EASING UP AT THE BORDER

MEXICO CITY -- Both President Bush and Vicente Fox, the president of
Mexico, are saying that Mexican migration to the United States will be on
their agenda when they meet tomorrow at Mr. Fox's ranch. Most Americans
understand what a big issue this is for domestic politics in the United
States. Fewer may realize that it is also a subject of great internal
interest in Mexico.

Many Mexicans are deeply concerned about the hostility and even violence
that meet their countrymen at the border. President Fox wants the United
States to begin to open the border and stop mistreatment of the Mexicans
who work hard in American harvests and labor in American cities. "Open
borders will take time to phase in," Mr. Fox said last year, "but building
up walls, putting up arms and dedicating billions of dollars, as every
border state in the United States is doing to avoid migration, is not the way."

Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Fox wisely support an increase of temporary legal
immigration to the United States. Mr. Bush has an excellent opportunity to
achieve an expansion in the number of temporary guest workers -- with
adequate protections against employer abuses -- given bipartisan support of
the general idea in Congress last fall. One proposal would have allowed
Mexicans to work legally in American agriculture for several months a year
and return to Mexico. It would also have given those laborers a right to
adjust their immigration status to permanent residency after several years.
The measure ultimately died, but such a proposal has a chance of passage
this year if Mr. Bush places it on his agenda.

Mr. Fox also wants an amnesty program for Mexicans living illegally in the
United States. Today, about 7 million Mexican-born immigrants, legal and
illegal, live in the United States, sending about $6 billion a year home to
their families. That makes Mexican migrants the third- largest source of
foreign exchange in Mexico, behind oil and tourism.

But few Americans share Mr. Fox's view of the amnesty issue. Though he has
retreated from his earlier advocacy of a fully open border, he now proposes
a program of tearing down the border over the course of several decades as
a way to help strengthen the two nations' trade relationship and raise the
Mexican standard of living. Many Americans, fearing competition for jobs
and depression of wages, view even this less ambitious proposal with dismay.

The last amnesty bill was passed 15 years ago and was the right thing to
do, both economically and morally. Mr. Fox is not unrealistic, however,
about this issue. He understands that the border cannot be open now, when
an average worker in Mexico earns $5 a day and one in the United States
earns at least 10 times more.

Mr. Fox likes to compare the Mexican-American relationship to the European
Union, where richer countries helped pull the poorer countries up in
economic terms. Over time, he says, this sort of transformation here could
create an open border and open market for services, goods and workers. The
flow of Mexican workers has, as Mr. Fox argues, become an important
component of American economic growth.

The Bush administration's support for guest worker programs is a sound
start on regularizing migration between the two nations. Though previous
administrations have had reservations about guest workers, employers have
wanted the program. In Congressional testimony last summer, the National
Council of Agricultural Employers said, "Labor from Mexico has supported
the development of irrigated agriculture in the Western states from the
inception of the industry."

Migration is not the only issue on the presidents' agenda. For Mr. Bush,
this meeting is a first step in establishing credibility on foreign policy.
He is likely to stress the need to battle the illegal drug trade and to
agree on how to get energy from Mexico, with its oil and gas riches, to
California.

But the Hispanic population will become the largest minority in the United
States in the next few years, according to census projections. And by 2050,
a quarter of Americans will be Hispanic. This constituency cares about
immigration and Latin American issues, and Mr. Bush clearly must be
sensitive to those interests.

The meeting is especially important for Mr. Fox, whose two months in office
have been marred by several embarrassing jail breaks by drug lords. He
needs to come away from the meeting with some sort of American commitment
to binational partnership, especially on the migration issue. A guest
worker program and an amnesty for longtime residents should be pursued
vigorously in this Congress. With Mexicans crossing the border each day, it
is an issue Mr. Bush cannot avoid.

Pamela S. Falk, professor of international law at the City University of
New York, is former staff director of the House Western Hemisphere
subcommittee.