great tradition of America which has been so hospitable to immigrants historically.

This is a tough problem. If it weren't a Friday, I think you would see a lot more Senators here. But it is a good day to tackle the issue because there will be a lot of focus of attention with the travel together that President Bush and President Fox are undertaking, and I think they will be looking to this Subcommittee and Committee for some positive answers.

Thank you very much.

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much.

We welcome the members of our first panel: Dr. Demetrios Papademetriou and Dr. Fernandez de Castro. Dr. Papademetriou and Dr. de Castro were the conveners for the discussions that led to the Carnegie Endowment's important report, "Mexico-U.S. Migration: A Shared Responsibility." This report served as the foundation for principles articulated by the Mexican Government as well as by our own democratic principles. And we will recognize Dr. Papademetriou.

STATEMENT OF DEMETRIOS PAPADEMETRIOU, CO-DIRECTOR, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. I am a bit at a loss of words because I could actually be testifying and saying the same things that_the members have actually articulated in the last few minutes. But, nonetheless, I will speak a little bit about the report, then try to assess where several democratic group principles with regard to immigration reform fit within the report.

The report reflects 8 months of rather intensive work and involved, in our view, some of the best thinkers, experts on this view, as well as a number of institutional interests. To give you a sense: unions senior members from the unions, as well as senior members from the business community were represented in this consensus report. I am proud to say that the final product does not really reflect too many compromises. Truly, after 8 months of hard work, a group of often unlike-minded people came to the reported conclusions. On the Mexican side, the report was chaired by Ambassador Rozental and from the American side by Mack McLarty, whom I suspect you all know, and by Bishop Nick DeMarzio, Bishop of Camden, and chairman of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration.

The panel's assessment was that the status quo is simply unacceptable and recommended recasting the relationship between the two countries, and I quote: "from attempting to enforce contestable, unilateral propositions to carrying out the terms of an agreement. That is a fundamental change from the way that we have done our business with Mexico in the past 100 years or so and we hope it is what the future will bring. The process differs from asserting absolute notions of sovereignty. It is more along the lines of affirming the provisions of a mutually beneficial negotiated deal. Very simply, this means that we have now come to a much more mature appreciation of the role of migration in the American economy, now and for the future. We seek in the report to start a conversationthe same one that you, the members of the Committee, have appar

ently started-about coming up with an immigration policy that will be responsive to the needs of families seeking to reunify with their close relatives as well as to employers looking to engage foreign employees under conditions that will make us all proud rather than recreating the conditions under which previous temporary worker programs have operated.

I will read a short passage from the report, with your permission, and then I will go back to oral comments. We said that, "It is increasingly recognized that current enforcement policies regarding unauthorized migration from Mexico are broken. Presently, the United States maintains a rigid patchwork of laws and mounts extensive unilateral law enforcement efforts. These have proven largely ineffective at achieving the intended outcomes of channeling migration through legal entry points and reducing unauthorized migration, while unintentionally, but expectedly, spurring the growth of a migration black market. As a result, too many migrants die trying to cross into the United States, too many hardworking immigrants are subject to exploitation, and too many decent employers in the United States are undercut by unscrupulous competitors who exploit unauthorized immigrants.” This is the fundamental conclusion of our report.

Now, how does this report fit with the principles? There are five pillars in the democratic statement of principles for immigration law. The first one is family reunification. That principle is fully consistent, fully consonant with our call for additional legal permanent visas. Part of the reason that over the past 15 years unauthorized migration has grown almost out of proportion with what we had seen in prior years is that the backlogs for family reunification became too long, and the employment-based immigration system, both permanent and temporary, was unwilling to keep up with the change in demand patterns.

The second principle is earned access to legalization. We also view the process of legalization or regularization-I think as of yesterday the new term is "normalization." We are very good at euphemisms in this business, as you know so very well, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Hatch. Essentially what we are all struggling with are what the Committee will be struggling with is: How to find a system of credits, or if you will, of rewards or points through which people can earn legal permanent_status? What is it that we are going to decide to reward? And I suspect that reasonable people will roughly come up with some sort of credit or some sort of points given to people for having been in this country for a number of years, having played by the rules, having paid taxes, and having contributed to the economy. Something perhaps that can be measured by the willingness of an employer to suggest that they will continue to employ such an individual. Something indicating some progress, making an effort toward contributing to the social life of our country, through perhaps learning English, making an effort in that regard, or engaging the community in which the person lives. That is a very difficult thing to quantify, but I am sure that people can come up with a system that does so.

The third principle is border safety and protection. We are convinced that only through active, almost organic cooperation between Mexico and the United States can the border objectives that

you, Mr. Kennedy, set out a few minutes ago-legality, order, the stoppage, the absolute stoppage of violations in terms of the human rights and civil rights of individuals, and, of course, the protection of our enforcement personnel, the border patrol-only through joint cooperation can we achieve that goal.

And then the fourth principle, an enhanced temporary worker program. I was delighted to read in this particular passage the kinds of things that we have suggested that should be included in any temporary worker program, which include a system whereby those that choose to pursue a path to permanent residence can be allowed to earn that, and that people who enter the program and work under something that we call in trade negotiations national treatment-in other words, treatment that is equal to that of any other U.S. worker in the labor market.

Finally, you also have here fairness for immigrants and legal residents. We haven't really considered that. I don't think anyone can take issue with that. But there is one issue that appears in our report that does not appear in these principles, but nonetheless it was alluded to in the comments by the Committee members. We have to think hard about how to take care of those things within the context of the immigration formula. And we, the panel, think that if indeed we are to begin a true new bilateral discussion and resolution of these issues with Mexico, inevitably we are going to have to get to the point where Mexico and Canada are taken outside of the worldwide numerical limits of the U.S. immigration formula. Not only is this going to be able to accommodate the special things that we wish to do with Mexico, but in addition to that, it will provide an opportunity for the other countries in the world to gain a number of visas, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000. This will allow them to reunify with family members or for employers to be able to bring in workers at a faster pace.

Finally, what I think at the conclusion of what it is that we are trying to do we came up with is that we opted for a series of things: legality over lawlessness and illegality, and for order at the border versus chaos. We opted for fair economic opportunity with dignity over exploitation and over human and civil rights violations. We opted for safety over danger. And we opted for giving employers access to the workers they need and the proper conditions for creating rules that make so little sense that employers are in some ways invited to break them. This is a reference to the point that you also made, Mr. Chairman, about rethinking the employer sanctions regime that we have created. And, fundamentally, I think what the panel agreed to do is to change the way that we conduct our immigration business. We ask Mexico and Canada to be partners in that effort. That would make the greatest difference in outcomes for all of us.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator KENNEDY. Dr. de Castro?

81-002 D-2

STATEMENT OF RAFAEL FERNANDEZ DE CASTRO, PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO AUTONOMO DE MEXICO, MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

Mr. DE CASTRO. Yes, thank you very much, Chairman. It is an honor for me to testify in front of this Committee. I appreciate the opportunity you Senators are giving me to present this report, written by my university, ITAM, in Mexico City, and the Carnegie Endowment.

I am convinced—and that is what I have said to this invitation— that we are facing a historical opportunity to make migration of Mexicans to this country an orderly and legal process, and I guess we should seize that opportunity. That is why I decided to come here.

I will say that President Fox is right. We need soon an agreement so that in 4 to 6 years every single Mexican in this country should be legal, should be residing here legally. To me, two facts explain this historical opportunity.

First of all, there is the emergence of democracy in Mexico. That is very important. That has created a very important bond between the two countries, and it seems to me that now you can trust even more your Southern neighbor. That was yesterday's message by President Fox.

Second, I will say that President Fox has been unprecedentedly committed towards migration. He has made migration a priority of his administration, and he is doing things that we have never seen before in Mexico. His administration is strongly combating the smugglers on the border, which is very important. Second, his administration is committed to dissuade those Mexican immigrants crossing throughout the difficult and dangerous zones. That has no precedence in Mexico. And, finally, I guess, the increase of the Mexican Government-they have increased their commitment to not allow third-country nationals to cross through Mexico and to enter into the United States.

Let me go now to the ITAM-Carnegie report. Let me tell you that I have been involved in numerous academic exercises, and I have never seen that at the outset of an exercise like this or a project like this there is such a big consensus among academics. Politics among us might be harder or worse than in this Capitol Hill. It is not easy to convince academics. We all have our own ideas, and here the ten Americans and the ten Mexicans working on this panel, we reached a consensus at the very beginning, and the consensus was that the status quo was not acceptable. Why was it not? Because there was a big contradiction between what NAFTA had done to facilitate the crossing of merchandise and services across the border and, on the other hand, to have U.S. officials erecting barriers, erecting steel walls on the border between Tijuana and San Diego. That was a sharp contradiction.

U.S. policy in the last 5 or 6 years had made Mexican migration more dangerous for the undocumented Mexicans crossing. That is why the last year almost 500 Mexicans died on the border trying to cross undocumentedly. And for two countries that are already such important economic partners, this is inadvisable. And I guess I cannot be satisfied in repeating this.

Second, it seems to me that these measures to try to keep the Mexicans to come into the United States, just increasing the border patrol, have made smugglers more necessary. It really created a boom for these smugglers.

Finally, I would say that what once was a circular flow of Mexicans, it became now elliptical. Now Mexicans came here and stayed longer because for them it is dangerous to go back to Mexico and to try to cross back again to the United States. Our report highlights a very important thing, and that is that Mexico is in the last stage of a demographic transition. That means that in the next 10 to 15 years, we are going to have in Mexico low fertility rates and low mortality rates, and what is important in terms of migration is that the work-the number of Mexicans entering into the working age will be dramatically reduced.

Today, 1.2 million Mexicans enter every year into the working age. That is the age between 15 and 44 years. And in 10 to 15 years, that pressure will be reduced in half. Only 600,000 Mexicans will enter into that force.

Let me tell you something. Seventy percent of Mexican migrants belong to that age between 15 and 44 years old. So what the Mexican proposal in a way is proposing to the U.S. is to bridge a gap for the next 10 to 15 years. In 10 to 15 years from now, we won't have a demographic pressure in Mexico.

Our report has four principles. Demetri already referred to them, but let me give you my perspective.

First of all, yes, indeed, we need to work in the border in a common fashion. It is a common border, so that is why we need a shared responsibility.

Second, we need the regularization of the 3 to 3.5 million Mexicans who are here undocumented. If we want to make of this an orderly and legal process, we have to deal with it.

There are two other options, just to forget about them, to put them down the carpet, or to deport them. But I believe those two options are not admissible for the United States and for Mexico.

The third principle is we need a temporary worker program. The bracero experience and we had a lot of discussions in our panelnow we know that we have the lessons of the bracero program that was in effect from 1943 to 1964. It is that now we need full rights for the Mexicans coming into that temporary worker program.

And the fourth principle and to me this is the single most important one is to develop economic programs regionally. We have to target those zones in which most migration is originated, and this should be a shared responsibility. Yes, we are talking about a different position of the two countries regarding migration.

I wrote 10 years ago my Ph.D. dissertation in the political science department in this country, at Georgetown University, about how to manage U.S.-Mexican bilateral affairs. And after studying all different ways to manage U.S.-Mexican affairs, I came to the conclusion that the best way to manage bilateral affairs, the very complicated issues as migration, is by establishing legal frameworks that order these issues. That is the NAFTA lesson. Before NAFTA, 12 to 13 years ago, Mexico was the country in the United States with the most demands for unfair trade practices. Nowadays we still have problems, but NAFTA has allowed both