Conclusions of the U.S.-Mexico Migration Panel

On February 15, 2001, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace International Migration Policy Program hosted a breakfast briefing featuring three members of the U.S.-Mexico Migration Panel, which released a report on February 14 to U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox including proposals to change and improve the relationship of the U.S. and Mexico regarding migration. Speakers included Demetri Papademetriou, Co-Director of the International Migration Policy Program and the U.S. Convenor of the panel; Frank Sharry, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum; and B. Lindsay Lowell, Director of Research at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration. Deborah W. Meyers, Associate at the International Migration Policy Program, was the moderator.

Demetri Papademetriou commented on the general themes and goals of the panel. The panel avoided making detailed proposals which would only suffer the "death of a thousand cuts," like many proposals do in Washington. It is detailed enough to provide the main principles for discussion and policy and offers several broad ideas. The panel is trying to take advantage of the meeting on February 16 between Presidents Bush and Fox. Papademetriou emphasized that the panel's work is a truly bilateral effort. The report gives an image of how the panel visualizes a different relationship with Mexico and emphasizes the need for a package of integrated proposals and cooperative efforts between the two countries, rather than unilateral single-issue policies. It considers the confluence of economics, demographics, and politics on the issue of migration. In the area of politics, the two new presidents are both former governors and businessmen who understand that their economies are highly integrated and interdependent. Since 1994, two-way trade between the U.S. and Mexico has tripled; Mexico is the U.S.'s second largest trading partner. Labor markets are also integrated. Policy-makers must think regionally, starting with NAFTA. Papademetriou stated that if there is not a commitment to most of the ideas in the report, the policy cannot be successful in changing the terms of the debate over the U.S.-Mexico relationship. The panel has a firm conviction that the status quo has created a black market which undermines law enforcement and causes too many deaths. Frank Sharry spoke next. He said that the panel has been working on the report for six months and included a variety of perspectives. The panel's members wanted to ask if there was a way to refashion the debate about migration between the U.S. and Mexico. They also wanted their proposals to respond to reality. The panel's report calls on the U.S. and Mexico to craft a "grand bargain" that would be mutually beneficial, make migration safe, legal, orderly, and predictable, and decrease migratory pressures over time. The report calls for a reconceptualization of the border as a "line of convergence rather than a line of defense." Sharry listed the four main principles suggested by the panel to guide future discussions:

1. Improve the treatment of Mexican migrants by making legal visas and legal status more widely available and making legality the norm. The panel tried not to be very detailed and wanted to state premises to guide policy-making rather than promote specific policies. One way to make legality the norm is to institute legalizing mechanisms; some examples might be expanding and expediting family visas, expanding work visas, and implementing temporary worker programs. Temporary migration programs should be in response to measurable market needs and should meet certain criteria: equitable labor rights that can be meaningfully enforced, social and health protections, and reasonable options for temporary migrants who qualify to apply for permanent residency. The panel feels that only legalizing migrants in the U.S. or only providing more legal means for those who wish to come to the U.S. will perpetuate the unacceptable status quo; both must be addressed.

2. Call on Mexico to collaborate with the U.S. to reduce illegal migration. There should be cooperative efforts to crack down on smuggling organizations and work together to protect human rights in the border area.

4. The long-term solution is the growth of the Mexican economy. Mexico has acknowledged that it must take primary responsibility for its development; however, the NAFTA partners and certain financial institutions should help. Remittance-based development programs are among options to reach this goal.

Sharry emphasized that picking and choosing the elements in the report is likely to undermine the overall effort's effectiveness. Lindsay Lowell said that it is an appropriate time for these issues to be addressed due in part to current and likely future demographics. The Mexican economy is growing rapidly and generating more jobs. Lowell said he sees three particularly important points in the report. The first is that it is a bilateral, grand bargain; the Mexican government is willing to make a change from its past non-involvement in the issue. Second, the report is a whole package whose elements must be taken together. Third, the report suggests incremental action; it is not recommending that the two governments open the border now.

Lowell said that the U.S. must deal with the Mexican migrant population already living in the U.S. There are many ways to address that issue; expanding family visas and work visas is something to discuss and may be among the ways to help solve the issue. The panel also calls for pilot temporary worker programs. The key is Mexico's greater cooperation; the report does not call for elimination of border controls but for an increase in cooperation of many types along the border. Human rights at the border are also important; there must be an effort to stop deaths at the border. The U.S. should facilitate the flow of legal migration. Also, Mexican economic development is important; remittances alone cannot accomplish it, and certain banks and microcredit organizations should be involved.

Meyers said that the U.S. has two neighbors and must consider how these policies affect Canada, as well. The report proposes equal treatment for Mexico and Canada and special treatment for both countries; perhaps Mexico and Canada should be exempt from the normal immigration formula

It worked.. different map BUT we are talking about the same thing:

All part of the GLOBILIZATION EFFORT

Current activities to implement global governance

©March, 2000 Michael S. Coffman, Ph.D., Editor

©Updated July, 2000

©Updated January, 2000

http://www.discerningtoday.org/cgi-sz/webcwrap/global_govern_bkgrnd.htm?sid=5FZ6OH1ExA1H8iV-49105434490.c4

Very few people realize that there is a massive global effort to create world government and religion within the next few years. Although it has been underway for decades, the plan to create global governance (a euphemism for world government) will be be making its public debut during the United Nations Millennium Summit starting September 6, 2000. The Millennium Summit has been planned since 1995 and will bring together the largest group of heads of state in one meeting in history, according to the Summit's promotional material. Over 150 heads of state will be represented.

To institute global governance, a new United Nations Charter must be ratified. The September meeting was originally supposed to gather all the world leaders together to sign this new Charter, according to the United Nations Commission on Global Governance in their 1995 report, Our Global Neighborhood. For a variety of reasons, the effort for the United Nations to propose a new Charter for signing has failed. Instead, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) are being used to accomplish a similar role.

By violently protesting globalization, the protests and riots in Seattle (#1 photo) during the World Trade Organization (WTO) were designed to create the urgency and momentum necessary to force the world leaders at the Millennium Summit to create a new United Nations Charter. These NGOs met in Montreal the following week and were told by United Nations Secretary General that the NGO movement "was the best thing that has happened to the organization [United Nations] in a long time." NGOs have rioted and protested three times since Seattle, at Davos, Switzerland (#2 photo) in late January and Bangkok, Thailand (#3 photo) in mid-February and again during the April 16, 2000 World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings in Washington, D.C. (#4 photo) Led by 10,000 members of various labor unions, they first protested the China full trade bill before Congress to permit with the U.S. The protests were then joined by other more radical NGOs who will again protest the WTO, World Bank, IMF and other international institutions.

The United Nations hosted a Millennium Forum for NGOs from April 22 to the 26 to prepare their demands for the Millennium Summit. As with the recommendations from the UN Commission on global governance, these NGOs will demand more open international institutions, inclusion of the WTO into the United Nations and a new parliamentary body within the United nations for themselves. Patterned after the NGO Charter 99-A Charter for Global Democracy the NGOs demand:

consolidation of all international agencies under the direct authority of the United Nations;

regulation by the U.N. of all transnational corporations and financial institutions;

independent source of revenue for the U.N. such as the "Tobin tax" and taxes on aircraft and shipping fuels, and licensing the use of the global commons;

eliminate the veto power and permanent member status on the Security Council;

authorize a standing U.N. army;

require U.N. registration of all arms and the reduction of all national armies "as part of a multilateral global security system" under the authority of the United Nations;

Require individual and national compliance with all U.N. "Human Rights" treaties;

Activate the International Criminal Court, make the International Court of Justice compulsory for all nations, and give individuals the right to petition the courts to remedy social injustice.

Create a new institution to establish economic and environmental security by insuring sustainable development;

Create a new International Environmental Court. Adopt a declaration that climate change is an essential global security interest that requires the creation of a "high-level action team" to allocate carbon emission based on equal per-capita rights;

Cancellation of all debt owed by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions, and for "equitable sharing of global resources," as allocated by the United Nations.1 The Millennium Summit of heads of state contained 2½ days of plenary sessions and small group roundtables. The plenary sessions were open to the press where numerous heads of state, starting with President Clinton, shared their visions of the future and how the UN can contribute to that vision. The real work, however, was accomplished behind closed-doors within the small group roundtables. These roundtables were not open to the press, nor were summaries of their conclusions be available to the press. Instead, the comments and conclusions were put into a report called the Millennium Declaration in which a Special Commission will make recommendations on how to rewrite the UN Charter. When the time comes, we will attempt to inform readers of what is decided behind these closed doors.

Just before the Millennium Summit met, the Millennium Summit on Peace of Religious and Spiritual Leaders convened from August 28 to 31 at the UN headquarters to unify religions around the common idea of peace. It advised the UN on spiritual issues and will eventually condemn any religious belief that does not have all-inclusive doctrines. The long-term impact of this meeting will result in an an attack on all monotheistic beliefs, especially that of Christianity. The second meeting from August 28 to 30 included over a thousand NGOs at the UN and focused on how the NGOs can "participate in the decision-making process" of the UN." This will most likely result in a proposed "People's Assembly" that would be created along side of the UN General Assembly. The People's Assembly will not represent the peoples of the world, but rather the leftist, socialist, NGOs themselves. Finally, there was Mikhail Gorbachev's State of the World Forum that met from September 2-10 which served as an intense lobbying effort to get the heads of state at the Millennium Summit to buy into the agenda of Global Governance, which includes changing the UN Charter.

Immediately after the Millennium Summit, the UN General Assembly put forth a 179 item agenda to be completed in its 55th Session, 14 of which directly dealt with establish global governance (i.e. world government). These 14 agenda items included:

Specific reform measures and proposals

How specifically to strengthen the UN system

General and complete Disarmament

Sustainable development and global economic cooperation

Resolve the Mideast crisis

Globalization and developing interdependence

International crime prevention and criminal justice

Various human rights issues, including those of women and children

Solving the financial problem of the UN Establishing the principles and norms of international law within the new international economic order

Establish the International Criminal Court

Review and take action on the Special Committee's report on changing the UN Charter to implement global governance

The UN's role in developing a new international partnership

UN role in promoting a new global human order

Once completed, the role of the UN in global governance will be fully known.

1. Henry Lamb, U.N. Millennium Assembly celebrates arrival of global governance. EcoLogic, 2000.

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