Summary
Mexican President Vicente Fox will visit three U.S. states May 23-27, where he will address recent developments on the U.S. debate about immigration. Among these developments are U.S. President George W. Bush's May 15 proposal to deploy National Guard forces along the U.S.-Mexico border and his support for a guest-worker program. They also include the rekindled debate on border security and immigration reform in the U.S. Senate, which approved measures on both topics during the past week. The U.S. debates on border security and immigration reform resonate as strongly in Mexico as they do in the United States.
Analysis
Mexican President Vicente Fox will visit Utah, Washington and California, May 23-27. While the visit was planned some time ago, the agenda and talking points of Fox's trip will focus on the past week's developments in the U.S. immigration-reform and border-security debates. Among these developments are U.S. President George W. Bush's May 15 proposal to deploy National Guard forces along the U.S.-Mexico border and his support for a guest-worker program. They also include the rekindled debate on border security and immigration reform in the U.S. Senate, which approved measures on both topics during the past week. The Senate has also voted to build a fence along sections of the U.S. border, to establish English as the official language for government activities and to allow illegal immigrants possible citizenship under certain conditions.
A Deeply Rooted Issue
Without doubt, human migration tops the bilateral agenda between the United States and Mexico. Emigration from Mexico to the United States has deep historical and economic roots. It also affects a great number of Mexicans, who increasingly have relatives and friends who have immigrated to the United States, both legally and illegally. Thus, any change in the situation of the Mexican immigrants in the United States has major economic, social and political consequences in Mexico.
As we have previously discussed, immigration to the United States from Mexico is different from immigration to the United States from other countries due to history and geography. And while the flow of people coming from Mexico into the United States has existed for many, many years, these numbers exploded in the last 25 years. Thus, between 1.2 million and 1.5 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States during the 1970s, around 2.3 million did so during the 1980s, and around 3.3 million did so during the 1990s.
During World War II, the United States approached the issue by establishing a guest-worker plan known as the Bracero Program, which lasted until 1964. During its existence, the Bracero Program served as the most significant source of Mexican labor in the United States. After the program ended, with a limited number of visas available, many Mexicans crossed the border without official documentation. Several factors in Mexico prompted this exodus.
The Mexican economy experienced a series of crises in 1976, 1981-82, 1986 and 1994-95, which increased Mexico's relative poverty levels and hindered its economic performance. These crises generated the conditions for the continually increasing rate of Mexicans immigrating to the United States. Most other Latin American countries suffered deep economic crises during the 1970s and 1980s and political instability, yet they did not produce the number of immigrants to the United States that Mexico did. Mexico, by contrast, passed through these economic episodes with little political turmoil and largely pacific power transitions, and even so huge numbers of emigrants went north. Geography and -- more importantly -- economics explain the difference.
Mexico's Economic Safety Valves
Emigration toward the north became one of two very important safety valves for the Mexican economy, one successive Mexican governments used to maintain domestic social and political stability. The other safety valve was the notable increase in the informal sector of the Mexican economy. Emigration was traditionally a safety valve for rural areas while the informal economy served urban centers.
Over the years, however, the number and origin of Mexican immigrants to the United States has evolved. During the 1970s and 1980s, most of the Mexican immigrants to the United States came from Mexico's poorest and more rural states -- the same states most closely linked to the Bracero Program. Since the 1990s, however, that has changed. According to the Mexican Population Council, new immigrants to the United States come from all of Mexico's regions, and their gender and economic background diversity is growing.
Estimates of the number of Mexican immigrants to the United States vary, but hover around 10 million to 11 million people, which includes those of both legal and illegal status -- around 10 percent of the number of people living in Mexico. Estimates also hold that the informal economy in Mexico covers another 10 million to 15 million people. Combined, this means almost a quarter of the Mexican population is either not formally employed or is outside of the country. Starting in 1986, successive Mexican administrations engaged in fundamental economic reforms with the entry of Mexico into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organization, or WTO). The nation's economic crises were so deep-seated, however, that even the WTO-inspired reforms have not helped the Mexican economy grow fast enough to provide enough jobs for Mexico's swelling labor force.
Along with previous Mexican governments, the Fox administration has found that using the two aforementioned safety valves has greatly helped maintain social order. Mexico City sees Mexican immigration to the United States as a win-win situation for both countries, since the immigration safety valve means the United States does not have an unstable neighbor to its south.
The Importance of Remittances
As the number of Mexican migrants to the United States has increased, so have their money transfers to their families in Mexico. In 2005, Mexican migrants in the United States remitted around $18 billion back to Mexico -- an extremely important source of cash for Mexico, roughly equal to foreign direct investment in the country. The Mexican government clearly does not want these remittances from the United States to disappear.
The Fox administration has established programs to match every dollar received from Mexicans in the United States with money put into projects to improve infrastructure. All of the contenders in Mexico's July 2 presidential election have proposals on how to better use those resources, from improving those matching funds to establishing a structural fund to transfer money to impoverished regions of Mexico, as is done in the European Union. Thus, massive deportations of Mexicans from the United States would have immense economic and political consequences in Mexico.
The Mexican government also needs to walk a fine line between working closely with the United States and not appearing too subservient to Washington. For historical reasons, Mexico has a love-hate relationship with the United States. In the past couple of decades, this relationship has tilted more toward the love part of the equation. The signing of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) in particular shifted the historical equation. In general, Mexicans believe a close relationship with the United States is inevitable, and largely beneficial for both. Even so, they resent any perceived heavy-handed attempts -- or even suggestions -- by the United States to force policy on Mexico. Mexicans expect their government to respond harshly to the United States when needed, as long as those responses are kept on the rhetorical level.
Fox Falls Short
The Fox administration has worked to push for a migration agreement allowing Mexican nationals to cross the border and work freely in the United States on the premise that given geography and economics, the flow north from Mexico cannot be blocked successfully; something similar to what Fox proposed may in fact come to pass. But Fox pushed too hard, and was unable to convince many on the U.S. side that he was fulfilling his part of the job of ensuring border security.
Much of the U.S. resentment against perceptions that Mexico is not adequately securing its side of the border stem from the fact that while the Mexican government allowed its two economic safety valves to develop, it also allowed another development to flourish: drug trafficking and organized crime. This has led to a border security problem of considerable size, one that has accelerated over the past two to three years. Drug cartels operating in the border cities have become more violent, which has in turn fueled the security concerns of people living in the border region. While the Fox administration has tried to fight these cartels, the violence has increased -- thus complicating his efforts to push for immigration reform in the United States.
Whether the new Mexican administration taking office Dec. 1 will be any more effective in fighting the drug cartels than the Fox administration has been remains unknown. Changing public opinion in the United States, however, will require a more effective Mexican response to drug crime on the border.
A Not-So New Direction
Whichever political party wins the July 2 Mexican presidential election, the new government's position on border issues will be very similar to the current position. The Mexican government will always oppose the construction of any fence or wall, since most Mexicans deeply resent such a prospect. It will also oppose any attempt to turn illegal immigrants in the United States into felons because of the ill economic effects this would have in Mexico. And it will not follow any U.S. suggestions that it work to stop Mexicans from crossing into the United States, perhaps pointing out that the U.S. government does not prevent its citizens from leaving the United States as they please. What could change is the level of cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments.
Before Vicente Fox's arrival, Mexican governments were not as active in advocating for issues that concerned the Mexican community inside the United States. In contrast, Fox has advocated, for example, for the pardon of U.S. death-row inmates of Mexican origin. Nor did previous Mexican administrations make much noise when Mexican nationals were killed on the U.S. side of the border -- they did protest, but not with Fox's volume. Previous governments also adamantly opposed publicly acknowledging cooperation with U.S. law enforcement agencies in counternarcotics efforts. Many times, the lack of cooperation was not only rhetorical, but real. That changed with Fox; now there is considerably more U.S-Mexican anti-drug cooperation.
Both Roberto Madrazo from the Mexico's former longtime ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and his left-wing rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from the Democratic Revolutionary Party, will very likely return to the policy of a reduced level of cooperation with U.S. law-enforcement agencies. This reduction will extend past the rhetorical level if the situation on the border deteriorates -- if Mexicans are shot by U.S. authorities, for example. But at the same time, both are also likely to continue Fox's increased activism on issues affecting Mexicans within the United States. The Mexican community in the U.S. is now active politically in Mexican politics, since they can vote on Mexican elections beginning this July. Thus, expatriate Mexicans in the United States are a constituency worth wooing for political candidates in Mexico.
Unlike his rivals, Felipe Calderon from Fox's National Action Party -- the front-runner in the most recent polls -- would very likely maintain and increase cooperation with the United States if elected. Even so, domestic pressures would force him to adopt stances similar to those of his adversaries if killings of Mexican nationals on the border follow from Bush's proposed National Guard deployment.
Changing the Pre-Election Debate
While the Mexican position will not change markedly regardless of which party wins the July presidential election, the proposals under discussion in the United States -- namely the National Guard presence -- could help change the pre-election debate in Mexico, giving the advantage to the candidate best able to capitalize on the issue. Thus, the three main candidates will toughen their rhetoric against U.S. government border security and immigration policies in the final weeks of the campaign, and so will Fox when he visits next week. Some of the Mexican presidential candidates sought to take advantage of the immigration and border issues in the past week. Thus, Calderon criticized Bush's National Guard proposal, and Lopez Obrador criticized Fox for not being tough enough, though he toned down his comments later. By giving voice to the left wing's historical dislike of the United States, Lopez Obrador could be in position to gain the most from the border and immigration debate.
How much impact the issue will have in the run-up to July 2 remains unclear, though it will certainly become an increasingly important part of the agenda in the months before the change of administrations -- and during the entire length of the next administration. For someone like Lopez Obrador, cutting cooperation with Washington and joining the ranks -- at least in the rhetorical sense -- of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales could be attractive if the United States adopts a hard line on immigration.
While the overall positions of the Mexican government are not going to change, this does not mean no solution to border and immigration issues exists. In fact, much can be done to increase border safety. And if the Mexican economy begins to grow at an accelerated pace, it can create enough jobs to reduce the migration flow -- though this would take several years.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/world/americas/23mexico.html?th&emc=thTUXTLA GUTI?RREZ, Mexico, May 19 ? Felipe Calder?n loves to make allusions to Mexican folk songs. These days, the conservative candidate for president is particularly fond of recalling a song about a nag named Rel?mpago who upsets a glistening champion, Moro, in a race.
Felipe Calder?n, of the National Action Party, speaking to voters last week in Tonal?, Mexico.
"I was not the favorite," he boomed over loudspeakers to a crowd of farmers, fishermen and business owners in the town of Tonal? on a swing in Chiapas on Thursday. "I was not the one who was up in the polls, but do you know what I did, gentlemen? I went to work. I set about telling Mexicans what each candidate really stands for."
After six months in second place, Mr. Calder?n has surged past the front-runner, Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, with a stream of attack advertisements portraying him as a dangerous and violent leftist who will bankrupt the country.
Now, a month before the vote, the race is a contest between Mr. Calder?n, a free-trade advocate backed by business leaders, and Mr. L?pez Obrador, a leftist who draws most of his support from poor people who feel that free-trade policies have failed to help them.
For his part, Mr. L?pez Obrador, 53, who was mayor of Mexico City until last year, dismisses the recent polls as "propaganda" and claims the numbers have been massaged to undercount working-class voters. Under his stewardship, Mexico City's finances remained solid. As for the charge that he is dangerous, he calls it simply ludicrous.
Mr. Calder?n, 43, a former congressman and energy minister, has engineered the turnaround with a nimble, slick campaign, relying heavily on radio and television advertisements, many of them negative, tested in focus groups and tailored to specific constituencies, his aides say. Mexicans vote July 2.
Mr. Calder?n, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, has outspent Mr. L?pez Obrador two to one on attack ads that, among other things, link the left-leaning candidate to Hugo Ch?vez, Venezuela's anti-American president. He has also deftly played on the perception that Mr. L?pez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, has an authoritarian streak and a reputation as a rabble-rouser because of raucous protests against election fraud he led over a decade ago. Mr. Calder?n's ads call his rival "a danger to Mexico."
The personal attacks on Mr. L?pez Obrador were among several strategic shifts by Mr. Calder?n's young campaign team in late March. Mr. Calder?n now embraces President Fox, after first keeping him at arm's length, and staunchly defends the government's record on social programs and the economy.
Mr. Calder?n has also dropped his stuffy stump speech about the virtues of open markets and foreign investment, opting for a simpler message: he now vows to create jobs, jobs and more jobs. His ads call him the "president of employment," and his slogan is "My job will be to make sure you have a job."
One thing that unites the candidates is their opposition to President Bush's plan to build a wall along the border and deploy the National Guard. Both say the way to stop illegal immigration is to create more jobs and investment in Mexico.
Mr. Calder?n has also stolen a page from Mr. L?pez Obrador, who promises a raft of government subsidies and handouts. Mr. Calder?n, a fiscal and social conservative, now makes a point of saying he will extend and expand the welfare and health care programs Mr. Fox put in place. The promise to keep government largesse flowing draws the biggest applause at his rallies.
The upshot has been a remarkable political comeback. In January, five major surveys by respected pollsters showed Mr. Calder?n trailing Mr. L?pez Obrador by 6 to 10 percentage points. In April and May, however, all five polls showed the race tightening with a slim lead for Mr. Calder?n.
"We've managed to change the subject of the election," said Juan Camilo Mouri?o, 34, Mr. Calder?n's campaign manager, as he sat behind his desk in a dark blue suit at campaign headquarters, checking sports scores on a new laptop.
Mr. Mouri?o said the inner circle of the campaign had a fierce debate before deciding to bombard Mr. L?pez Obrador with negative advertisements. An attempt to knock him off the ballot for ignoring a court order failed badly last year, only making him more popular. The conventional wisdom was, the more you attack Mr. L?pez Obrador, the stronger he gets by casting himself as the victim of a conspiracy.
But Mr. Calder?n was trailing by 10 percentage points in late February. His free-trade message and "Passion and Values for Mexico" slogan was falling flat. "We had to make adjustments," Mr. Mouri?o said. One of the architects of the new campaign was Antonio Sol?, 34, a Spanish political consultant who was a top consultant to former Prime Minister Jos? Mar?a Aznar.
Mr. Mouri?o said he also had several informal conversations about the campaign with Dick Morris, the American consultant who once worked for former President Bill Clinton, but the Calder?n team decided not to hire him.
Mr. L?pez Obrador's campaign has been slow to respond. Until recently, the candidate had resisted advice to respond to mudslinging with mudslinging of his own. Only this week did his party broadcast a radio spot calling Mr. Calder?n "a liar."
Besides taking his time to go on the offensive, Mr. L?pez Obrador has made other gaffes, his aides concede. In February, he ridiculed Mr. Fox, called him a chattering bird and told him to "shut up" and stay out of the campaign, handing Mr. Calder?n fodder for his claim that Mr. L?pez Obrador is intolerant.
The leftist's decision in April to pass up the first debate, a classic front-runner's tactic, also backfired. Most analysts say it contributed to the notion that he can be arrogant, and contemptuous of other viewpoints. Mr. L?pez Obrador has also refused to let his aides use his modest lifestyle or his close relationship with his sons to soften his image, some inside the campaign say.
As for the polls, Mr. L?pez Obrador says they are the fabrications of media barons in a conspiracy to defeat him. (His aides maintain that their internal polls show he fell behind early this month, but has regained ground and now leads Mr. Calder?n by six percentage points.)
Mr. L?pez Obrador has stubbornly insisted on running a grass-roots campaign that relies more on speeches in town squares, loudspeakers atop cars and word of mouth than on television and radio spots, his campaign aides say. That decision could turn out to be a stroke of genius or his biggest mistake.
"The strategy will stay the same, because that's Andr?s Manuel's way of campaigning," said Ricardo Monreal, a senior aide. "His way of campaigning is, as always before, street by street, town by town, at the level of the people. He believes he will beat the marketing campaign that way."
Mr. Monreal added: "We all know that marketing has carried a lot of current presidents into office around the world. But L?pez Obrador isn't relying on this. He is relying on the strategy of the street."
Still, Mr. L?pez Obrador has made some adjustments, said C?sar Y??ez, his spokesman and a close adviser. For months, the candidate avoided interviews, unless they were with local radio stations. He has always been obsessive about controlling his message.
In the last two weeks, however, he has submitted to three interviews on national television. He even let himself be lampooned on a morning show by a political satirist who wears a clown outfit.
He has also begun to needle Mr. Calder?n. Last week, he said the conservative candidate was a captive of his campaign advisers.
Mr. Calder?n has kept up the invective. In Chiapas on Thursday, he leapt on Mr. L?pez Obrador's comment that President Fox was "a puppet" of the United States because of his restrained criticism of the United States Senate's support for more walls along the border.
President Ch?vez of Venezuela had used the same word to describe Mr. Fox last fall, and Mr. Calder?n did not let the chance pass to tar Mr. L?pez Obrador again with the Ch?vez brush. "He's an intolerant man, a very aggressive man, a hostile man and he has devoted himself to insulting the president," he said of his rival. Mr. L?pez Obrador, however, has kept his distance from Mr. Ch?vez.
The managers of both campaigns say the race is too close to call. The camps agree that the final debate on June 6, the only face-to-face confrontation between Mr. Calder?n and Mr. L?pez Obrador, will be pivotal.
"The debate will be important, and I say the dirty war has a limit in its impact on the election," Senator Ortega said.
"We have to win the debate," Mr. Mouri?o said.
