Laws: July, 2003 - Number #5

Mexico has legislative elections on July 6, 2003, and President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) is expected to lose seats in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputes, making Fox in effect a lame-duck president for his last three years (the PAN is already a minority in the Senate, which is not having elections). Some say that, if Fox could obtain a new migration agreement with the US, his position would be strengthened.

Fox in May 2003 appealed for action on a migration agreement that would increase the number of work visas for Mexicans in the US and, he claimed, avoid more tragedies like the 19 deaths in a tractor-trailer truck in Texas that had just occurred. Fox proposed starting with a "sector-by-sector" approach to guest workers, beginning with nurses and bilingual teachers. Fox said that Mexico would be "insisting on our priority, which is [a] migration agreement with the US."

However, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that it will be very difficult to negotiate a new migration agreement with Mexico: "Legislatively, some of the solutions that are needed are extremely difficult to get. We haven't lost the vision. But it is going to take us a lot more time and a lot more effort." Powell continued that Mexicans come to the US "in search of economic opportunities. We want to work with the Mexican government to regularize this both in moving across the border and deal with the population that is already here."

Interior Minister Santiago Creel in April 2003 said that "The migration issue is one that cannot be left out of our discussions" and should be "the first priority" in Mexico-US discussions. Creel, who may be a candidate for president in 2006, said that legalizing four million Mexicans would allow US law enforcement personnel to concentrate on terrorists. He also warned that, unless the US moves on the migration issue, it may be hard to obtain Mexican cooperation on other issues.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said that the presence of unauthorized Mexicans "cannot continue to exist unresolved. How we deal with the presence of men and women and families that were initially unlawful but have proven to be productive is one of the biggest challenges we have in our country." Roger Noriega, nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said in May 2003 that there is not likely to be any dramatic breakthrough on immigration reform. Instead, he said that there may be "small steps, perhaps, on this [migration] agenda."

Magdalena Carral Cuevas, Mexico's immigration commissioner, said that Mexico has 3,500 troops and police on its border with Guatemala. Mexico apprehended 37,155 foreigners on its southern border between January and April 2003, about the same number as in the same period of 2002. About half of the apprehensions were in Chiapas.

During meetings in San Diego, Mexico and the US announced plans for the first high-tech laser-scan fast lane for US-bound cargo, three more Sentri lanes for passenger vehicles and the first-ever scanner for Mexicans with border crossing cards or laser visas who are walking into the US. About 30,000 commuters use Sentri lanes at the Tijuana-San Diego border.

More migrants from urban areas of Mexico are reportedly heading to the US. The cities surrounding Mexico City are largely filled with rural-urban migrants and their children, and one study found that, between 1995 and 1999, the three urban municipalities with the most households that sent migrants to the US were Ecatepec, 13,192; Nezahualcoyotl, a city of 2.5 million near Mexico City, 13,025; and Naucalpan, 5,555. Migrants who move, for instance, from Oaxaca to Nezahualcoyotl and then on to the US are likely to say they are from Oaxaca even if they were near Mexico City for 10 or more years. Nezahualcoyotl is reported to be the number two municipality (county) sending migrants to the US.

Many Mexican families have live-in maids, usually girls and women from poor rural areas who are supposed to earn at least the federal minimum wage of $140 a month, plus room and board. Maids who do not live-in earn more; sometimes twice the minimum wage. There are efforts underway to improve conditions for maids in Mexico City, who are reported to suffer frequent exploitation and sexual harassment.

Border Babies. The Los Angeles Times reported on April 17, 2003 that some affluent Mexican women are delivering babies in the US so the children have US citizenship. Many of the Mexican mothers are professionals with border or laser visas that permit them to travel up to 25 miles inside the United States for up to three days for shopping and family visits. It is legal for women to cross the border to give birth, as long as they have a current visa and can prove they can pay their medical bills.

The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

In one Chula Vista, California hospital, 501 of the 2,067 babies delivered in 2002 were born to foreign nationals, many of whom pre-paid the $2,400 for standard maternity services. Critics say that "anchor babies" can help foreign parents and relatives to immigrate when the child turns 21.

The number of Mexican-born US residents rose from 4.3 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2000. About 10 percent of US-born adults did not complete high school; two-thirds of the Mexican-born US adults did not complete high school.

Remittances/Labor. Remittances to Mexico reached $9.8 billion in 2002, representing 30 million transactions that averaged $328 each. Remittances have been increasing, but the average amount of each transaction has remained in the $300 to $350 range. Remittances to Mexico were $9 billion in 2001; $6.6 billion in 2000; $5.9 billion in 1999; $5.6 billion in 1998; $4.7 billion in 1997; $4.2 billion in 1996; and $3.7 billion in 1995.

With the encouragement of the Mexican government, more US and Mexican banks have entered the money transfer business, increasing competition and lowering costs. In April 2003, Citibank announced that it would allow those with bank accounts to move as much as $3,500 to Banamex accounts in Mexico for $5, plus a commission of about two percent over the bank-to-bank foreign exchange rate. Traditional money transfer firms charge up to 10 percent of the value of the typical $300 transfer to send money to Mexico.

Many Mexican firms are appealing to migrants to order and pay for goods in the US that are delivered in Mexico. The Mexican cement firm Cemex, for example, allows migrants to order and pay for building materials that are used to build houses in Mexico. Cemex charges $1 to transfer funds under its Construmex program that are used to buy building materials at its Mexican outlets, and provides housing plans to US migrants; houses in migrant areas of origin can be built for $15,000.

Migrant hometown associations remit an estimated $60 million a year for infrastructure improvements in their hometowns, and their contributions are matched by federal and state governments. The Partnership for Prosperity program, launched in 2001, aims to attract investment into migrant areas of origin.

Mexico had 12.5 million formal sector jobs in 2001, and 12.4 million in 2002. Average wages for IMSS-covered workers rose 6.1 percent in 2001, but only 3.1 percent in 2002. Only 250,000 jobs are expected to be created in 2003, even though the labor force is expected to grow by one million.

Nafta. Nafta was expected to eventually reduce Mexico-US migration, although most experts predicted a migration hump-a five- to 10-year increase in migration- with the expected economic restructuring in Mexico. Mexico-US migration increased as expected in the 1990s, both from the traditional states of west central Mexico, Jalisco, Michoacan, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Oaxaca and Guerrero, and from new states in the east and south, Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatan, Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo and Sinaloa.

There are calls to deepen Mexico-US relations by converting the North American Free Trade Agreement into a NAFTA Plus arrangement that would include a migration agreement. However, there are more likely to be trade disputes and no migration agreements, as the Mexican government limits imports of US pork and poultry to protect its farmers.

Carlos Heredia of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations says that Mexico must do more to protect its three million corn farmers: "they are either protected to be able to survive in Mexico, or will be overwhelmed by subsidized imports and have to move to the US." In April 2003, President Fox signed the National Agreement on the Countryside, which includes a pledge to protect bean and corn farmers; under Nafta, trade restrictions on these commodities are to end in 2008.

Environment. The US and Mexican governments in April 2003 signed an agreement to reduce pollution within 100km of each side of the 2,000 mile-long border, home to 12 million people.

Mexico's largest freshwater lake, Lake Chapala, is shrinking to 20 percent of its peak water levels, threatening the water supply of Guadalajara, 30 miles to the north. As the lake recedes, farmers move in to farm the former lakebed, and housing is constructed, making it difficult to restore the lake to its previous size.

Richard Boudreaux, "Migrants' Dollars Cross Border, Brick by Brick," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2003. Bennett Roth, "Powell: Immigration accords with Mexico face uphill battle," Houston Chronicle, May 29, 2003. Richard Boudreaux, "Mexico Tries to Spur Talks on Migration," Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2003. Tessie Borden, "Migrants' path: 'Neza' to U.S," Arizona Republic, April 18, 2003. Anna Gorman, "Affluent Cross Border to U.S. for Childbirth," Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2003.