IMMIGRANTS AND THE FOX FIASCO
May 23, 2005

Let’s be clear. Right now the United States has not the slightest interest in negotiating an immigration accord with Mexico. Period. And in the wake of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s absurd, ignorant comments about United States “blacks,” the window of opportunity in which to change or influence the US Government’s policy has closed completely.

When Fox, in a clumsy, extemporaneous speech, said that Mexian immigrants in the United States “take jobs that not even blacks want,” he insulted forty million African Americans, demonstrated a blatent lack of sensitivity, threw Mexican foreign policy into crisis, and burried any chances of negotiations with the United States.  Few sentences could be as damaging as the one Fox uttered.  And the worst part is that he didn’t even realize it.

The official explanation of what happened—issued via a communique from the Secretary of Foreign Relations four days after the speech—came too late.  To date, Fox has declined to apologize publicly. And this being the case, not even a picture with Jesse Jackson could repair the damage.

Who in the United States is going to want to negotiate with a Mexican president who made a racist statement? It is unlikely that the United States Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, who is African-American, will become Fox’s friend or ally if she senses any sort of prejudice in him. And the Mexican government may as well forget about any type of support on the immigration issue that it may have had from the thirty-eight African-American congressmen.

Fortunately for the eleven million undocumented immigrants in the United States, their legal status does not depend on Fox nor on his sorry foreign relations team.  A bipartiasan proposal—backed by Republican Senator John McCain, Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez and Republican Congressmen Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe—has given hope back to those who live without papers in the United States.

The proposal, the most significant one of its kind to come before Congress in the last twenty years, would solve four basic problems: one, the problem of the millions that are living illegally in the United States; two, the problem of the hundreds of millions of immigrants that this country needs every year; three, it would prevent so many deaths from occurring on the border; and four, it would improve national security against the possible entry of terrorists.

 All of these aspects are addressed by this proposal, dubbed “The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005.” The proposal, however, is facing an increasingly anti-immigrant climate in the United Sttates, a skeptical Congress and a White House that would prefer to promote its own immigration reform proposal. 

           The main drawback of the White House’s temporary worker plan is that it fails to solve the problem of undocumented immigration, it merely postpones it, with the naïve expectation that those who obtain a work permit or visa are going to return to their countries of origin three or six years later.  That is never going to happen, much less if they have a good job and children who were born in the United States.

           That’s why the new bipartisan proposal is the best answer to this country’s complicated and problematic immigration situation.  However, President Bush deserves credit for having opened the immigration debate, and for not having rejected out of hand this bipartisan proposal, which is sure to come up for discussion very soon in the Senate. Moreover, Bush’s support for any solution to the immigration problem is vital. This is the President’s big chance to make good on his 2000 and 2004 campaign promises.

 The border between Mexico and the United States, we must admit, is complete chaos. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if there were to be another terrorist attack on the United States and the criminals were later found to have entered the country through the Mexican border. That’s why we have to cover the well before the baby falls in and drowns.

 The United States has every right to a secure border, just as Latin American immigrants in search of work here deserve to be treated humanely and fairly. Something must be done about it as soon as possible. Inaction is not an option.

 It is unfortunate that the Mexican president put his foot in his mouth at such an important juncture in the relations between the two countries. Fox will doubtless go down in history as the president who brought Mexico true representational democracy.  But I fear that few will remember him as a great statesman.  Not even those who have worked for him.

 No one knows what the next Foxada or “Fox Fiasco” might have in store for us. But for now, the least President Fox could do would be to acknowledge his mistake and make a public apology.  Doing so in private and with telephone calls is not enough.  This matter, contrary to what his team of advisors and public relations people might think, is not going to be easily forgotten in the United States and is interfering with Mexico’s agenda abroad. I guarantee that this question will come up in the next interview Fox gives to the foreign media.