Opinion Archive

What to Make of “Securing the Border First”

February 6, 2008

One of the things that Senator John McCain is known for is his “liberal” stance on immigration. He sponsored bipartisan legislation which would have established a path to legality and even citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million unauthorized immigrants that live in the US today, about 50% of those are Mexican. The legislation failed and the fury of the right wing of the Republican party has made any deal unworkable, for now. Although he has not yet openly rejected the bipartisan proposal he sponsored, Senator McCain now says that “he got the message”. I.e., that before anything else “we must secure the border first.” This idea has been picked up by practically every candidate in both parties, so it looks like more fences, drones and camaras are in the cards no matter who is elected. Nevertheless, it is McCain’s second idea, for a secure biometrics-endowed identification for immigrants, which should be analyzed by Mexico for its own citizenship. If Mexico was to have a proper database of the people in its territory, it could begin to take control of the country. And that would put it in a much better negotiating position when the immigration “pendulum” swings back to problem-solving territory.

The irony of it all

Americans like to feel they are in control, which is why their southern border makes them uneasy. It is variously under the thumb of organized crime, human traffickers (“coyotes”), the Mexican military, the US Border Patrol and, often, no one at all. The Canadian border is longer and, unlike Mexico, Canada has immigrant Islamic malcontents. But the US trusts the Mounties and they don’t trust the Federales. Worryingly, skirmishes along the border occur every day. According to the Border Patrol, smugglers and other troublemakers throw things at them in order to distract or annoy them. According to Mexico, when the Border Patrol retaliates by throwing tear gas into Mexican territory, as happened a few days ago, they are overstepping their authority. In a word, “la linea”, as migrants call it, is a mess.

An estimated 400,000 people cross the border without American authorization every year. And, in what is perhaps the biggest single human tragedy story in North America, thousands have died in the attempt. As Jorge Castañeda notes in his book “Ex Mex”, the numbers crossing over from Mexico remained proportionally the same throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. One hundred years ago, crossing was legal (or at least open), during the 1930s many were deported, then Mexican mass migration was legal again under the “Bracero” program (1942-1964), then much of it was illegal until the 1986 amnesty, when it was legalized. Thereafter it’s been mostly illegal, although Mexico maintains its status as the country which provides most of America’s legal migration (30% of the total), thanks in large part to family reunification. What has changed is what analysts call “circularity”, the centuries-old tradition of Mexican laborers coming and going across the border. Circularity has been halted by security measures, so it isn’t that many more Mexicans have been crossing into the US, it’s that they have been staying and bringing their families. Ironically, “securing” the border has played an important part in “the browning of America”, which is presumably what its supporters wanted to avoid.

Auspass

Beyond “securing the border first”, Senator McCain proposes a biometric identification system to identify immigrants. This call for proper identification should be taken to heart here in Mexico. Despite the unpalatable orwellian undertones of creating a national identity card, Mexico needs to have an accurate database of its own citizens. Its voter ID cards are insufficient. Today, there are millions of Mexicans in rural communities who have no documention because of either neglect, or the relatively high cost of getting a birth certificate. Mexico cannot ask a US President to “take down the wall” until it achieves control over its territory. Identifying its people is a necessary prerequisite. In fact, Mexico will probably have to eat its pro-immigrant words because part of establishing control is closing its own southern border to unauthorized entry, which it will have to do if it wants to negotiate a full North American solution to migration.

According to Castañeda, for a brief period at the beginning of the Fox and Bush administrations, there was the possibility of legalizing those who already left (called the “stock”) and creating a guest worker program for those who would go in the future (the “flow”). Although that possibility looks improbable now, history teaches that there is a pendular aspect to the issue of immigration. By identifying its citizenry and taking control of its territory, Mexico would go a long way to becoming a trustworthy partner the next time the pendulum swings our way – perhaps during the next presidency.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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