Bush immigration proposal viewed
with skepticism in Mexico

"New Bracero Program" will exploit laborers for three years
and then send them back to Mexico

by
Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan

Los Angeles, Alta California - January 8, 2004 - (ACN) Wide sectors of Mexican society view the immigration proposal unveiled yesterday by President George Bush with great suspicion and skepticism. The proposal which does not address worker rights, protections and guarantees is seen as a mere ploy to document the names and residential addresses of Mexicans who are in the USA illegally. Without the guarantee of permanent legal residence given to workers after the program's three years, workers would be deported in order to bring in fresh workers. This would have the effect of creating a revolving "worker class", laboring in the most undesirable "back breaking jobs" that pay the most meager of wages.

Without guaranteed workers rights in the Bush proposal, employers can easily exploit laborers by threatening them with deportation. The Bush proposal, as unveiled yesterday, is a formula for a modern system of "slavery" equal or worst than the one which existed against Blacks in the Southern plantations and no better than the Bracero Program that exploited over 4 million Mexican agricultural workers during and after World War II. Mexican laborers that participated in the US/Mexico "Bracero Program" were robbed of millions of dollars that were deducted from their paychecks for a "sham" savings plan.

President Vicente Fox of Mexico, after a meeting with US Republican Senate Leader William Frist at "Los Pinos" yesterday , said that the Bush proposal "is far below our expectations" but added that "it is an important first step". President Fox also said that it is too early to discuss the Bush proposal seriously because it still needs to be debated and approved by the US Congress.

The Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, Luis Ernesto Derbez, considered the Bush proposal "a good step" but emphasised that "the Mexican government will insist on a total, integral and comprehensive program that will respect the human and worker rights of migrants".

President George Bush may just be spouting empty words just 10 months before the presidential elections. He knows that it will take Congress that much time or more to debate and seriously contemplate his immigration proposal. He may just want his cake and eat it too. He wants the Mexican-American vote but in the end he may have a plan for not delivering anything he has, or will, promise on the immigration issue. Judging by the way he deviously justified attacking Iraq, this is not an implausible possibility.