Fixating on security: Fox comes home from Waco empty-handed.(immigration reform)(Column)

This Easter Week past, the three North American leaders met in Waco, Texas. We, the people who paid for their trips, got nothing.

Fox is a lame duck who upset the U.S. administration over Iraq and he left Texas with an empty promise for immigration reform. President Bush made it clear he supports a new law, but was pessimistic about the chances of getting anything through the U.S. Congress.

So Fox got a photo with Bush to stick up on his office wall.

However, world leaders always need some sort of signed document to prove the meeting was a success. This time their aides dreamed up a security co-operation agreement that will promote security AND economic growth.

Brilliant! The genius here lies in the sound bite potential. Such as this one from Fox: "We are seeking an objective balance between the concerns that have to do with security and those that have to do with having a good and agile flow of goods and people across the borders."

Of course, once you get your brain round that one you don't much feel like reading on. You put down the paper with the feeling that our leaders have addressed the pressing issues of our time. Well, they hadn't.

The security document, which is only an agreement to talk, doesn't do much for Mexico even if it comes into force. No Mexican president is going to clamp down on a border to the north where the flow of goods and people is the only thing keeping this economy alive. Nor would he commit political suicide by allowing U.S. warships to patrol Mexican waters.

The idea that the two governments can beef up border security enough to stop terrorists getting in is beyond ludicrous. You would need a Berlin Wall for that. Even if you built the wall, throwing parts of both economies into chaos, any terrorist with half a brain and a bit of cash could buy a speedboat and come ashore almost anywhere in the United States.

It's a bit like the war on drugs. Impossible to win, but governments have to throw money at it anyway.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Mexicans die trying to cross the border every year.

The debate in the United States ignores this, focusing instead on all the jobs Americans have lost to illegal immigrants. This ignores the facts. All serious economic research shows migration increases wealth and the number of jobs in an economy. A country doesn't have a limited number of jobs that must be parceled out. The number of jobs also depends on the number of workers willing to do certain things, like work in life-threatening meatpacking factories or plucking California avocados. Cheaply.

My proposed solution is this one.

In the European Union workers can move freely between countries with no restrictions. So why aren't there millions of Irishmen and Spaniards stealing jobs in England and Germany. Part of the answer is that economies don't have a finite amount of jobs.

But the real genius lies in the billions of dollars in transfers from rich to poor countries in the European Union over the last 30 years allowing Spain and Ireland to leap into the First World.

It wouldn't just make moral sense for the United States to do the same for Mexico; it would make economic and political sense as well.

In fact, it would make so much sense, why didn't they talk about it in Waco?

John Moody (john.moody@mac.com) has spent 10 years covering Mexico for a variety of international news organizations. He now works as a freelance consultant in the private sector and for NGOs.

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