Immigration Laws: October, 2003 - Number #06

Mexican officials continue to call for the legalization of the unauthorized presence of Mexicans without visas in the US. Interior Minister Santiago Creel in July 2003 called for legalizing "four million Mexicans working in the United States with no record of who they are, where they live, where they work and when they entered. Migrant regularization would provide the United States with a greater margin of security."

Creel argued that "The policy of containment implemented by the United States in its southern border has not been able to stop the migration flow." Creel added that the Mexican government would not try to prevent Mexicans from leaving illegally for the US because the Mexican Constitution guarantees "complete freedom of movement" within Mexico. A Mexican can thus go up to the US border without breaking any Mexican law, and once over the border is no longer in Mexico.

Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez in August 2003 said that the US needs Mexican workers to sustain its economy, and that Mexico needs to export workers because "we, the Mexican government, have yet to improve conditions that will generate the number of new jobs we would like." Derbez said the U.S. population includes 26 million people of Mexican origin, 10 million of whom were born in Mexico, and that 400,000 Mexicans a year settle in the US.

The US Secretary of State Colin Powell in August 2003 said, however, that "It is not practical to think that an amnesty of some kind could be granted for all those who are not here with proper documentation." In September, Powell added that "I don't expect that in the very near future we will see some omnibus solution to every element of the immigration problem."

There is a so-called second wave of Mexico-US migration, from states such as Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatan, Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo and Sinaloa that have not sent many migrants to the US in the past. Traditional emigration states--Jalisco, Michoacan, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Oaxaca and Guerrero- have poor soil and a history of emigration dating from the 1942-64 Bracero program and before. Emigration from the new emigration states is driven by reductions in Mexican farm prices brought about by NAFTA, which led to protests in December 2002 and an April 2003 pledge by President Fox to ask for changes in Nafta's agricultural provisions to protect the 25 million Mexicans living in rural areas.

More Mexicans attempting illegal entry are using smugglers, 80 percent, according to Mexico's undersecretary for migration. Between 1998 and 2003, the price of being smuggled into the US rose from $300 to $1,500. There are about 100 organizations in the trade; the largest eight move about 40 percent of smuggled aliens.

The US formally removes- deports- about 155,000 Mexicans a year, a third of whom were convicted of crimes in the US. Mexican authorities in October 2003 asked the US to provide the provide names and records of criminals being deported 72 hours in advance of their return. Prison officials are resisting, saying that they do not know if the country of origin information they receive from inmates is correct, and that in any case, they can give it only to other US law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in October 2003 ruled that a Mexican woman who fled to the United States after her husband savagely beat her was entitled to stay in the US under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which provides that immigrants who have "been battered or subjected to extreme cruelty in the U.S." are entitled to an adjustment of their immigration status. In this case, the woman was battered in Mexico, but the Court said that the "cycle of violence" in which she suffered in as she went back and forth between the US and her husband in Mexico was a sufficient basis for allowing her to stay.

Elections. Mexico held elections for the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies on July 6, 2004, and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won 34 percent of the vote and 225 seats, followed by the National Action Party (PAN) with 30 percent and 151 seats and the Democratic Revolutionary Party(PRD) with 95; 300 delegates are elected directly, and the other 200 seats are apportioned among the parties in accordance with their share of the votes in each of five regions. In the outgoing Congress, the PRI had 207 seats and the PAN 202. The result suggests continued deadlock.

The 11 major political parties received $500 million in public funds for the 2003 campaign, and 26 million of the 64 million Mexicans registered to vote went to the polls.

As in the last election, at least one US-based candidate was elected to Congress, Manuel de la Cruz of the Los Angeles area, a citizen of both the US and Mexico who organizes hometown clubs for the Zacatecan state government. According to de la Cruz, about two million Mexican-Americans are dual nationals, and another eight million Mexican-born US residents can vote in Mexican elections, though not by absentee ballot- they must travel to Mexico to cast ballots.

In August 2003, Zacatecas amended its constitution to make it easier for Mexicans living in the United States, and their children born in the US, to run for local and state office; they no longer have to live one year in the state to run for office.

President Fox is in the second half of his six-year term, and many assessments conclude that, while he will be remembered for breaking the PRI's 71-year grip on political power, he has been unable to make fundamental changes in Mexico's economy or political system. In September 2003, Fox appealed to the PRI-dominated Congress to enact legislation to increase tax collections and to spend more on education, housing and infrastructure.

Fox also said he would "continue insisting" that the Bush administration reach an agreement with Mexico to legalize the status of millions of Mexicans in the US and make it easier for others to cross the border as guest workers.

Apprehensions of Mexicans along the Mexico-US border fell from 1.4 million between October 1999 and July 2000 to 748,000 during the same period ending in July 2003.

Matricula consular. There are believed to be about nine million Mexican-born US residents, half of whom are unauthorized. Mexico's 47 consulates in the US are issuing photo ID cards to Mexicans who pay $29 and provide proof of their Mexican citizenship; some 1.5 million have been issued to Mexicans in the US in the past few years. Mexico has been issuing the card to citizens abroad for over 100 years, but only in the past several years has there been pressure on US entities to accept it as a valid ID; currently, about 100 US cities, 900 police departments, 100 financial institutions and 13 states accept matricula consular cards.

Critics say that widespread acceptance of matricula consular cards makes life in the US easier for unauthorized foreigners and is thus akin to "amnesty;" they also say that the cards are not secure and could be used by terrorists. Defenders say that the cards do not prevent the apprehension or removal of unauthorized foreigners; instead, they simply make it easier to identify who is in the US. In September 2003, the federal Treasury Department said that US banks may continue to accept matriculas to open bank accounts; Wells Fargo estimated that it opened 80,000 accounts to matricula holders.

Economy. Remittances to Mexico in the first six months of 2003 totaled $6.3 billion, topping the $5.2 billion in FDI and the $4.9 billion in tourism receipts; oil exports were $8 billion in the first half of 2003. If remittances total $12 billion in 2003, each Mexican abroad will have remitted an average of $1,333. Remittances were $10 billion in 2002. About 40 percent of the remittances go to rural areas, where cost of sending money home have fallen fastest, helping to raise the average transfer to $326.

A June 23, 2003 report released by the government found that the number of Mexicans with below-poverty level incomes fell from 54 million to 52 million between 2000 and 2002. The Mexican government defines three levels of poverty: extreme poverty is an income of less than $1.65 a day in rural areas and $2.25 in urban areas; moderate poverty is under $1.95 a day in rural areas and $2.60 in urban areas; and the third level of poverty is under $3.15 a day in rural areas and $4.60 in urban areas.

The 20 million Mexicans aged 15 to 24 are finding it harder than in recent years to find a job or a place in higher education. About a million Mexicans turn 14 each year, a common year to leave school with a secundaria certificate and look for a job, but there are fewer entry-level jobs because many factories have moved to China. Instead, many youth sell products in the informal economy.

The Bush administration is discussing a "totalization agreement" with Mexico that would allow Mexicans to collect, in Mexico, Social Security benefits earned for working in the United States- to calculate retirement benefits, working time in two or more countries is "totaled." The US has 20 totalization agreements; the first was signed with Italy in 1978 and another was signed with Australia in 2002. To collect social security benefits, a person must be a legal resident of the country where he/she lives when the benefits are paid. Thus Mexicans who worked illegally in the US could collect benefits in Mexico, since they are legally there.

Maquiladoras. The number of Mexicans employed in foreign-owned assembly plants peaked at 1.3 million in Fall 2000, and has fallen to 1.1 million, as 218,000 jobs disappeared when 500 of the peak 3,700 maquiladoras closed. Clothing factories were especially hard hit. Merrill Lynch reported that "Mexico has nearly lost the battle on low-skilled, labor-intensive industries, where it simply cannot compete with China on labor costs," which are about a fourth of Mexican levels.

A US-owned maquiladora that recycled batteries, the Metales y Derivados plant, about one mile south of the US-Mexican border, was closed as an environmental hazard in 1994. Eight years later there is still disagreement on how to clean up the site, which contains hazardous wastes, and who should pay. The cheapest option, to cover the site in concrete, is rejected by many of the 10,000 local residents who want the waste transported to the US.

Anna Gorman, "Mexico Seeks Warning on Deportations," Los Angeles Times, October 8, 2003. Justin Gest, "Mexican official touts amnesty as a security booster for U.S.," Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2003.