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MEXICO, U.S. ANNOUNCE BINATIONAL
ACCORD ON MIGRANT SAFETY

Agreement to be followed up by comprehensive
binational plan in September

by George Kourous

When Presidents Fox and Bush concluded their first face-to-face meeting last February they announced the creation of a new high-level binational working group tasked with "achieving short- and long-term agreements that will allow us to constructively address migration and labor issues."

The group's first meeting in early April established an agenda for discussion that included border safety, promoting regional economic development, the status of undocumented Mexicans in the United States, Mexican visa levels, and temporary worker programs.

With talks ongoing, the May 23 discovery of 14 dead Mexican migrants in the hot deserts of southern Arizona prompted officials into taking more immediate action.

"Everyone's been dragging their feet. Nothing's happened. Then, all of a sudden...representatives of elected officials, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, [are] contacting us saying we need public administrators to step up to the plate and do something," the Rev. Robin Hoover, a Tucson pastor working to get water stations build on public lands in Arizona recently told borderlines.

On the heels of the May tragedy U.S. and Mexican negotiators met June 6 in San Antonio, Texas, again in Washington on June 8, and on June 22 announced that agreement had been reached on a binational "Plan of Action for Cooperation on Border Safety."

The new plan outlines immediate steps to be taken on four fronts:

The U.S. and Mexico agreed to strengthen public safety campaigns that educate would-be migrants regarding the dangers of border crossing.

They also promised to immediately boost their respective border safety and rescue activities as well as to coordinate those activities across the international boundary.

A joint campaign to counter migrant smuggling rings was also announced.

Finally, each country pledged an immediate review of their national border policies.

On the Mexican side, this latter pledge included a commitment consider ways to prevent migrants from crossing in high-risk areas. Up until now, Mexico has staunchly refused to do so because its constitution guarantees freedom of movement.

For its part, Washington agreed to reevaluate existing border control initiatives such as Operations Gatekeeper, Hold the Line, and Rio Grande and to weigh "appropriate adjustments or alternatives to promote safety for migrants...and to prevent migrant deaths in the border region."

Additional actions outlined in the plan include:

• Establishing binational safety programs, with priority on desert regions in western Arizona, the All American Canal, and the Rio Grande river and developing specific operational plans for the search and rescue of migrants and cooperative emergency response mechanisms.
• Creating rapid response programs to guarantee early alert and information exchanges between authorities of both governments for the immediate attention to critical border incidents
• Improving crossborder exchange of information on migrant smugglers and traffickers and initiating reviews of current anti-smuggling operations on both sides of the line.
• Initiating a pilot program on use of non-lethal weapons by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
• Mapping high-risk areas along the border to have an accurate portrait of new migration routes and implementing preventive actions to reduce migrant risks.
• Scheduling periodic meetings between Mexican and U.S. border consulates and law enforcement authorities to review the progress of local coordination efforts on border safety.
• Strengthening training programs on safety and migrant search and rescue operations.
• Undertaking additional cooperative binational actions on both sides of the border, such as aerial surveillance for migrants in distress and boosting the presence of Mexico's migrant assistance team, Grupo Beta.

According to the U.S. State Department, these cooperative efforts "will be guided by a plan of action whose progress and implementation will be subject to regular review and evaluation."

In lower-level interagency and crossborder discussions prior to the June 22 accord, some 30 officials from both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border convened for a Tucson meeting on June 14 that resulted in agreements to cooperate on new binational search and safety training programs, jointly map high risk, heavy traffic crossing routes in Arizona-Sonora, improve electronic crossborder communication between regional authorities, and deploy new resources to high risk border crossing zones.

After the Tucson confab, Border Patrol chief Gustavo de La Viña also announced that the San Diego Border Patrol's Search Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR) initiative would be expanded to four new southwestern border sectors, including Yuma and El Centro.

The INS has also begun shifting more agents to Arizona's southwestern deserts, where the migrant deaths occurred. Recently 50 Border Patrol offers were sent to the agency's Ajo station. In July, another 77 agents recently graduated from the Border Patrol academy will be deployed in Arizona's western desert as well.

Additional steps being taken by the United States as a result of the recent meetings and agreements include issuing Border Patrol agents in San Diego a nonlethal weapon that launches capsules of powdered pepper up to 100 feet away (agents will still carry their sidearms) and, in Imperial County, increasing patrols on the All-American Canal and the construction of stadium lighting in order to prevent drowning deaths.

But many critics of U.S. immigration policies say such rescue efforts treat the symptoms of the problem, not the cause--the INS's current "prevention through deterrence" strategy of beefing up border controls in cities and relying on harsh conditions in the border's deserts to turn migrants away.

"To me, it's like throwing a young child in the swimming pool, exposing him to the danger, and then saying that we have a method for rescuing that child," Ray Borane, mayor of the small town of Douglas, Arizona, told the Arizona Republic last year. "We're saying we have a method of rescuing these people after we've forced them out there." [1]

Activists on the border greeted the announcement of the new plan with cautious skepticism. "We don't think that the new plan is a positive step at all, because it doesn't address the real causes of the deaths on the border," says Chris Ford of the Southwestern Alliance to Resist Militarization. "We think it's a Band-Aid solution that's actually going to result in more violence."

Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the nonprofit Arizona Border Rights Project, explains that safety programs are a good start--but adds that they represent just one part of the solution.

"We're all for search and rescue operations. We're all for education campaigns to let people know about the dangers. But it's not the first time they've implemented such programs. People migrate nonetheless. The economic need [for Mexicans] is extreme. Simply increasing the safety net is just not going to do it. Mexico and the United States have to focus on economic development."

"I am skeptical that any measures that focus on the border alone and do not involve the substantial legalization of economic migration will be effective," agrees Merrill Smith, who works with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in Washington, D.C. "The 'problem' that the enforcement agencies are attempting to overcome is simply too large even for the enormous amount of resources that they are throwing at it. We are attempting to separate an $8 trillion dollar economy on one side of a line from thousands of poor people who want to work in it on the other."

Do border activists think a larger, more comprehensive approach will result when Fox and Bush meet this September?

"I don't know," says Garcia. "But unless the public is able to really mobilize and influence this process, what we are going to see is implementation of a new guestworker program. We're going to see more militarization of the border. We're going to see Mexico agreeing to militarize its own borders, not just in the north but in the south as well."

SWARM's Ford concurs. "I'm guessing we're going to see a closer working relationship between Grupo Beta, the Border Patrol, and JTF-6 [a joint military task force assigned to border surveillance], and that's ultimately going to result increased militarization. Not only on the U.S. side, but it's also definitely going to increase militarization on the Mexican side."

"Right now, we're investing money in enforcement, helicopters, high tech border controls--all of that apparatus that comes into play on the border, but also the federal courts, the marshals, the detention centers. We are spending a bundle on that. It's a bad investment," Garcia adds. "Unless we really commit to economic development in Mexico, we're not going to see any progress."

Kourous directs the BIOS program. [1] Mayor Borane's quote appeared in "INS: Border Policy Failed," The Arizona Republic, August 10, 2000.

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MIGRATION DIALOGUE AIRS VIEWPOINTS

by Talli Nauman

The event was hosted by the independent U.S.-Mexico Conflict Resolution Center (CRC), a small, seven-year-old organization of professional mediators located on the New Mexico State University Campus that is dedicated to the innovative approach of problem solving through social conciliation.

At the behest of the embassy, CRC convened 16 activists, clerics, academics, journalists, labor and policy experts with dissimilar viewpoints to take part in round-table discussions that culminated with the proposals.

But the product was only one goal reached by participants. The process demonstrated that actors representing the many, distinct positions on the migration stage can find common ground for conflict resolution when they come face-to-face in a non-confrontational setting.

The CRC provided this setting with a series of film clips and associated analysis that addressed the issue of managing tension.

Following is a sampling of proposals participants put in the spotlight.

Roberto Saenz, border liaison from Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes' El Paso District Office:

"Before we consider a guest worker program, we've got to consider the millions of undocumented people who live here already and what to do with them. It's necessary that there be an organized program that gives opportunities to those who want to stay and legalize."

Maricela Pérez, director of operations control for the branch offices of the Mexican National Migration Institute:

"We can take preventive actions to educate people in towns in Mexico that send migrants. But unless the foreign debt is cancelled, Mexico is trapped."

Gordon Ellison, retired AFL-CIO representative to Mexico and Central America:

"I am adamantly opposed to having illegal people working in the United States. One thing that might work would be a dramatic incentive for employers not to hire illegal workers. That could be fines, confiscation of business, any draconian thing you can think of to encourage employers to not continue hiring illegal workers. I think what's going to be necessary is a serious and responsible national identification card."

Fernando García, director of the El Paso-based Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project:

"First among solutions should be amnesty and legalization now for the six to 10 million undocumented. I agree that they shouldn't be illegal; they just need to get papers. But this is not going to solve the problem. We don't want to be fighting for an amnesty every 10 years. We need to implement legalization of immigrant flows, so [migrants] don't have to go to the desert and die of dehydration. If you legalize immigrant flows you don't need such extreme enforcement.

"Demilitarization should start with abolition of operations Gatekeeper, Safeguard, and Hold the Line. There should be an end to employer sanctions. And there should be sustainable development in Mexico so you have a complete general solution. The United States has a responsibility for Mexico's development.

Carlos Corral, representative to Bishop Ricardo Ramírez of the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces:

"A large number of the undocumented are immediate family members [of legalized migrants]. The preference system [for their documentation] needs to be simplified. If I'm a permanent resident and apply for my wife and kids, I have to wait seven or eight years for their documents, because that's in the second-preference category.

"The Affidavit of Support really hinders [documentation]. Only 30 percent of people can meet this requirement. We should do away with that. A letter of employment would be more appropriate."

Miguel Ángel Torres, co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness:

"Relations of respect and equity are necessary for easing tensions in the border region, because unilateral measures always fail. Laws need to be brought up to date, because they are responsible for people being called illegals.

"It's necessary that the border residents pressure their governments to take part in infrastructure development, because migration is going to continue. More community development is needed on the Mexican side to strengthen our ability to live in our own land. This could be facilitated by binational agreements that are very well supervised, funded and put into practice -- not just talked about."

Judith Torrea, Texas correspondent for Univision.com:

"We need to try to understand each other as human beings, not as residents of different countries. For that, I propose a soap opera with script writers who consult all sectors. And since the problem of migration is a problem of poverty, the United States and Canada, which are in the North American Free Trade Agreement, should give Mexico economic aid to support agricultural production."

Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform:

"There are proposals that both governments should look at. The U.S. is sending a mixed message to people all around the world. On one hand we have laws against illegal migration. On the other hand, we send a message that if you make it to the U.S. illegally, you're going to be able to make it. We need to rectify the disparity between what we say and how we act.

"We need to enforce employer sanctions and have an electronically verifiable identification document like a credit card that would be universal. Everybody who applies for a job in the U.S. would have to go through the same process. Then you could focus enforcement resources on the small percentage of employers who don't obey.

"If the Mexican government is truly concerned about losing lives in the desert, it should crack down on criminal gangs. Also we need to recognize that there is some responsibility on the part of migrants themselves. Finally, I think it's important that the two governments work together on sustainable development. The United States does have an obligation to help other countries around the world develop. But the Mexican government has to create the kind of conditions to make that possible. It's their responsibility to clean up the corruption that has led to the waste of hundreds of million of dollars that have been poured into the country already."

Talli Nauman is managing editor of the borderlines UPDATER.

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c o m m e n t a r y

GETTING REAL ABOUT THE MIGRATION CHALLENGE

by George Kourous

As any veteran border observer could have predicted, the tragic deaths in late May of 14 Mexican migrants in the harsh deserts of southwestern Arizona has sparked renewed debate regarding the failings of U.S. border policing strategies and has lent new impetus to binational discussions on the migration issue.

Last Friday, U.S. and Mexican officials announced that a preliminary accord aimed at protecting migrant safety had been reached. It's too early to tell if actions and follow-up will match the lofty language of the agreement, but two governments deserve credit for pushing the envelope on migration.

Let's not get too excited yet, though. The danger that the envelope will simply collapse back into a familiar ruin of rusty rhetoric and empty promises is very real, now that the U.S. economy is in a slump, Bush is bogged down on several fronts, and Fox's new-fangled sheen has worn off some.

And this latest agreement is simply a first step. By the time Bush and Fox meet in September, the two governments hope to have hammered out the details of a more comprehensive binational migration plan. Mexico has said that while it is open to compromise it absolutely wants four issues to be included in any future arrangements: migrant safety; amnesty for Mexicans currently living in the United States without documentation; an expanded guest worker program; and modifications to the cap on the number of work visas issue to Mexican nationals.

Barring a complete failure to arrive at a binational consensus, it is very possible that when the September deadline comes and goes new ground will have been covered--but that the effort will fall short of the bold, visionary approach that long-term solutions demand. Further down the road that new framework will begin to show signs of stress, and eventually fail.

By agreeing last Friday to review its current border control strategies, especially their human costs, the United States did the right thing. Mexico, in turn, was right when it agreed to consider ways to prevent migrants crossing northward in dangerous areas. This pair of compromises has set the right tone for the ongoing talks. But tone and bondad will only take things so far.

And we really need to go far.

In a best case scenario, sometime later this year the governments and congresses of Mexico and the United States will take some risks and lay the groundwork for a new relationship on migration matters, moving forward on multiple fronts, such as development aid for Mexico and increased mobility for labor in the region, not just short-term efforts like running public service announcements on Mexican radio and TV.

An editorial in the June 24 edition of the New York Times called for the NAFTA nations to "put Mexico on a fast track towards prosperity" by creating "programs to provide loans and grants for large-scale development and public works projects" in Mexico. "After World War II," noted the editorial's authors, "it took less than a generation for Western Europe and Japan to go from poverty to affluence." Calling for a Mexican "economic miracle," the piece pointed out that "such a transformation would also help Mexico's NAFTA partners...by making Mexicans better customers and reducing the pressure for migrants seeking work in richer countries to the north."

The sentiment is a welcome one, and the notion that shared solutions to the problems being created by economic integration between Mexico and the United States--like migration--must involve a serious attempt to strengthen Mexico's domestic economy is 100% on target.

Implementing something akin to a Marshall Plan for Mexico is going to cost money and take political will. Lots of it. Yet for all the talk about long-term and lasting solutions to today's migration dilemma--whose roots lie in 100+ years of economic and social integration, ongoing today--our thinking has become so boxed in by the post-Cold War vocabulary of budget reduction that proposals to spend money on development projects in Mexico to alleviate migration pressures seems anathema.

Yes, the challenges of migration and sustainable, equitable development in the Americas are formidable. At the close of World War II, the global landscape probably looked equally bleak to world leaders--if not more so. The economies of Western Europe were, to put it mildly, decimated, both in terms of social and financial capital, and the future of the global economy hung in the balance. Yet look what was achieved in the short, four-year life span of the Marshall Plan.

Of course, the transformation wrought by that effort did not come cheap. Marshall Plan expenditures over the course of its lifetime (1948-1951) totaled $13.3 billion. In today's dollars this would amount to something just shy of one hundred billion dollars.

And grants—not loans—made up more than 90% of the total. U.S. leaders believed in the importance of promoting European reconstruction, damn the costs, and coughed the money up. That's political will.

Yet look at the price tag for President Bush's proposed National Missile Defense system, designed to protect us from attack by small, weak "threats" like North Korea and Libya. According to the Center on Strategic and International Studies, the price tag comes in at around $240 billion--well over twice what we spent on the Marshall Plan.

Hmm. Invest in a stable, prosperous Mexico and a better, conflict-free future for North America, or build an unnecessary, unreliable defense system to protect us from countries whose GNPs are smaller than the economic output of Wisconsin?

It is all well and good to call for a "fast track for Mexico." Most folks support better economic relations with our southern neighbor, a stronger Mexican economy, and greater prosperity for Mexicans. The more progress we make toward seeing those things come about, the more progress will have made toward defusing the migration time bomb. But until we are ready to make a financial commitment, until we stop pretending that simply opening doors to corporate investment is going to be the catalyst for social and economic renovation in Mexico, until we acknowledge that economic development in Mexico without strong environmental standards is a recipe for future disaster, until we recognize that shared problems like migration, in this world of integration, will increasingly be the standard not the exception, we're not going to get anywhere.

Kourous directs the BIOS program.

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c o m m e n t a r y

POLICIES MUST CHANGE

by Robin Hoover

U.S.-Mexico border policies are fatally flawed. Migrants are dying in record numbers in our deserts, in the canals of California, in the Rio Grande, and on our roads. The Southwest Strategy of the Immigration and Naturalization Service--which includes closing down the urban areas of the border with more personnel, fences, and technology--has a certain, local logic to it in terms of crime reduction, but it also has tragic consequences.

Migrants cross deserts that are both dangerous and environmentally delicate. Closing the urban areas feeds the coyote (human smuggling) industry. Migrants jump fences in the most fortified areas and require expensive, non-reimbursed medical services if injured. All this while the Mexican baby-boomers are working for the U.S. baby-boomers, dramatically fueling the economy and the U.S. tax coffers.

Can the U.S. shut down the border? No. Any serious student of the politics of immigration will conclude that the U.S. has neither the political will nor the financial resources to do a complete interdiction of migrants at the border. To those who suggest it can, I ask, at what cost to taxpayers and at what cost to the economy? South to north migration is an inexorable flow of humanity toward a better life. Employer sanctions have been stopped because of our insatiable desire for cheap labor and the contributions of migrant workers to the American economy.

Humane Borders is an inter-faith nonprofit with members from Los Angeles to New Mexico. We are dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance in the desert for migrants in the form of water stations and dedicated to changing immigration policies. Every few days, volunteers drive up to 300 miles to refill water stations in the desert where migrants routinely stop and refill their jugs on their way to work in the U.S. Now, some federal, state, tribal, county and private land managers are stepping up to the plate to take responsibility for what happens on their lands under their watch. We invite other public administrators and elected officials to join this moral struggle.

Legislation needs to move toward three changes to get migrants out of the deserts, out of the canals, and down from the fences.

First, legalize the undocumented in the U.S. as was done through the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Second, introduce a guest worker program designed to avoid the horrors of the Bracero program that led to widespread employee abuse. For instance, issue independent worker visas directly to the migrants themselves so that they are not tied to any one employer or sector of the economy and allow workers to be organized.

Third, increase the number of normal visas for Mexican nationals. A person in Mexico has to wait more than a decade in most cases to emigrate to the U.S. legally.

Until the deadly policies are changed, Humane Borders invites individuals, faith organizations, human rights organizations to join and share the joys and costs of saving lives. The life you save may be one of your returning employees, the person who made the last product you bought at the big box store, or the child of your neighbor.

Rev. Hoover is president of Humane Borders. Contact information appears below.

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c o m m e n t a r y

CLERICS, HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERS SPEAK OUT ON MIGRATION

Editor's note: Following the May 24 discovery of the bodies of 14 undocumented Mexican migrants who died trying to cross the Arizona desert, clerical and human rights leaders responded with expressions of grief and demands for policy change. Following are excerpts of two of their statements.

In the Book of Leviticus, the Lord called on his people to "treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt."

These words apply profoundly to our country. We are a nation of immigrants. People migrated here for freedom from political oppression, freedom from religious persecution, freedom from hunger and want. In July 1980 the bodies of 13 immigrants from El Salvador were found in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. They were seeking freedom from political oppression. The 14 migrants who died this week in the desert were seeking freedom from hunger.

Last year the Catholic bishops of the United States adopted a Resolution on Immigration Reform. In it we said that "we recognize the right and acknowledge the responsibility of the U.S. government to secure our national borders and we do not condone or encourage undocumented immigration into the United States." But there is more to the matter than that.

Last year we also issued a statement on "Welcoming the Stranger Among Us." In it we stressed recognition of the human dignity of immigrants and asked heads of governments around the world to recognize that immigration of all kinds, "especially that of those fleeing war and persecution, famine and economic distress is a sign of the failure of the whole international community to guarantee the security and welfare of all people in their homelands." We went on to say that "the ultimate resolution of the problems associated with forced migration and illegal immigration lies in changing the conditions that drive persons from their countries of origin."

According to INS figures, in the year 2000, migrant deaths rose to 369 on the US side alone. We speak as people of faith and U.S. citizens to say that this loss of life is absolutely unacceptable and to call attention to the underlying root causes.

Between 1993 and 2000, the U.S. Border Patrol force in the southwest more than doubled, from roughly 3,400 to 8,000 agents. The Border Patrol also adopted aggressive strategies designed to crack down on traditional urban points of entry in west Texas and southern California, with the effect of redirecting those flows towards more remote and dangerous areas.

These border deterrence policies have taken a devastating human toll. According to INS sources, nearly 2000 migrants have died crossing into the U.S. As people of faith, we cannot stand by and watch as our government continues to implement a set of policies that result in the brutal, invisible deaths of people engaging in an ancient human practice -- a search for a better life.

We condemn the actions of the immigrant smugglers who exploit people's dreams of a better future for profit and often place them in situations of mortal danger. Because smugglers do not operate in a void, we are compelled to speak to the structural conditions and policies of our own government that fuel the business of human smuggling and force migrants into the most remote and dangerous border regions.

While our government pursues policies aimed at breaking down barriers to trade and encouraging the integration of economies throughout North America, it simultaneously attempts to physically close off our southern border from the migrant flows generated by this process of integration.

We must legalize economic migration. Our restrictive immigration laws are also largely responsible for the tragedy continuously unfolding on our border.

In fact, the labor of the "undocumented" in this country has contributed greatly to the economic growth of our economy in the past decades. To end the hypocrisy, independent worker visas should be created to allow migrants to cross the border safely and legally and to work in the U.S. free from exploitation and discrimination.

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SOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

MIGRANT SAFETY

Arizona Border Rights Project
Tel: (520) 770-1373
Email: AZBRP@aol.com

"Causes & Trends in Migrant Deaths On the Border, 1985-1998"
Center For Immigration Research
http://www.uh.edu/cir/

Humane Borders, Tucson, AZ
Tel: (520) 624-8695
Email: rhoover@gci-net.com

Merrill Smith, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Tel: (202) 626-7934
Email: advocacy@bellatlantic.net
Web: http://www.lirs.org

Southwest Alliance to Resist Militarization (SWARM)
Tel: (520) 218-5541
Email: swarm@resistmilitarization.org
Web: www.resistmilitarization.org

Text of Joint Communiqué on U.S.-Mexico Migration Talks And Plan of Action for Cooperation on Border Safety
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ar/mexico/joint22.htm

MIGRATION DIALOGUE

U.S. Mexico Conflict Resolution Center
Nancy Oretskin, Luis Miguel Díaz, co-directors
Las Cruces, NM
Tel.: (505) 646-1091
Fax: (505) 646-1092
E-mail: CRC@crc.nmsu.edu
Web: http://crc.nmsu.edu

Southwest Border Research Center
Molly Molloy, director
Las Cruces, NM
E-mail: mmolloy@lib.nmsu.edu
http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/mmolloy

CLERICS SPEAK OUT

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Merrill Smith, Washington representative
Washington, DC
Tel.: (202) 626-7934
Fax: (202) 783-7502
E-mail: advocacy@bellatlantic.net
Web: http://www.lirs.org

Diocese of Ciudad Juárez
Renato Ascencio León, bishop
Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
Telfax: +(52 16) 16-32-81
E-mail: etrevizo@terra.com.mx

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BORDER & U.S.-MEXICO HEADLINES OF INTEREST FROM AROUND THE WEB

"MEXICO DENIES HELPING INS WITH ANTI-SMUGGLING STING"
Arizona Republic, 29 June 2001
http://arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0629mexico-immigrantsmuggle-ON.html

"BORDER ISSUES AT TOP OF FOX'S AGENDA"
San Diego Union Tribune, 28 June 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/mexico/20010628-9999_1m28border.html

"BLOQUEO A CAMIONEROS EN EU DURO REVES: FALLA CABILDEO DE GOBIERNO"
La Frontera de Tijuana, 28 April 2001
http://www.fronteratij.com.mx/ejemplaresanteriores/20010628/

"EL PASO LAWMAKERS BLAST RESTRICTIONS ON MEXICAN TRUCKS"
El Paso Times, 28 June 2001
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20010628-118744.shtml

"HIGH COURT RULES IMMIGRANTS CAN'T BE CONFINED INDEFINITELY"
New York Times, 28 June 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/continuous/28CND-SCOTUS.html

"PIDE AMPLIAR ZONA FRONTERIZA"
La Frontera de Tijuana, 28 April 2001
http://www.fronteratij.com.mx/ejemplaresanteriores/20010628/

"BORDER TOWNS SEEING EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC DECLINE"
San Diego Union Tribune, 27 June 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/mexico/20010627-9999_1n27mexecon.html

"BUSH SET TO VETO MEXICO TRUCK BAN"
Financial Times, 27 June 2001
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3OSVJFHOC
&live=true&tagid=ZZZOMSJK30C&subheading=US

"CAEN EN MEGAOPERATIVE 7 MIL MIGRANTES"
La Reforma, 27 June 2001
http://www.reforma.com.mx/coberturas/migrantesmexicanos/frame.asp?EspecialId
=1285&url=http://www.reforma.com/ParseoCoberturas/printpage.asp?pagetoprint
=../nacional/articulo/105249/default.htm

"CANADA WANTS NAFTA TOXIC WASTE STANDARDS"
UPI/Virtual New York, 27 June 2001
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=198079

"GOBIERNO NO EVITARA MIGRACION--HERNANDEZ"
La Reforma, 27 June 2001
http://www.reforma.com/ParseoCoberturas/printpage.asp?pagetoprint=
../nacional/articulo/105114/default.htm

"HOUSE BAN HANDS BUSH SETBACK ON MEXICO"
LA Times, 27 June 2001
http://www.latimes.com/wires/wpolitics/20010627/tCB00V7047.html

"NEW BORDER PLANTS WILL TAKE TOLL ON AIR QUALITY"
San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 June 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/reports/power/20010627-9999_1n27plants.html

"US SNUB DOESN'T BOTHER MEXICAN TRUCKERS"
San Diego Union Tribune, 27 June 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/mexico/20010627-1232-mexico-us-tr.html

"RUNNING OUT OF GAS: MEXICO IS NOT LIVING UP TO ITS PROMISE ON PATROLLING BORDER"
Arizona Daily Star, 25 June 2001
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/mon/10625emptygestures.html

"CRITICAN PLAN BINACIONAL DE MIGRACION"
La Reforma, 24 June 2001
http://www.reforma.com.mx/coberturas/migrantesmexicanos/frame.asp?EspecialId
=1285&url=http://www.reforma.com/ParseoCoberturas/printpage.asp?pagetoprint
=../nacional/articulo/104392/default.htm

"PIDE FOX RECURSOS CONTRA MIGRACION"
La Reforma, 24 June 2001
http://www.reforma.com.mx/coberturas/migrantesmexicanos/frame.asp?EspecialId
=1285&url=http://www.reforma.com/ParseoCoberturas/printpage.asp?pagetoprint
=../nacional/articulo/100767/default.htm

"U.S., MEXICO ANNOUNCE EFFORT TO IMPROVE SAFETY ALONG BORDER"
Dallas Morning News, 23 June 2001
http://www.dallasnews.com/world/mexico/401189_border_23tex.A.html

"GUEST-WORKER PROGRAM FLOATED AS SOLUTION TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION"
Tucson Citizen, 22 June 2001
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/local/6_22_01guest_workers.html

"MEXICO'S TOP ENVOY LOBBIES FOR MIGRANTS"
Tucson Citizen, 22 June 2001
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/local/6_22_01nahj.html

"PHILANTHROPY COMING OF AGE ACROSS BORDER"
San Diego Union Tribune, 22 June 2001
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/mexico/20010622-9999_1n22mexsmith.html

"OFFICIALS DISAGREE ON MEXICAN BORDER"
Washington Post, 17 June 2001,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010617/aponline130528_000.htm

"BORDER POLICY SHIFTS TO DESERT"
Arizona Republic, 15 June 2001
http://www.arizonarepublic.com:80/news/articles/0615borderpolicy15.html

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About BIOS and the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)

Published by the Interhemispheric Resource Center's Border Information and Outreach Service (BIOS), the borderlines UPDATER is an e-journal intended to promote discussion and awareness of key issues related to the U.S.-Mexico crossborder relationship. BIOS is committed to dialogue and debate in the spirit of cross-border cooperation. As a result, we have opened the UPDATER up to views that are not exclusively our own. Only articles authored by our own staffers represent BIOS views.

BIOS is a project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC), a nonprofit policy studies center founded in 1979. We work to provide citizens in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands with information and analysis they can use to make informed decisions, play a role in debates on public policy, and act as instruments for social change and to feed the on-the-ground experiences of the border community into decisionmaking circles. Visit www.irc-online.org to learn more.

BIOS funding is provided by The Ford Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the Kellogg Foundation. For more information on BIOS, email borderlinesfaq@irc-online.org or visit www.us-mex.org.

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