Mexican Ambassador Calls For More Bridges, Fewer Barriers

The Senate kicks off debate this week on an immigration bill introduced by Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), and Mexican diplomats here are hoping the arguments will address the humanitarian, legal and security aspects of this touchy topic in the post-Sept. 11 world.

Ambassador Carlos de Icaza acknowledged frustration on both sides of the border at the lack of progress on an agreement regulating the flow of unskilled labor between the two countries, but he emphasized that no problem can be solved by throwing up barriers.

"We need more bridges and less fences," he said in an interview Friday, the day Specter introduced his draft legislation on a guest worker program. "To continue working together on security issues, we need to put at the center of the relationship our human dimension." He told the story of a Mexican worker he encountered in Arizona who had risked his life to cross the border to be able to provide for his family. "For people like us, there is no other way," he recalled his countryman telling him.

"You have hundreds of thousands living in a state of fear and in the shadows," the ambassador noted. He made the case for Mexican government proposals backed by the National Congress that acknowledge the principle of "shared responsibility" by both countries.

The statistics he cited are daunting. Fifty-seven percent of all undocumented workers in the United States come from Mexico, America's second-largest trading partner. Of the 25 million residents of Mexican origin in the United States, 15 million are U.S.-born, while 900,000 people cross the border daily in both directions, he said.

"We hope the American Congress will decide on . . . comprehensive immigration reform and a guest worker program that corresponds to the reality of the problem," de Icaza said.

Tamar Jacoby , a specialist with the Manhattan Institute, a New York-based think tank, commended Specter for introducing his bill, a first draft of a major overhaul of U.S. immigration law. But "the good news is that it is only a first draft," she added. Jacoby has been active in organizing the center-right of the political spectrum behind proposals taking shape in Washington.

De Icaza pointed out that the Mexican workers are needed for field work and other types of labor that Americans decline to perform. His compatriots are drawn by simple economics: "It does not matter how well we do -- the U.S. economy is 15 times the size of Mexico's economy," he noted. "We want to regulate the flow. The Mexican nation as a whole wants to have a humane, legal, secure, safe and dignified migration flow."

The ambassador said Mexico is prepared to cooperate with the United States on conducting background checks for workers and providing some training, and also wants to have enforceable contracts on workers' pay, health and insurance benefits. Both countries would share the costs, he said.

"Nothing seems to be stopping the undocumented flow of laborers. Even if we get immigration from Mexico to decline, we are a transit country," he said. Mexico, he explained, has had to deport 250,000 migrants trying to push through its southern border in hopes of reaching the U.S. labor market to stake out their own slice of the American dream.

"We are neighbors. This is a marriage with no divorce," de Icaza said.

Going Out in Style

Nothing can surpass this last bit of diplomatic theater here by German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger , who is soon to become Berlin's ambassador to the Court of St. James's: He planned to arrive at a farewell dinner given in his honor by British Ambassador David Manning on Tuesday evening in a humongous, spanking-new Rolls-Royce, made by an enterprise that is now German-owned, though the car's interior is still produced in Britain.

Ischinger has been making his departure rounds in this not-so-shabby motorcar, courtesy of the company's new owners, BMW. Now that he has nursed bilateral relations back to health after a rocky and strenuous five years, he could not be making a classier exit.

Last week, at Ischinger's final official dinner at his Foxhall Road residence, guests thought he was joshing when he asked if they had noticed the new car parked out front -- and they saw the Rolls.

"This is the last supper for a senior German politician, so for me this is the beginning of my final act," Ischinger noted last Tuesday at the dinner he hosted for Juergen Ruettgers , the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's largest state and the home of the former capital, Bonn. The state is a vast regional base for industry, including about 560 U.S. companies providing Germans with 170,000 jobs.

Ruettgers, who at one point served as minister for research and technology, said he comes to Washington every year not only to make a small contribution to German-American relations but to get a sense of the major issues here.

"Ischinger has done a great job. He has always had good judgment and a great heart for the United States and its people," the governor said.