That would make migrants eligible for green cards after a certain time as guest workers.

"The word 'amnesty' has been used almost exclusively to mean permanent residence, but 'regularize' has been used in a variety of ways," Krikorian said. "It can mean different things to different people."

By talking of legalization, Castañeda "may be making a deliberate effort to avoid committing himself" on any of the guest-worker proposals, Krikorian said.


Republic Washington bureau reporter Jerry Kammer contributed to this article.

The navy should start using Mexico for its target practice.

Unless I'm a helluva lot dumber than I thought, wouldn't giving immigrants social security numbers, health care, etc., etc. make them try to stay here rather than return to Mexico after a period of time? They seem to demand a lot from a weak negotiating position.If they don't like it, stay in Mexico its as simple as that.

Bushman556

Sounds like Mass.- up here, lib-pols are trying to pass laws so that undocumented workers (read: "illegal aliens") can get drivers' licences and welfare benefits...

Gee, why did I bust my hump filling out mountains of paperwork, and hiring lawyers to help bring my British fiancee over in the 1980s- What a chump, to actually obey the law, and jump through all the hoops. I should have just smuggled her in.

Why even have the INS? It's about as effective as the DEA in stopping various flows across the borders.

Border agreement? Border agreement! How 'bout this for a border agreement we don't let 'em cross the freakin' border in the first place and the ones wwe find here we throw their sorry asses back. What the Hell right do they have making demands for border agreements and the way they are written? When was the last time they had to catch someone swimmin' the river from [i]this[/i] side?

Yeah.....I got the freakin' border agreement hangin'!

The pregnant Mexican woman who appears , in the final stages of labor, at the doors of the emergency ward of an El Paso or San Diego hospital, demanding care for herself and the child she is about to deliver, becomes, according to our Immigration system, an "undocumented worker".The child becomes an automatic American citizen by virtue of its place of birth, eligible for all of the usual public welfare benefits. And, with the child comes not only the mother but the childs family. And the mothers family. And the fathers family.Cant break up families, can we? The come to stay and they stay to multiply.

What of it? say the documented liberals, ours is a rich and generous nation, we have room for all, let them come.

And let them stay, say the conservatives, a large, cheap, frightened , docile, surplus labor force is exactly what the economy needs.
Put some fear into those unions, tighten discipline, spur production, whip up the competition for jobs!

The conservatives love their cheap labor, the liberals their cheap cause.(Neither group will, however, invite them into their own homes, not Their homes.Both factions are supported by the cornucopia economists of the ever expanding economy, made not of material, but of human bodies---ignoring that nations that follow these policies, ie, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Mexico, to name three, dont seem to be doing so well. These countries seem more like explosive slow motion disasters, volcanic anthills , than functioning human societies.Meanwhile, los latinos stream north in ever growing numbers.

Meanwhile, here at home in the US of A, we still seem unable to solve our nagging problems, After fifty years of unbridled economic explosion, we remain with unemployment, permanent poverty, an overloaded welfare system, violent crime, clogged courts, packed prisons, white collar crime, eroding farmlands and a poisoned environment. Plus the ongoing destruction of what remains of our forests, fields, mountains, lakes, rivers, and seashores, accompanied by the extermination of whole species of plants and animals.

But, hey, these are only minor problems, fixable, according to the US Immigration Service, by increasing numbers of people.

In my humble opinion, it might be wise for us as American citizens, to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled people(notice I didnt say lazy!) at least until we get our own affairs in order.

I don't give a damm as long as they are pro
2nd. and register and vote Republican.

It is impossible to intelligently discuss Mexican immigration with people who do not share your views.  One side will be labeled as "racist" and the other will no longer discuss it.  I do not harbor any animosity towards Mexicans, although I firmly believe that the explosive growth of the latino population north of the border will have dire consequences.  After all, "Mexico is where Mexican's are".  Who here actually wants our country to turn into a third-world cesspool?

Our benevolent eastern establishment government in D.C. has been giving away the keys to the fort.  Our people are addicted to the alien garbage propaganda from Hollywood.  Good is being called evil and evil is being called good.  National suicide, plain and simple.