Be Our Guest: Gramm's plan for Mexican Workers shows an understanding of reality

Brownsville Herald
January 19, 2001


Given that a certain circumspection is appropriate until details are known — news stories last week followed a meeting in Mexico City between Gramm and other U.S. legislators with Mexican President Vicente Fox — the proposal has the potential to be constructive for both countries.

The social and economic reality is that lots of Mexicans —3 million, according to one story — are working in the United States without proper papers and, aside from the not inconsequential legal complications, it's generally a good thing for the country. The political reality is that wholesale changes in the direction of realistic quotas or open borders in U.S. immigration laws are unlikely.

What Gramm seems to be offering, as Greg Fossedal of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution put it, is something of a third way, "an intermediate option for people who want to work in the United States but not necessari1y to become permanent residents."

In general terms, Gramm proposes to issue guest worker permits good for one year to Mexicans in the United States, starting with undocumented workers already here. Those with the permit would be authorized to work, would be covered by U.S. labor laws and would be required to return to Mexico after a year.

The hope on the Mexican side is that many of those workers would bring skills and capital back home to help build the Mexican economy. The hope on the American side is that some of the hypocrisy and disrespect for law entailed in the current wink-and-nod situation will be reduced.

The real hope for Mexico, as policy ana1yst Robert Moffitt of the conservative Heritage Foundation said, is that Vicente Fox will be successful in opening up and invigorating a Mexican economy dominated for decades by a corrupt form of crony capitalism.

"Mexico could be a real economic powerhouse, and that would be exciting for both countries,"' he 'said. "If that happens illegal immigration will virtually disappear as a problem."

The devil can be in the details, and we'll wait until we see more of them to decide. A guest worker program is short of the libertarian ideal of open immigration and could have the potential as did the bracero program of a previous generation & mdash; to be unduly paternalistic or exploitative. But initiating a discussion about how to accommodate reality is a good idea.