Just as Washington and Mexico city were dampening expectations of progress towards an immigration agreement with the US during the 20 October meeting between Presidents Vicente Fox and George Bush Jr, the role Mexico has been playing as the outer gatekeeper for the US was being highlighted in the Mexican capital.
The occasion was Mexico's handover to Panama of the presidency of the Regional Conference on Migration. Javier Moctezuma, Mexico's undersecretary for population, migration and religious affairs, reported that last year 119,000 illegal Central American immigrants were repatriated. Of that total, 60% were from Guatemala, 30% from Honduras and 10% from El Salvador.
Unlike Mexican emigrants to the US, the arrivals from the isthmus are not seeking work in Mexico; their aim is to go straight through the country and enter the US. The volume of this flow is such that Mexico's holding and processing facilities at the southern border are frequently overwhelmed. To remedy this, plans have been drawn up to build a new migrations centre, covering 30,000 square metres, in Tapachula, on Chiapas state's border with Guatemala.
Mexico has what it describes as a `secure and orderly repatriation' programme in place with Guatemala, and expects to sign similar ones with the governments of Honduras and El Salvador. Apart from the repatriation scheme, Mexico has an agreement with Guatemala which last year allowed 39,000 people to take up temporary employment in Chiapas. This also contributes to alleviate the pressure at the other end, on Mexico's border with the US.
The Regional Conference on Migration was established, at Mexico's behest, in 1996. Its members are Mexico's two partners in Nafta, the US and Canada; the five Central American republics plus Belize and Panama; and, since 1999, the Dominican Republic.
Only a `relaunch' in Bangkok
In early 2001, Fox and Bush initiated negotiations on a migrations agreement seeking to introduce some order in the crossborder flows and to legalise the situation of the 4m-or-so undocumented Mexicans living in the US. These talks ground to a halt after the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, when security concerns took precedence in the US.
When Fox travelled recently to the US to attend the UN General Assembly, and did not meet Bush, the word was put out that they intended to catch up on pending business on the sidelines of the Apec meeting scheduled for October in Bangkok. Last week the US National Security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, stated that the planned meeting between the two presidents was not to produce agreements on anything.
Through a communiqué issued by the presidency, Fox concurred, stating explicitly that the meeting was `not to resolve or decide upon a migrations agreement.' The only aim of the encounter, he said, was to `relaunch the bilateral agenda'. Indeed, he added, he planned to use part of the allotted 45 minutes to discuss how the three Nafta partners can increase their competitiveness vis-í -vis Asia, and particularly China.
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