It would surely be best for all concerned to have Mexico's economic development make sufficient progress so that the "push" factors of poverty, job scarcity, and population growth become less significant and thereby the worker migrations become smaller in scale. Nonetheless, Mexico does not appear receptive to U.S. advocacy of direct U.S. economic and technical assistance, which so often risks becoming paternalistic and interventionist in practice. For the near future, Mexico's growing energy revenues will promise to spur economic development--and that prospect ought to instill a temporary wait-and-see stance among U.S. observers and critics. But if it turns out that worker migrations do not decline while the oil revenues climb, then Mexico should expect a heavy new round of outside questions and answers regarding its internal political and economic conditions. Illegal immigration provides a significant, and troublesome, issue area for testing and proving the bases for future bi-national cooperation. But U.S. relations with Mexico have much more at stake than just illegal immigration. Improving U.S. access to Mexico's oil and gas production may already deserve to replace immigration as the priority issue area. If illegal immigration represents the "lightining rod" for U.S.-Mexico relations, then petroleum may provide a potential "ground wire"--assuming that a common framework can be designed to embrace both issue areas. Should not the concepts applied to one issue area also apply to other issue areas? What implications appear if we take the concepts of interdependence, intermesticity, and the rights of border nations--all of them in keeping with Mexican perspectives on worker migrations--and apply them to energy relations? If structural interdependence and intermesticity mean that Mexican workers deserve rightful access to U.S. labor markets in accordance with Mexican perspectives, then this conceptual perspective should also mean that U.S. consumers deserve access to Mexico's oil and gas production. In effect, the concepts rationalize a kind of broad structural linkage between what happens in migration matters and what happens in energy relations. Such a conceptual understanding obviates proposals to negotiate an oil-for-immigration tradeoff, or to convert the U.S. border into an explicit instrument of pressure. The larger conceptual understanding that we suggest means that there should be no question of threatening gestures or artificial bargains--only that both countries should reach general understanding of their needs to manage and share their natural conditions of interdependence. APPENDIX 2 JOINT STATEMENT OF OSCAR FUENTES, DIRECTOR, CENTRO DE INMIGRACION, AND JOSEPH BILLINGS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased that you have given me this opportunity : to submit written testimony on the subject of un documented immigration to the United States. The written testimony herein provided is designed to complement and further develop the able presentation made to you last month by David North, Director of the Center for Labor and Migration Studies. I shall sup plement the useful information he gave you on the principal impact of the undocumented alien on the United States. I must agree with Mr. North on the point that the importance of this subject warrants attention from our foreign policy department as well as our legislative consideration. First, I will focus on President Carter's immigration proposals as an unrealistic legislative alternative to the flow of undocumented alien workers into this country; with emphasis on the proposals' implications on U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. Secondly, I will explore a policy framework for regulating the flow of undocumented Mexican immigrants as a step towards an international solution. Thirdly, I will make recommendations to the Com mittee on how the United States government should revise its foreign policies to reach a humane international solution. UNDOCUMENTED ALIEN WORKERS: IMPLICATIONS ON U.S. POLICY IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE I. The Carter Immigration Proposals On August 4, 1977 the President of the United States announced a policy proposal aimed at the reduction and regulation of the presence of undocumented aliens in the United States. The impetus of the Carter proposals are clearly aimed at the 2,000 mile area along the Mexican-U.S. border and therefore at undocumented immigration from Mexico. It is for this reason I have focused most directly on Mexico as a major sending country of undocumented workers with international policy considerations envolving Mexican and American relations. President Carter in his August 4 message to Congress referred to the undocumented immigration phenomenon as a complex "domestic" problem implying that it will take only domestic or internal measures to arrive at a solution. Jorge Bustamaute, from El Colegio de Mexico, believes that it is the view of this phenomenon as a "domestic" problem which undercuts a possible international solution: "The view of this phenomenon as a "domestic problem" fails to recognize that Mexican undocumented immigration results from the interaction of factors located on both sides of the MexicoU.S. border. On the Mexican side, the phenomenon is rooted in an internal underdevelopment and an economic dependency on the U.S. which together gives rise to contrived unemployment; large disparities in income distribution, a discrimination of the rural sector in favor of the urban in the allocation of government funds, and a dependency on foreign capital and technology. On the United States side the phenomenon is rooted on structural factors manifested in an inexhaustible demand for cheap labor. That is, a labor force which is not cheap by nature but which is made cheap by structural forces that operate to create a powerless docile labor force. The interaction of these factors across the border is what shapes the phenomenon of undocumented immigration." President Carter's Immigration Plan is divisible into five component parts: a) border enforcement, b) employer sanctions, c) adjustment of status, d) temporary worker program, e) immigration policy. A. Border Enforcement The Carter Administration in its August 4 message to Congress ("Undocumented Aliens: Fact Sheet," Office of White House Press Secretary, August 4, 1977, p. 2-3) announced its committment to the allocation of resources at border areas having high rates of undocumented alien crossings. This resource committment will most likely include an additional 2,000 border patrolmen advanced electronic detection equipment, helicopters, and other military-like devices. The underlined assumption to be made of Carter's expansive resource committment must be that an increase in border patrolmen will step : up the apprehensions and explusions of undocumented workers. A question of utmost importance must be asked at this juncture; will a marked increase in the number of border enforcement personnel ̄substantially reduce the flow of undocumented aliens into this country? The answer most experts on the subject outside governmental agencies would agree is NO. However, one expert, Wayne Cornelius of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has qualified the NO answer by saying that "unless the development-assistance-to-countries-oforigin component of the policy package is emphasized, and unless the number of opportunities to emigrate legally to the U.S. is substantially increased." The Carter Administration has failed to recognize that even an increase of 12,000 border patrolmen will will not affect the estimated 40 percent of undocumented aliens who enter legally, on temporary, student or tourist visas who overstay their visas to work in the United States. Therefore, a second question must be asked; if the increase in border personnel will not affect the visa abuser then will it discourage the |