Transcript
Martin Torres
Head Consul, Salt Lake City Consulate of Mexico
Again, I would like to point out to what I was talking about at the beginning of the program. This is a very complex issue, so you have to deal with it at that level. When we are talking about the immigration agreement that we would like to reach with the United States, we are basically talking about three issues that are directly related to it and two indirectly related to that. One of the two that are indirectly related but need to be tackled is increased security at the border, especially in light of the events that we all know about. So we have actually taken very concrete steps. As you all know, President Bush was in Monterrey for the Summit of Financing for Development, and both presidents met and reached some agreements to increase security at the border. And now another issue that needs to be tackled is a pull and a push. This is economics, there is a high demand for Mexican workers and we have the supply. So why is there such a high supply and demand to be met? Because Mexicans do not find enough jobs, or they don't find the jobs that pay them enough to stay home. So let's try also to increase the opportunities at home so that they won't be leaving. And we understand that is a long-term process, but we've got to talk about that, and they have started doing that. Now, you also have to take into account the realities. We are the neighbors, if you look at it objectively, we are the most awkward neighbors that you can find in the world, but we are there. We have differences in economic development, differences in heritage, differences in history and even in the levels of economic development. We have differences in the way we apprehend the world and so forth. And yet, we have to live together. We have lived together for years and we have been part of each other. We are starting to state this out in states that used to be Mexican territory not too long ago. So you have to deal with those realities as well. So especially now that we have reached such a level of closeness that has never been reached before, we can't be put into the same barrel as any other country. We cannot be subjected to the same quota that everybody else gets. So let's do away with the quota, let's increase the number of visas, let's talk about learning from the H2 program that has been developed and is being used in Jackson, WY, for an example. Let's talk about the guest workers program. If the problem is illegality, and that's really a big problem as Simpson was saying. They [illegal immigrants] are the most vulnerable, of course, and that's because they have less means of protection, so let's try to bring them legally under the guest worker program. And also let's deal with the reality, this is the toughest to swallow, that there are millions, as the piece said, millions of Mexicans that are already here that are part of this economy. They are part of this country and need to be legalized, and so when we deal with the picture as big as that, and we decide to walk the path together. Just a few years ago, we were pointing fingers at each other, "Well, it’s your problem . . . [No,] it’s your problem." Well it’s both. We need to sit down in a bilateral dialogue because it is a bilateral problem. Same thing with immigration. You cannot take unilateral decisions because they are not going to work entirely. You will solve some problems, you will create some, so let's talk about how we both can solve a problem that is a long-term problem and will continue to be. Immigration is there to stay because it is a fact of economic development among nations. The history of the world is a history of immigration. We are back and forth, so the only way to really deal with a very concrete and a very
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