Immigration issues 'heating up quickly,' says U.S. treasurer

Addressing a mixed audience recently at the W. P. Carey School of Business, U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral breezed through an economic update before plunging into the controversial issue of illegal immigrant workers. As talk turned to Mexico, the nation's second-largest trade partner and homeland to an estimated 10 million-plus people living in the U.S. illegally, the U.S. Treasurer described a guest-worker program being proposed by the Bush administration. "If we eliminate all these people overnight from the economy, there will be chaos," she warned — not to mention $10 tomatoes.

Midway through an upbeat update on the economy that was punctuated by a stern warning against Congress' push for more tax cuts, U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral slipped in a comment on immigrant workers, and the whole room seemed to inhale. The audience gathered to hear Cabral speak at the W. P. Carey School of Business included Latino activists, economists, college students and reporters.

They had sat quietly through her initial recital of job-growth statistics, inflation rates and personal-income growth mixed in with statements such as, "The U.S. is the picture of economic health." But nothing Cabral said was new or unexpected until talk turned to Mexico, the nation's second-largest trade partner and homeland to an estimated 10 million-plus people living in the U.S. illegally. "If we eliminate all these people overnight from the economy, there will be chaos" — and $10 tomatoes, she said.

"There is change occurring to our partnership with the south. President Bush wants to make sure that all boats are rising at the same time," Cabral said. She ticked off administration initiatives aiding Latino workers, beginning with the government's successful, two-year effort to cut international transaction fees by two-thirds for immigrants sending money back home.

Another federal program offers mortgage services for immigrants who work in the U.S. while financing homes in Mexico through American lenders. Hector Yturralde, who heads the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum, a nonprofit civil rights group, said he and 39 other American and Canadian community leaders were invited to Mexico City last year to discuss similar cross-border initiatives.

"For four days we heard presentations from Mexican government officials on programs for migrants to the U.S. who want to help out with people back in Mexico. Since getting back, I've been slowly getting this information out to the migrants in the Valley," Yturralde said.

Guest workers: what to do?

Such programs are a good start, but Cabral said, "There is still so much left to do." Hispanics, already the largest minority in the U.S., reportedly will make up 25 percent of the population by 2050, she noted — which is why President Bush is developing a guest-worker program. And that's when the ASU audience's questions began flying.

Bush's program — still reportedly in the planning stage — would allow Mexican nationals to work here for three years, then "re-up" for another three before returning home. After a year, they can apply for another three-year stint working the U.S., with another re-up option. But every six years, they would have to leave the country.

A woman asked Cabral why the Bush program lacks "a pathway to citizenship" and questioned the seventh-year-head-home requirement. Cabral's answer: "We presume too much [in thinking] that workers want to make the U.S. their home." Many would-be guest workers simply want to raise enough money to build a home or start a business in Mexico, she said, adding, "The government can facilitate that."

Interviewed later, Mesa, Ariz.-based certified financial planner Al Quihis echoed Cabral's assertion, noting that "probably half" of his Hispanic clients plan to return to Mexico, including an executive with the TGIFriday's restaurant chain who is building a home in Guadalajara.

"Seasonal workers often live very simply here, then take everything back to Mexico, and stay till the next season. Not all want to lose connections to their homeland, while others are truly coming here for a new life," Quihis said.

Unrealistic expectations

Maybe so, says Harry Garule, president of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, but "asking 10 to 11 million undocumented workers to go home for a year, then come back, is, I think, really unrealistic." Instead, Garule, who attended the Cabral talk, backs a bipartisan guest-worker bill introduced last May by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). The McCain-Kennedy bill contains an amnesty provision that would allow workers here illegally to pay a $2,000 fine. The measure is backed by many state and national business groups, including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.

"What concerns most people is the concept of amnesty and rewarding people for illegal activities .but if you think about it, is it really rewarding illegal activities, or dealing with the reality of where we are today?" Garule asked.

It is rewarding illegal activities, according to Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of the McCain-Kennedy bill. Interviewed recently on the Bill O'Reilly show, Hayworth said a guest-worker program will be "shoved down the throats of the American people" because "big business wants cheap labor." (Hayworth, a former broadcast journalist, was on the Fox Network show to promote his book, "Whatever It Takes.")

Responding to an audience query about immigrants' impact on the U.S. labor force, Cabral acknowledged their "positive and negative force," but insisted that even workers here illegally contribute to the economy. "Some pay taxes using fake documentation but can't get Social Security," she continued, noting that on the other hand, they also strain the school system and health-care system.

Amira De la Garza, acting director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at ASU, pressed Cabral to specify which immigrant-impact studies the Bush Administration relied on when crafting its guest-worker program. Cabral responded "various studies by this administration and private communities."

When discussing the presentation later, De la Garza commented "I'd like to know if they are really interested in non-partisan, solid research that might come up with results they don't find politically palatable. What they're calling 'research' may be an analysis that supports what they do. It would have been helpful to have Ms. Cabral refer to actual studies."

Cabral said "immigration issues are heating up very, very quickly, and there's a lot of conversation on this in Congress." For instance, the Bush Administration has discussed an earnings-matching program for guest workers finishing their six-year stint and ready to return to Mexico. Asked who would supply the matching funds, she said that is still unclear, suggesting either "an employer match or government match."

"We have to think about how to best assist individuals the goal is to better prepare them, not just send them off after six years without a reward," Cabral added.

Disagreement over incentives

But matching guest-worker wages "is a pretty wild-eyed idea," according to Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C. Employers who typically employ low-wage workers are unlikely to agree to matching employee wages, and many American taxpayers will balk at funding immigrant savings, he speculated.

"A lot of people have tuned this over in their heads: how to provide a incentive for guest workers to go back to their country at the end of their authorized stay in the U.S., other than simply expecting them to respect the law," Martin explained. One strategy he's heard about would set aside the guest workers' Social Security payments in a separate trust fund, to be paid directly as a lump sum.

His group backs H.R. 4313, a bill introduced last November by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) that would, among other things, increase penalties and prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants through an improved Social Security identification card and verification system.

Eventually we will have a guest-worker program, says Jorge de los Santos, director of ASU's Pan American Initiatives office, but he predicts it will be a compromise between the McCain-Kennedy bill and President Bush's plan. "We need a comprehensive proposal that includes enforcement and incorporation of people already here into the work force, along with incentives for businesses to hire people."

De los Santos and Cabral agree that easing trade restrictions between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico is a vital strategy given the increasingly global economic outlook. De los Santos endorses "creating a North American cluster with uniform rules to reduce the cost of moving goods and people between countries."

"The world is changing really fast," he said. "Look at the increasing trade with Japan, China and South Korea. The U.S. won't be able to compete alone against a unified Asia or unified Europe. Look at the European Union. If we don't achieve a critical mass of people, technology and knowledge, we will be run over."