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It's about time.
Mexico is changing attitude toward issues of migration.
Fox says generating new jobs will keep people from leaving
By S. Lynne Walker and Sandra Dibble
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE / STAFF WRITER
June 2, 2006
EARNIE GRAFTON / Union-Tribune
Mexican President Vicente Fox said in an interview this week in Ensenada that many of his own childhood friends who grew up in Guanajuato state have migrated to the United States.
ENSENADA The hardening of the U.S. line on illegal immigration is forcing Mexico to look inward at a tacit public policy that encourages unemployed Mexicans to sneak across the border for work and send billions of dollars home to their families.
Jobs are the new mantra on the Mexican side of the border, as the country talks seriously for the first time about sharing the responsibility for nearly 100 years of immigration.
With roughly one in 10 Mexicans now living in the United States, President Vicente Fox acknowledges that his country must do more to keep people from looking north for employment.
We want to make it clear to the United States that we have obligations in Mexico. The obligation is to generate jobs. The obligation is to ensure opportunities for our people, Fox said.
He said Mexico's economy is growing at a rate of 5.5 percent, the fastest since he took office in 2000. Inflation is at the lowest level in Mexico's history, and population growth has slowed to 1 percent. Along the northern border, Fox said the maquiladora industry needs 100,000 additional workers.
We are working hard so that our people have jobs, so they earn good salaries, Fox said during an interview Wednesday night in this port city. We are going to do our work on the Mexican side.
Fox's statements signal a change in Mexico's attitude about the immigration problem, political analysts said.
In Mexico, the immigration issue has always been seen as a U.S. issue: 'You open up and legalize and that solves the problem. It doesn't involve the Mexican government,' said Luis Rubio, who heads a Mexico City think tank.
But with the Fox government pushing the United States for immigration reform, people on both sides of the border are asking what measures Mexico is prepared to take to curb the unending stream of migrants.
Under pressure from the United States, Mexico will have to restrict access in the south and control the flows in the north, Rubio said. That will dramatically change the domestic debate in Mexico.
Already, Mexican public opinion is shifting.
Fox's government is being pummeled with questions on issues ranging from Mexico's treatment of Central American guest workers to its opposition to U.S. National Guard troops and the building of more fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Why put 6,000 National Guard troops on the border? Why not 50,000? If the United States is serious about closing the border, then close it with walls, with technology. It is the best scenario for the migrants, it is the best scenario for Mexico, it is the best scenario for the United States, said Primitivo Rodríguez, an immigration expert who worked for 10 years as a migrant activist in the United States.
The worst scenario is to half close the border because it will mean deaths like never before, abuse and corruption.
Few support such drastic measures.
But there is consensus that it is time for Mexico to take responsibility, said Jorge Santibáñez, president of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana. What is happening in the United States will force us, for better or worse, to revise our migratory policy.
Fox has made immigration reform a priority of his presidency, which will end in December. The Fox administration pulled the topic from under the rug and put it on the table, Santibáñez said. But Fox failed to build the necessary consensus so that Mexico can really negotiate with the United States.
There are strong indications the U.S. House of Representatives, which favors stronger border enforcement, will not agree with the provisions of a Senate bill that includes a guest worker program and potential citizenship for millions of undocumented workers a bill that also declares English the national language of the United States and calls for the construction of double-and triple-layered fencing along 370 miles of border.
Fox supports the Senate bill, which he calls a great step forward.
Under that legislation, Fox said, Mexican workers are going to enter through a door that gives them fair treatment, orderly, where there are rules and their rights are respected.
But Santibáñez and others have criticized Fox for acting as if the measure has been enacted, and they have claimed that he is motivated by a desire in the final days before Mexico's July 2 presidential election to show his administration's success.
In Mexico, people increasingly are speaking out about the consequences Mexican families face when they are separated by economic need. Since Fox took office after his election in 2000, more than 2 million Mexicans have crossed the U.S. border in search of jobs, according to his own government's figures.
Thousands of villages across rural Mexico are populated with only women, children and the elderly. Women do the work of men, tilling the earth with oxen and plows. Children cry for fathers they no longer remember. Young women long for boyfriends, but there are no eligible young men in town.
Fox said many of his own childhood friends, who grew up near his family's ranch in Guanajuato state, migrated to the United States. They are in Chicago, San Antonio, New York, these friends of mine, he said.
The president said he is proud of those Mexicans, who sent home more than $20 billion last year, according to the Bank of Mexico. Their contribution to the economy is second only to petroleum.
But for many Mexicans, the price is too high.
You cannot manifest any joy for something where 500,000 Mexicans must leave their country every year, Santibáñez said. For Mexico, this is a tragedy.
Fox said the day is rapidly approaching when Mexicans will not have to go to the United States for jobs. Population growth is slowing, causing a shift in Mexico's demographics from a young population to an adult population.
By 2015, Mexico will be using 100 percent of its work force . . . of its youth, to move our economy and to take care of our retirees, he said. We are going to have the ability in this country to offer opportunities to our own people here in Mexico.
That's good news for people who risk their lives to search for work across the border, he said.
Our people don't want to go up there, Fox said. They like tacos more than hot dogs. They like a torta better than a hamburger. They like to dance with mariachis better than they like dancing at a discotheque. Our people want to be in Mexico.
I THINK THE U.S. JUST NEEDS TO ANNEX MEXICO, AND PUT THE MEXICANS TO WORK BUILDING A WALL ON THE NORTHERN BORDER. 
