Monday, December 20, 2004

 

Mexican double standards with the U.S.A.

 

By Barnard R. Thompson

 

Indications are that talks on a workable immigration pact and guest worker program, between Mexico and the U.S., will revive formally in 2005 — with Mexico leading the insistence.

 

As well, the ongoing and interconnected debate over the issuance of state driver’s licenses, to those residing in the U.S. without legal authority to do so, will accelerate.  This with long stated arguments to justify driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants that will be repeated by the Mexican government, its consular corps and contracted lobbyists in the U.S., along with migrant, human rights and civil liberties activists.

 

In response, and using California as an example for many states and possibly Congress, there will be a resolve to issue driver’s licenses only after due diligence background checks of all applicants due to 21st century demands regarding security safeguards and public safety concerns.

 

Plus there will be loud cries in opposition from anti-immigrant groups and xenophobes.

 

However considering the arguments in favor of driver’s licenses to undocumented workers living in the U.S., Mexico is showing its hypocrisy with respect to national requirements vis-à-vis what Mexican leaders and advocates are demanding from and in the U.S.

 

First of all there is the question of credentials and applicable ID cards that are requisite documents for Mexicans in Mexico.

 

As a case in point, Armando Granados Carreón, who heads Fepade (an electoral crimes investigative unit in the office of Mexico’s Attorney General), talked about crime and misuse of one of the nation’s most important forms of identification, the voter’s credential, in a December 12 published interview in the Mexico City daily El Universal.

 

Granados said that theft and alteration, as well as counterfeiting, of voter ID cards has become a highly profitable enterprise in Mexico.  This because those same cards can serve as primary use credentials to empty an existing bank account, open a new account, buy supposedly on credit, and to even sell or mortgage a home that the false cardholder does not own.  He noted that altered or counterfeit voter’s credentials are used to commit over 15 types of crimes.

 

All the criminals need to do, in order to alter a voter’s credential, is to erase and enter, or superimpose, new data and paste on another photograph, Granados said.

 

As well, counterfeit and altered voter IDs are used to move non-Mexican undocumented migrants, who are en route to the U.S., through Mexico and past officials.  According to Fepade, it has proof that professional smugglers do not sell the IDs — they rent them, and once the smugglers get the illegal migrants to the U.S. border the ID cards are collected for use the next time around.

 

Mexico’s double standard, that with respect to the U.S. seems to be the antithesis of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, is especially visible during this Christmas season.

 

In 1989 Mexico established the “Paisano Program,” a plan to facilitate and protect homecoming U.S. residents as they go through immigration, customs and other entry formalities during the Christmas and New Year’s period.  The program is a good one, and of the estimated 10 million native born Mexicans living in the U.S. — the majority being naturalized citizens or legal residents, some 1.7 million are expected to travel to Mexico this holiday season.

 

As to documents needed by the southbound travelers, this year’s “Paisano Guide” specifies that Mexicans must prove their nationality with accredited documents or a sworn affidavit of nationality, all pretty standard stuff.  That is until you get to the border and to requirements for automobiles.

 

Reports are that there are often long delays at the border due to tedious paperwork requirements for individuals, coupled with merchandise and vehicle entry prerequisites and inspections.

 

In order to travel to Mexico in a foreign licensed vehicle, the Mexican registered owner must obtain a temporary import permit for the limited time the vehicle will be allowed in the country.  And foremost in requirements for that permit is formal proof of the individual’s foreign residency.

 

Ownership and registration documents are also needed for the vehicle, and if purchased at the border the permit itself costs US$29.70 — but it must be paid for with a major credit card or an international bank debit card.

 

(Those without credit or debit cards can post a cash deposit guarantee, starting at US$200.00, which will supposedly be refunded when the vehicle leaves Mexico.)

 

Of course to buy an automobile or to get a credit card, among other things U.S. residents probably need a state issued driver’s license or personal identification card.