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Bush Visit to Mexico, Latin America

Everyone with an interest in Latin American affairs is closely watching this week's visit to the region by President Bush. Bush will visit Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil and Uruguay.

The big national daily papers previewed the trip today:

The Washington Post [here]

The New York Times front page story [here]

Wall Street Journal previewed the trip in a story Monday AM with this pessimistic walk-up: "President Bush travels to Latin America this week to take on Hugo Chávez's militant brand of economic populism. But the weakened U.S. president could spend much of the trip defending against charges his own economic policies have helped shortchange the region." And has more on the WSJ's Washington Wire blog [here]

MATT.org will report on Bush's visit here at www.MATT.org.

Washington Post: "Time is short" for immigration reform

The Washington Post editorial board published a lead editorial on immigration yesterday (Sunday) calling on Congress to pass solid immigration reform legislation that includes "tougher domestic controls" but also involves "a process by which new immigrants can come here legally in sufficient numbers to satisfy the obvious economic demand for them and according to rules that ensure that they will not become a permanent underclass."

Click [here] for the Post's editorial.

Visit www.MATT.org for our latest update on the immigration debate.

Does Bush Administration Reject Path to Citizenship?

The New York Times editorial board published a strong editorial today on the U.S. Senate's latest efforts to tackle the challenging issue of immigration. The Times criticizes the Bush Administration officials who testified before a Senate committee on Wednesday saying they "slunk away from a central pillar of comprehensive reform: a path to citizenship..."

This is a very difficult issue to resolve and the Times is right to remind its readers that even if Congress were to pass the Bush plan the status of millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. would still be unresolved.

Click [here] for the permalink to this editorial or see it below:

March 2, 2007

Editorial
The Path to Citizenship

On Wednesday, Congress took its first crack at immigration reform since the great nothing of 2006. The Senate Judiciary Committee invited Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to testify on the issue. With a new Congress and a new comprehensive immigration bill expected to be introduced in the Senate within days, the hearing could have been the first spark of a rejuvenated campaign by an alliance of Congressional Democrats, moderate Republicans and the Bush administration to finally solve a problem that has festered for too long.

It wasn’t. That’s because both Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Gutierrez slunk away from a central pillar of comprehensive reform: a path to citizenship that would give illegal immigrants — the ones who wait and prove they deserve it — the chance to participate fully and proudly in the life of this country.

Polls show that most Americans would let illegal immigrants get right with the law and become Americans, too, if they have clean records, learn English and pay back taxes and fines. Weighed against keeping the shadowy status quo or deporting 12 million people, a citizenship path strikes them as a proper blend of justice and common sense. Last year’s stalled Senate bill took this approach, and it will surely be central to any new legislation.

But the idea sticks in the craws of the members of a vocal, mostly Republican faction that wants every door to opportunity for illegal immigrants shut and locked, except the one marked “guest workers.” Those they would keep because they don’t mind having an underclass of docile, ill-paid foreigners who do America’s dirtiest jobs and then go home.

There is a place for some temporary workers in the American economy. But such programs are highly prone to abuse and are not a solution for the vast numbers of illegal immigrants already here.

Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Chertoff enthusiastically talked up guest-worker programs on Wednesday, but pointedly left citizenship off the table. They could have been talking tactically, working at President Bush’s behest to soothe the passions of skeptical Republicans. But there must be a limit to the accommodations given to anti-amnesty ideologues. If Mr. Bush has the stomach to fight for the real reform he says he wants, he is hiding it well.

Mr. Bush said nothing about a path to citizenship in his State of the Union address in January. If he is too weakened to stand up for comprehensive reform, then Democrats and Republicans in Congress need to unite and do it for him.

Hit the Road, Mex?

A new arrangement between the U.S. and Mexico will allow Mexican cargo trucks to operate in the United States for the first time in 25 years, according to Bloomberg news [here]. Bush Administration officials from the Departments of Transportation and Commerce said the program was historic, safe and that it would be good for the American economy.

The Wall Street reported [here] in Saturday's paper:

"The Transportation Department on Friday said it is starting a pilot program that could begin as soon as April that will allow 100 Mexican trucking companies unfettered access to U.S. roads."

In the same story, the Journal's Robert Guy Matthews also reported:

"The issue of whether to allow Mexican freight trucks on U.S. roads has been controversial for more than a decade. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, ratified by Congress in 1993, the U.S. and Mexico were supposed to open their roads to each other's trucks, at least partially, as part of a broader push to strengthen bilateral economic and trade ties. But the trucking agreement was put on hold in 1995 after U.S. trucker unions and other opponents lobbied lawmakers to block such a move. They argued that Mexican trucks were unsafe, caused pollution and would facilitate illegal immigration."

The LA Daily News reports [here] it's a 1 year program.

The announcement, made Friday, has received swift responses from the U.S. trucking industry , labor unions, consumer groups and some Members of Congress concerned about U.S. jobs as well as the safety of U.S. roads. A member of the National Transportation Safety Board raised concerns as well, according to an Associated Press report [here].

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa slammed the agreement in a statement [here] and said it would make U.S. roads less safe.

Bloomberg news quoted the head of the U.S. commerce department:

"Safety is the number-one priority and strict U.S. safety standards won't change,'' U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a statement.

And, according to the AP [here], the U.S. transportation secretary said:

"This is a historic agreement to ensure the safety of these vehicles … and their drivers as well," Peters said, adding, "this is the first time U.S. inspectors have come into Mexico to perform these on-site safety audits."

U.S. and Mexico Announce New Agreement on Mexican Trucks

The Associated Press is reporting that, "U.S. safety inspectors will be allowed to inspect trucks on Mexican soil before they enter the United States under a program announced on Thursday that officials said will remove the last barrier to the long-delayed opening of U.S. highways to Mexican truckers."

Reporting from Mexico City, the AP's Mark Stevenson writes that, "Thursday's agreement could mark and end to a seven-year-old trade disagreement; under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, Mexico and the United States were supposed to have allowed full access for each other's trucks by 2000."

This announcement comes just weeks President Bush's scheduled visit to Mexico where he will discuss security, immigration and trade with Mexico's new president Felipe Calderon.

Please click [here] to read the AP story.

And visit www.matt.org to learn more about the dialogue the organization is creating between our two countries.

"Rapid" Growth in Mexican Economy

CNBC.com is reporting, optimistically, today on the rapid growth of the Mexican economy.

The business news site reports today that, "The economy is growing at its fastest pace in six years, the stock market is at an all-time high, the homebuilding industry is thriving, and consumer spending pushed Wal-Mart's profit up 26% last quarter. We are not talking about the United States. We are talking about Mexico, a country most Americans think of only in terms of illegal immigration. But as workers keep streaming north, money is heading south. Foreign direct investment in Mexico rose more than 6% last year to nearly $19 billion, according to the Economy Ministry. Every broker or investment banker wants a piece of the action."

Click [here] for the CNBC article.

We recently ran an article on MATT.org about Mexican President Calderon's belief that his country can become one of the nation's leading economies within a few decades.

Click [here] to read that article on MATT.org.

Is the U.S. Turning the Tide Against Illegal Immigration?

In an article titled, "Tougher Tactics Deter Migrants at U.S. Border," The New York Times will report in Wednesday's papers that, "All along the border, there are signs that the measures the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have taken over the last year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants."

It is unclear how this will affect the national debate on comprehensive immigration reform, but it is certainly a big story if the data are correct and warrants more attention.

Click [here] to read the Times article.

Visit www.matt.org to discuss this issue.