Wounded Honor

A U.S. bill stings a neighbor

Every evening in Tijuana, scores of young men gather in an abandoned soccer field, hoping for a chance to cross the border into California. A lone U.S. Border Patrol officer blocks their passage during the day, and so the Mexicans wait for nightfall, when they can slip silently through the shadows. But over the past week they have been looking beyond the Border Patrol at a more threatening obstacle to their hope of finding jobs in the U.S.: the passage by Congress of the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill.

If finally passed into law, Simpson-Mazzoli would make it harder for Mexicans and other job seekers from Latin America to enter the U.S. illegally. Although the bill would ultimately grant permanent residency to many of those already in the U.S. illegally, new border crossers would find it much tougher to find jobs because employers of more than three such workers would be liable for fines of up to $2,000 for each so-called illegal they hire. The men who wait in Tijuana scoff at the idea that the threat of fines will inhibit employers from hiring them as long as there is a need for workers. "In the U.S., as in Mexico, laws are made to be bent," says one. Even so, the men are worried. The bill, they say, would give U.S. employers an excuse to pay them less than they do now, because of the risks involved in hiring illegal immigrants.

Resentment of the U.S. action was evident throughout Mexico last week, as a congressional conference committee prepared to iron out differences in how the bill should be implemented. A relatively open border with the U.S. has long been taken for granted as a safety valve for the 50% of Mexico's workers who are without jobs or are underemployed. Thus Simpson-Mazzoli is seen not as immigration reform but as an act of aggression against Mexico. In Mexico City, the Ministry of Foreign Relations said that because of the bill, the government would have to increase its vigilance over abuses of Mexican citizens in the U.S. The reaction in the Mexican press was overwhelmingly hostile. "The insult inflicted on us by the U.S.," wrote Gonzalo Martre in the Mexico City daily El Universal, "has wounded our national honor." Gilberto Herrera, another columnist, accused the U.S. of being a bad neighbor and of forgetting how Mexican laborers came to the assistance of U.S. agriculture in World War II. Other press critics complained about Washington's refusal to ease trade restrictions while Mexico suffers its most severe economic crisis since the Depression, making it harder for Mexico to sell its products in U.S. markets.

Jesus Gonzalez Schmal, secretary for international relations of the National Action Party, the leading opposition party in Mexico, predicted that passage of Simpson-Mazzoli would mean increased social tensions in northern Mexico and in the central states of Jalisco and Zacatecas. Many illegal immigrants in the U.S. come from these areas. Jose Luis Perez Canchola, head of the Unified Socialist Party's Border Affairs Commission, warned that if the law resulted in greater numbers of Mexicans being deported, social services in border towns like Tijuana would be severely strained.

Privately, however, some influential Mexicans were more philosophical about the bill's probable effects. "I don't think all of a sudden we will have a large number of Mexicans returning and endangering the country," said one high-ranking government official. "In the Mexican family, where everyone lives in one room, one more won't change the situation." Even the threatened loss of an estimated $1 billion annually in foreign currency sent home to workers' families may not seriously damage the economy, said Manuel Garcia y Griego, a demographer and immigration researcher at the Colegio de Mexico, a respected Mexican think tank. Said he: "A rise in the U.S. prime rate of 1 % has more of an impact than Simpson-Mazzoli ever could." For many Mexicans last week, however, U.S. immigration policy was the major villain.