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 News from Around the Americas | August 2007 
Mexican Officials Visit U.S. on Immigration Fact-Finding Mission
 Jon Gambrell - Associated Press
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| | Supporters of "Day without Immigrants" wave flags outside the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. US businesses are bracing for a possible major crackdown on illegal foreign workers, as the government seeks to give immigration authorities more power to punish companies hiring undocumented workers. (AFP/Robert Sullivan ) |
Little Rock — Mexican immigration experts visiting the United States to see how this country deals with illegal immigrants say the U.S. is not the only country with a porous southern border.
In Mexico, immigration officials struggle to handle a growing number of immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and other countries who seek low-wage Mexican jobs that have been abandoned for better-paying jobs in the United States.
"Mexico is a country of both transit and destination," said Gabriel Perez Duperou, deputy director of Sin Fronteras, an immigrants rights group based in Mexico City. "But for Mexico, it's not logical to demand a policy from a country to respect human rights if we are not respecting the human rights of immigrants."
In part to learn and critique, a group of Mexican governmental officials and academics visited Arkansas as part of a three-city tour of how the United States handles immigration enforcement. The group traveled to El Paso, Texas, to see how officers patrol the border and to visit a jail for those arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The group also visited Washington, D.C., visiting with officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In Little Rock, the group met Tuesday with the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation to discuss a report it conducted about the economic benefits of Arkansas' burgeoning Hispanic immigrant population. Census estimates show more than 141,000 Hispanics now live in the state, which has one of the fastest rates of growth in the nation.
"It is a lot of immigration. But what is more — the resources they use from the government or what they are making?" said Guadalupe Pena Trigueros, a professor of immigration studies at Mexico's National Autonomous University. "I see a positive result (here), that they are giving more to the state than what they are consuming."
Overall, most Mexicans see that positive effect and wonder why the U.S. Congress struggled in trying to pass a recent immigration package to create some form of a guest worker program.
However, Mexican President Felipe Calderon acknowledges the need to provide better treatment to the migrants, said Ana Cecilia Oliva Balcarcel, director of international affairs for Mexico's National Institute of Migration. Oliva acknowledged many of those migrants end up staying in Mexico's southern states, working construction jobs and other menial labor.
Mexico created a program to provide documentation for those working in the southern state and is working to decriminalize being an illegal immigrant, Oliva said. However, she said police and labor abuses do continue.
"We've been working to eliminate the corruption," Oliva said. "We still miss some."
Officials have pledged to improve Mexico's own detention centers for immigrants, responding to criticism that illegal Central American migrants are denied the respect Mexico demands for its citizens in the United States.
"It's important to regulate immigration through our country," Oliva said. "We can't put up walls. We're never going to put them up."
On the Net:
Mexican Consulate in Little Rock: http://portal.sre.gob.mx/littlerock/
National Institute of Migration: http://www.inami.gob.mx/ |
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