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UPDATER 30 May 2001 Guest Work Won't Stop Migrant DeathsManaging Editor: Talli Nauman
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c o m m e n t a r y
GUEST WORK WON'T STOP MIGRANT DEATHS
by John Ross
The 14 undocumented Mexican migrants found dead on May 24 after their smuggler abandoned them in the scorching desert near Yuma, Arizona, are among the most recent of more than 600 casualties due to border patrol strategies that have upped the risks of illegal immigration since 1994.
These strategies squeeze Mexican workers into the most dangerous crossings in the mountains and deserts of California and Arizona, and into the proverbial Valley of Death.
Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush and his Mexican counterpart Vicente Fox are cooking up a new guestworker program to absorb the thickening flow of Mexicans willing to put their lives on the line to bust onto the bottom rungs of the decelerating U.S. economy.
Next week, on June 6, the top-level team designated by Bush and Fox to review the migration quandary--U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft, together with Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda and Interior Secretary Santiago Creel--will huddle in San Antonio, Texas, to hatch a guest worker program, the size and shape of which still is being bargained about inside and outside of both countries.
The famed guestworker programs that endured for the 22 years from 1942 through 1964 resulted in 4.5 million individual contracts with Mexican laborers. Some 3 million workers were hired and about half of them were re-contracted.
Influential U.S. Republican Sen. Phil Gramm is pushing for a similar volume under the new plan, with contracts for 200,000 Mexican workers a year--only half of what Fox wants.
Democrats are more cautious, and contemplate amnesty for 3 million mostly Mexican undocumented workers already in the United States before they sign on to a large-scale guestworker initiative.
The proposal for the new program, much as for the old one, is a function of comparatively low U.S. unemployment rates. Economic gurus like Alan Greenspan and George Soros insist that the U.S. economy cannot continue to grow without a substantial inflow of bottom-rung immigrant workers. Greenspan, in particular, is an advocate of expanded guestworker solutions.
While Bush seems balky on the topic, Fox is typically enthusiastic: "We have the workers and you have the jobs," he argues.
Last February, on the eve of the first Fox-Bush presidential meeting at the former's hacienda, the Carnegie Endowment issued a blue-ribbon paper supporting Fox's position: "Mexican labor surplus has to be matched to U.S. needs."
But for Juan Manual Sandoval, a migration expert at Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute, and Ventura Gutíerrez, a farm worker organizer in California's Coachella Valley--both sons of guestworkers--a new program is not the answer. Wages will be kept low to fuel growers' profit margins and the new guestworkers will be used to blunt farmhand and immigrant organizing drives by the AFL-CIO and independent labor, they say.
Sandoval insists a new program won't eliminate the smugglers who leave their clients to die in the Arizona desert. "They'll just become legal contractors," he says.
Moreover, a new guestworker program is hardly going to stem the flood of undocumented migrants. Indeed, some studies show that guestworker programs increase the flow. Statistics from before the World War II era guestworker programs show 8,000 Mexicans a year were deported from the United States. But in 1954, at their apex, nearly a million were sent packing as the result of the first "Operation Wetback."
Guestworker programs target agricultural laborers, but for every field hand who comes across, 10 more border crossers head straight for McDonald's: The service sector is the largest employer of the undocumented. In the past decade, a quarter of a million Mexicans have settled in New York City, where tomato and melon fields are few and far between.
Out in the Arizona desert last week near Yuma, where he had gone to help send the dead, undocumented migrants back home, Gutíerrez was laconic: "No guestworker program is going to stop the compañeros from dying out here in this hell hole," he said.
John Ross, whose most recent book is "The War Against Oblivion--Zapatista Chronicles 1994-2000," is a frequent contributor to the borderlines UPDATER.
n e w s
ENVIRONMENTALISTS EYE REVIEW OF CEC CITIZEN COMPLAINT PROCESS
by Talli Nauman
Culminating a year-long consultation process, the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) of the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is finalizing recommendations to the environmental ministers of Mexico, the United States, and Canada on changes to the controversial citizen complaint procedure of the trinational commission.
What remains to be seen is whether environmentalists will be pleased or disappointed by the JPAC's findings.
According to Articles 14 and 15 of the environmental side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), citizens of signatory countries can file submissions with the CEC Secretariat alleging non-enforcement of environmental law by their national governments. Since being established in 1994, the CEC has received 29 such submissions.
In the two cases in which the CEC has actually carried out investigations of citizen complaints, its findings were limited to "factual records" summarizing events without reaching conclusions as to the effective enforcement of applicable environmental laws. As a result, many environmentalists argue that CEC factual records are at best a soft slap on the wrist for environmental truants and that the Article 14-15 process needs more teeth.
This sentiment, coupled with concern over the ground rules governing the process, has made the CEC's citizen submission mechanism a focus of ongoing debate.
Adding fuel to the fire has been public concern that Canada, Mexico, and the United States have been "working clandestinely to weaken Articles 14 and 15 and attempting to influence the secretariat's handling of particular citizen submissions," says Randy Christensen, representative of the Vancouver, Canada-based Sierra Legal Defence Fund.
As a result, last June the environmental ministers of the three NAFTA countries, who make up the CEC Council, tasked the JPAC with conducting a public review to provide them with advice on issues raised over the citizen complaint process.
JPAC held consultations and in April produced a draft report to the council entitled "Lessons Learned." The deadline for public comment on the draft was May 15. The JPAC hopes to submit the finished report to the council when the two bodies meet in Guadalajara, Mexico, June 27-29.
But while many environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have repeatedly recommended that the CEC Secretariat be empowered to make findings of law and concrete recommendations in citizen complaint cases, a draft version of the JPAC's report includes no counsel for either broadening or limiting the secretariat's powers in judgements on citizen submissions.
"Clearly, JPAC should make its own independent assessment of whether the effectiveness of the citizen submission process would be strengthened by the inclusion of findings and recommendations in factual records," notes Paul Kibel, an environmental lawyer and author of "The Paper Tiger Awakens: North American Environmental Law after the Cozumel Reef Case," an article in the May 2001 edition of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. "However, what is troubling and discouraging is that it appears that JPAC is avoiding making any assessment of this issue because such a recommendation might be resisted by the CEC Council."
In a consultation meeting that JPAC sponsored in Montreal last December, John Knox, chairman of the U.S. National Advisory Committee to the CEC, argued that trying to convince the council to let the secretariat make specific recommendations in its findings is a battle not worth fighting. While the side accord does not prohibit a factual record from containing such conclusions, he said, the JPAC should not support their inclusion because the council has always been convinced that the purpose of factual records is not to reach conclusions of law.
But according to Kibel, "This concern is not a proper basis for JPAC to withhold a recommendation, and reliance on such a basis only bolsters the claims of the critics that JPAC is unable or unwilling to play a meaningful, independent role within the CEC institutional framework."
Gustavo Alanís, director of the Mexico City-based nonprofit Mexican Environmental Law Center, says that the JPAC, in its recommendations, should seize the opportunity presented by the new administration of President Vicente Fox, with its emphasis on promoting citizen involvement in policymaking, to urge the U.S. and Canadian governments to strengthen CEC public participation mechanisms. His organization, which numbers among those that considers the absence of recommendations in CEC factual records a significant flaw, has submitted comments advocating a follow-up mechanism that would link the factual record to concrete remedies.
For her part, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representative Serena Wilson warns that tensions between the council and the secretariat could be magnified if the secretariat's factual records include conclusions of law and recommendations for action. As an alternative, she suggests that the JPAC take on the role of providing those conclusions and recommendations after the secretariat's publication of factual records.
While the JPAC's report to date does not reflect this discussion, it does incorporate a number of other comments submitted in the interest of making the complaint process more participatory and transparent. Among them are:
- specific reductions in time periods for processing submissions,
- a requirement for the council to state its reasons for rejecting a secretariat recommendation to develop a factual record,
- elimination of the current 30-day waiting period for the secretariat's disclosure of a decision to recommend development of a factual record, and
- increased funding for the secretariat's handling of citizen complaints
According to the council resolution that initiated the review process, council members will explain publicly in writing any decisions they make following advice received from the committee, and they will evaluate the review process in June 2002.
JPAC's handling of the review has become the subject of intense scrutiny as a result of ongoing international negotiations regarding the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas based on the NAFTA model, according to Kibel.
"In the current political controversy over the proposed expansion of NAFTA's trade provisions to other Latin American nations, one of the key issues is the adequacy of the [side accord] and the CEC as environmental governance models going forward," Kibel writes. "Because of JPAC's unique and critical role within the CEC, and because of the significance of the citizen submission process, the results of JPAC's "Lessons Learned" report are therefore being closely watched by North American environmentalists."
Talli Nauman is managing editor of the borderlines UPDATER.
a n n o u n c e m e n t
CIVIL SOCIETY PRESENTS GUIDELINES FOR BORDER WATER TALKS
Twenty-one U.S. and Mexican conservation and human rights organizations issued a binational declaration May 16 setting out principles they hope will guide the ongoing government talks about management of the Conchos River in Chihuahua, Mexico, and the lower Rio Grande along the Texas-Mexico border.
The negotiations are taking place through the International Boundary and Water Commission under an agreement reached in March to help resolve water allocation problems related to prolonged drought in northeastern Mexico.
Greatly reduced rainfall run-off into the Conchos, which is the largest tributary to the Rio Grande below El Paso-Ciudad Juárez, has left Mexico with a deficit of over 1 million acre-feet of water under the 1944 treaty that governs allocation of the Rio Grande Basin flows to the United States and Mexico.
In seeking to resolve Mexico's deficit, the two governments have agreed to develop "measures of cooperation on drought management and sustainable management" of the Conchos and Lower Rio Grande basins.
The groups are calling for the governments to place a high priority on improving water use efficiency, particularly in the agricultural sector, which uses 80 to 90 percent of the surface water in the Conchos and Lower Rio Grande basins. They also are urging the governments to place increased emphasis on improving and protecting water quality in the basins. The groups are calling on the United States to help Mexico finance necessary water conservation measures and water quality improvements, particularly in the Conchos Basin.
The declaration urges Mexico to act swiftly to prevent further deforestation in the Sierra Tarahumara of Chihuahua. The pine forests of the sierra, which are at the headwaters of the Conchos, have been subject to heavy cutting and illegal logging in the past few years. In addition, the declaration emphasizes the importance of maintaining sufficient water flow through the Conchos and the Lower Rio Grande to avoid the severe environmental stress that has been placed on the river system during the past few years of reduced flows.
The declaration also recommends that the governments establish a binational advisory committee to help provide the negotiators with a broad set of perspectives on current water management issues in the Conchos and the Lower Rio Grande.
"The Rio Conchos and the Rio Grande are lifeline rivers in our desert region," says Mary Kelly, director of the Texas Center for Policy Studies (TCPS), one of the organizations supporting the declaration. "We have to recognize that these rivers must be managed and protected to serve multiple purposes: irrigation, urban water needs, recreation, and the environment. The U.S. and Mexico must also acknowledge our mutual dependence when it come to protecting, managing, and allocating the waters of these vital river systems."
The TCPS recently made available two studies related to protection of the basins.
"The Rio Conchos: A Preliminary Overview" examines the availability of surface water and groundwater in the Conchos Basin, how that water is used currently, and what future water demands are likely to arise in the basin. It also discusses the legal and institutional framework for water management in the Conchos Basin, including the issue of Mexico's water releases from the Conchos Dam.
"The Forestry Industry in the State of Chihuahua: Economic, Ecological and Social Impacts Post-NAFTA" shows how NAFTA has influenced the forestry and forest products industries in the state of Chihuahua. The report explores how changes in production are affecting the forests, environment, and indigenous people of the Sierra Tarahumara, an area rich in biodiversity and distinct cultural traditions, but also one plagued by socio-political conflict, much of which centers on the forestry industry.
The civil society guidelines came just in time for a daylong Water Summit convened today in El Paso, Texas, by Democratic congressman Silvestre Reyes. The event, scheduled from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Fine Arts Recital Hall at the University of Texas-El Paso, was expected to attract some 400 to 500 participants.
SOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
GUEST WORK
Joint Statement by the U.S. and Mexican Governments on the Deaths of
14 Migrants in the Arizona Desert
http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/?P=2&Orden=Leer&Tipo=Pe&Art=1118
Statement by the White House Press Secretary
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010525-2.html
Mexican Foreign Ministry
http://www.sre.gob.mx/
Memorial Day Migrant Graves Blessing
Leticia Jimenez, AFSC U.S. Mexico Border Program, San Diego, CA
Email: usmexborder@peacenet.org
Water Deployment Project
Robin Hoover, Humane Borders, Inc., Tucson, AZ
Tel.: (520) 624-8695
Fax: (520) 360-7818
Email: rhoover@gci-net.com
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Merrill Smith, Washington representative
Tel: (202) 626-7934
Fax: (202) 783-7502
Email: advocacy@bellatlantic.net
Web: http://www.lirs.org/
CEC COMPLAINT PROCESS REVIEW
13 June 2000 Council Resolution
http://www.cec.org/who_we_are/council/resolutions/disp_res.cfm?varlan=english&documentID=120
31 July 2000 JPAC Call for Public Comment on Issues Relating to CEC's
Citizen Submissions Mechanism
http://www.cec.org/news/announce/Data.cfm?varlan=english&vardate=60&unique_no=284
Comments on the JPAC Public Review of Issues Concerning the Implementation
and Further Elaboration of Articles 14 and 15
http://www.cec.org/who_we_are/jpac/comments/index.cfm?varlan=english
3 April 2001 JPAC Call for Public Comment on Draft Report Concerning
the CEC's Citizen Submission Process
http://www.cec.org/news/announce/Data.cfm?varlan=english&vardate=60&unique_no=313
Comments on Lessons Learned
http://www.cec.org/who_we_are/jpac/comments/lessons/index.cfm?varlan=english
Manon Pepin, JPAC Liaison Officer
Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Montreal, Canada
Tel.: +(514) 350-4366
Fax: +(514) 350-4314
Email: mpepin@ccemtl.org
Web: http://www.cec.org/
BORDER WATER
TCPS Border Water Project
Karen Chapman
Tel: (512) 474-0811
Fax: (512) 474 7846
Email: tcpsr@texascenter.org
Web: http://www.texascenter.org/borderwater/
Binational declaration and list of signatories available on request.
TCPS Border Water Reports
http://www.texascenter.org/publications.htm#BW
"The Rio Conchos: A Preliminary Overview"
http://www.texascenter.org/publications/rioconchos.pdf
"The Forestry Industry in the State of Chihuahua: Economic, Ecological
and Social Impacts Post-NAFTA"
http://www.texascenter.org/bordertrade/forestnafta.htm
Water Summit 2001
Tel: (915) 534-4400
BORDER & U.S.-MEXICO HEADLINES OF INTEREST FROM AROUND THE WEB
"BORDER HEALTH REMEDIES SOUGHT"
Dallas Morning News, May 30, 2001
http://www.dallasnews.com/world/mexico/380415_health_30tex.A.html
"BORDER WON BIG, PERRY SAYS: DEEPEST TROUBLES GO UNSOLVED, OTHERS
SAY"
El Paso Times, May 30, 2001
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20010530-112264.shtml
"U.S. CONGRESSMEN PUSH BORDER AID BILL"
El Paso Times, May 30, 2001
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20010530-112262.shtml
"TESTING THE WATERS OF COOPERATION"
Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20010529/t000044858.html
"A PERILOUS 4,000-MILE PASSAGE TO WORK"
New York Times, May 29, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/nyregion/29BORD.html?searchpv=nytToday
"AMBIVALENCE PREVAILS IN U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY"
New York Times, May 27, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/27/national/27IMMI.html
"DEATH IN THE DESERT"
San Francisco Chronicle, May 26, 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/05/26/ED50643.DTL
"AT BORDER, FORTIFICATION CONFLICTS WITH COMPASSION"
New York Times, May 25, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/25/politics/25IMMI.html?searchpv=nytToday
"MEXICO WEIGHS IDEAS TO REDUCE MIGRANT DEATHS"
Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/updates2/lat_survive010525.htm
"RESCUERS RECOUNT GRUESOME DISCOVERIES"
Arizona Republic, May 25, 2001
http://arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0525bordermain25.html
"BREAKING THE BORDER"
Financial Times, May 23, 2001
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3FVBUZ1NC&live=true&tagid=ZZZ60A9VA
"NO MORE CROSS-BORDER PURSUITS, ASHCROFT PLEDGES"
El País, May 23, 2001
http://www.elpais.es/articulo.html?d_date=20010523&xref=20010523elpepiint_18&type=Tes&anchor=elpepiint
"MEXICO: NO LIMIT ON NUMBER OF NEW PLANTS TO BE BUILT"
San Diego Union Tribune, May 22, 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/mexico/20010522-9999_1n22plants.html
"ASHCROFT SIGNALS PROGRESS ON GUEST-WORKER PLAN"
Chicago Tribune, May 22, 2001
http://www.chicago.tribune.com/news/nationworld/article/0,2669,SAV-0105220160,FF.html
"TEXAS TO HELP UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS"
Houston Chronicle, May 22, 2001
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/917152
"NAFTA CUSTOMS CHIEFS FIND COMMON GROUND"
Journal of Commerce, May 21, 2001
http://www.joc.com/20010521/sections/trade/w97613.shtml
"RIO GRANDE BECOMES A RIVER TO NOWHERE"
Christian Science Monitor, May 21, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/21/fp3s1-csm.shtml
"BUSH ENERGY PLAN SEEKS STRONGER LINKS WITH MEXICO"
New York Times, May 18, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/18/politics/18ENER.html?pagewanted=2&searchpv=nytToday
"BORDER CZAR MULLS BONDS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE"
Christian Science Monitor, May 17, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/17/fp6s1-csm.shtml
"NEW MEXICO AIMS TO MAKE TRADE DESERT BLOOM"
Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2001
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB990048027969246536.htm
"U.S. APPROVES PIPELINE TO CARRY GAS TO BAJA"
Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2001
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB990050602946769269.htm
"BUSH LOOKING IN VAIN FOR ENERGY HELP"
San Jose Mercury News, May 16, 2001
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/mex-energy16.htm
"LATIN MIGRANTS SEND HOME MORE THAN 20 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR"
La Opinion, May 16, 2001
http://www.laopinion.com/front.html?rkey=0013521
"MEXICO LOBBIES FOR LEGISLATION IN TEXAS"
Austin American-Statesman, May 16, 2001
http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/wednesday/metro_state_2.html
"GANG SMUGGLED 8,000 PEOPLE A MONTH INTO U.S"
Houston Chronicle, May 15, 2001
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/909396
"MIGRANT SMUGGLING IS BUSINESS WORTH BILLIONS"
Washington Post, May 15, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29475-2001May15.html
"BUSH SEEKS GAS-SUPPLY HELP FROM THE NEIGHBORS"
New York Times, May 12, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/12/politics/12BTEX.html?pagewanted=2&searchpv
=site01
"MEXICO OFFICIAL WOOS U.S. EXECS"
Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2001
http://www.dallasnews.com/world/mexico/364855_naitcp_12bus.A.html
"DEA CHIEF SAYS 'MEXICO HAS LONG WAY TO GO' TO CRACK DRUG CARTELS"
San Diego Union-Tribune, May 10, 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/mexico/20010510-1545-n49322.html
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