Newsletter from the Ambassador of the United States of America

Dear Friends and Colleagues: Allow me to take this opportunity to extend to you my best wishes and my hope that you will enjoy great personal and professional success in 2006. With a Presidential election on the horizon in Mexico, this year will be an exciting one with important implications for both the United States and Mexico. Over the past month, I have been involved in several events that have underscored the high degree of good will between Americans and Mexicans. Also, like many of you, I am closely following the debate now raging in the U.S. and Mexican media over U.S. immigration law and, in particular, the reports of a “border wall.” I would first like to update you on events within the Embassy community recently and then address what I feel are several important points regarding immigration reform in the United States.

In mid-December 2005, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow visited Mexico and announced a new U.S. contribution totaling US$3 million to create ten U.S.-Mexico university partnerships, to be matched dollar-for-dollar by the participating schools and their friends in the private sector. The United States will contribute almost US$35 million this year to support more than 750 student scholarships and 50 partnerships involving American and Mexican universities. Secretary Snow also announced a $1.5 million gift from the U.S. to the World Council of Credit Unions, to enable the organization’s experts to continue working with micro entrepreneurs and low-income household development groups in Mexico.

Click here for more information on the U.S.-Mexico Training, Internships, Exchanges, and Scholarships initiative and the grant to the World Council of Credit Unions

In response to several cross-border health challenges, our government is set to announce the donation of more than $1 million to support four grants to non-governmental partners working on several important health initiatives, including tuberculosis control and HIV prevention, programs for people with disabilities, and emergency health care along the U.S.-Mexico border.   The four sites for these activities are Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Agua Prieta, and Monterrey.

The United States and Mexico recently formalized an agreement to expand aviation services between our two countries. The agreement allows three U.S. and three Mexican airlines to fly between any U.S. city and 14 Mexican cities, which include all of our southern neighbor’s major tourist destinations. I am confident that the agreement will result in lower costs for airline passengers, thereby opening air travel to people who may have never dreamed of traveling abroad.

Click here for more information on this U.S.-Mexico aviation agreement

In December 2005, agents from the U.S. Border Patrol visited Chiapas to conduct a two-week long training course for twenty-three Mexican Beta Group and Civil Protection officers. During the training, the Mexican officials learned more about saving lives under exceptionally dangerous conditions (for example, rescuing flood victims and aiding people who become trapped on the sides of cliffs or in fast-moving waters). The United States also donated rescue equipment to our Mexican colleagues to be used in their rescue efforts throughout the country.

Click here for more information on the training by the Border Patrol in Chiapas

During the holiday season, our new American officers at the Embassy and our Marine Corps guards collected hundreds of toys from U.S. Embassy families and from the Mexican community. Thanks to the hard work and generosity of everyone involved, there were a lot of smiling faces at Asociación Mexicana de Ayuda a Niños con Cáancer and La Casa de la Amistad para Niños con Cancer when we delivered the toys.

Click here for more information on our delivery of holiday gifts to these wonderful and inspiring children and their families

Lastly, it is sometimes surprising that two countries with the breadth and depth of our relationship can look at the same facts and draw such different conclusions. Illegal immigration may be the most vivid example of this. Many Americans see a need for common-sense improvements to our border security arrangements and more effective enforcement of our immigration laws. In Mexico, the talk is of plans to build what some here have called a “wall of shame.”

Perhaps some of these differences in perception cannot be bridged, but surely we should make the effort. Avoidingmany of the excessive, often irresponsible, and unusuallyalmost always inaccurate statements made in recent weeks might be a good place to start.

Since President Bush took office, comprehensive immigration reform has been a top priority for his administration. Indeed, President Bush perfectly and poignantly expressed the U.S. position on immigration reform in a speech recently when he said: “America has always been a compassionate nation that values the newcomer and takes great pride in our immigrant heritage; yet we’re also a nation built on the rule of law, and those who enter the country illegally violate the law. The American people should not have to choose between a welcoming society and a lawful society.”

Click here to read more about the Administration’s extensive efforts to achieve immigration reformthe entirety of the President’s speech on this issue

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed House Bill 4437. The bill —and it is not a law yet as some who perhaps do not understand our legislative process have said—is notpart of an effort to “close” the U.S. border. Neither is the bill just about fences. Certainly no one is suggesting a 2,000-mile border “wall.” As President Bush said this week “you can’t build a wall up and down the entire length of the border of the United States.” The bill calls only for the reinforcement and addition of physical barriers in certain locations and in urban centers along the border where they make sense. In this way, the bill seeks only to better enforce our existing immigration laws. In addition, the bill calls for better use of technology, increased manpower, the improvement of our detention and deportation policies, and better enforcement of our immigration laws with employers in the interior of our country.

border with Mexico. ThereThe fact is there are 53 legal crossing points along that border, and 400300 million border crossings a year in compliance with our laws. In the last five years, the U.S. Government has invested millions of dollars to improve the efficiency of these crossings and speed the passage of legitimate travelers and trade. The physical barriers proposed by HR 4437 would not change this. In fact, noNo Mexican citizen entering the United States in compliance with our laws would be inconvenienced by such physical barriers.

Some have said a border fence violates human rights and have even compared it to the Berlin Wall. Comparisons of proposals to alter our border defensespolicies to the Berlin Wall are not only disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, they are personally offensive to me. The Berlin Wall was built to keepits own people trapped inside, and was created by an oppressive authoritarian government. In stark contrast, our democratically elected government has proposed methods of protecting its own citizenry and enforcing our immigration laws. One cannot responsibly equate the acts of tyrants to those of free people. Think about it. Does anyone honestly remember waves of people climbing over the Berlin Wall heading east?

There is no human right to enter another country in violation of its laws. On the contrary, everyIn fact, as a protector of human rights, the United States has allowed thousands upon thousands of people fleeing oppressive regimes to seek asylum, through a legal process, in our country. Every sovereign state has the right to control the entry of foreigners. Mexico too imposes immigration controls, and often notes, correctly so, that it has the sovereign right to make and enforce its own laws.

U.S. border security efforts have also been blamed for the deaths of illegal immigrants. These deaths are tragic, and the U.S. Government makes extraordinary efforts to warn of the dangers of desert or river crossings, to deter such attempts, and to rescue those who ignore the warnings. Perhaps a greater effort by other governments to discourage their citizens from illegal crossings would help. And more robust efforts by the Mexican Government to create well-paying jobs for its citizens would dissuade many from making the dangerous and illegal crossing to the United States. Our Border Patrol agents work in an incredibly dangerous environment, in which they are attacked regularly, in their effort to protect our border.

The most pernicious allegation is that the proposed physical barriers are a manifestation of xenophobia or racism—an allegation that is also personally offensive to me. The United States issued over 36,000 immigrant visas to Mexicans in 2005. In addition, over 940,000 Mexicans received visas to visit the United States last year alone. Of those, over 80,000 were work visas. Millions of Mexicans already have nonimmigrant visas and use them frequently. Lost in the debate here in Mexico is the fact that the United States is one of the world’s most open countries to foreign immigration. As of the 2000 census, 28.4 million of our citizens, representing over ten percent of our total population, were born abroad.

The fact is that Americans are strong believers in immigration, but theywe do make a distinction – and this is where weAmericans and Mexicans so often fail to understand one another – between legal and illegal immigration. Legal immigration is a source of strength for the United States. Illegal immigration is a threat to our system of laws and an insultaffront to the millions around the world, including in Mexico, who play by the rules in seeking to come to the United States.

The need to control the border is of course driven by more than concerns about illegal immigration. The United States faces deadly challenges from international terrorism and transnational crime. While no one doubts the majority of illegal immigrants from Mexico are simply looking for work or a better way of life, the sheer volume of illegal crossings offers ample opportunities to those who might have other plans. There were 1.2 million apprehensions of illegal entrants along our border with Mexico last year—many of whomyear—and indeed some of them were violent criminals.

Some have argued that the long-term solution to the immigration problem is not border security but job creation. The United States sharesI share that view. That is in part why our country has nurtured a vigorous commercial relationship with Mexico (and the balance of trade now favors Mexico). Beyond that, it is for Mexicans to decide how best to order their energy sector, fiscal regime, and labor code, to enhance competitiveness and growth in Mexico. Just this week, both the Mexican Finance Minister, Francisco Gil Diaz and the Central Bank Governor Guillermo Ortiz stated that the Mexican economy is in need of continued structural reforms to improve its global competitiveness and grow the Mexican economy at a rate needed to generate enough employment to absorb new entrants into the job market and further alleviate poverty in Mexico. These long-term structural reforms are surelyentirely and appropriately in Mexican, not American, hands.

Several observers also have pointed out that the United States needs foreign labor and should be searching for a way to facilitate the entrance of foreign workers. That is precisely why President Bush is working with the U.S. Congress to enact a temporary worker program. As the President said recently: “as we enforce our immigration laws, comprehensive immigration reform also requires us to improve those laws by creating a new temporary worker program…this program would help meet the demands of a growing economy, and it would allow honest workers to provide for their families while respecting the law. This plan would also help us relieve pressure on the border…we will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary worker program.”

We do not expect Mexico to endorse every security measure we take, but we do trust that our neighbors will respect our right to take those measures on our own territory and will understand the distinction we make between legal and illegal immigration. Most importantly, we hope that Mexicans will not regard enforcement of our immigration laws as inconsistent with the strong relationship we have pursued for many years and that we will continue to value in the future.

As always, thank you for the opportunity to share with you the activities of our Mission in Mexico. May God bless Mexico and the United States.

With best wishes, I am,

Sincerely,

Antonio O. Garza

If you would like more information about the events mentioned in this letter or other Embassy initiatives, please visit the Public Affairs section of our website located at http://mexico.usembassy.gov/eng/epress05.html.

Please feel free to email us at EmbajadorGarza@state.gov if you are not interested in receiving future updates.

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