Mexican diplomats have called migration reform everything from a jigsaw puzzle to a home-cooked meal as they try to explain the elusiveness of what has become the Holy Grail of Mexican foreign policy. People here smiled and smirked when ex-Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda said he was going after "the whole enchilada," a reference to his goal of negotiating an amnesty for millions of migrants living illegally in the United States. In Spanish, the phrase only described a traditional dish, rather than its English meaning of "the entire package." But the phrase was a signal to the United States that Mexico was serious about the issue President Vicente Fox had put at the top of his foreign agenda after taking office in 2000.
The aggressive strategy fizzled, however, following the Sept. 11 attacks, which sidelined migration talks. Castañeda grudgingly accepted Mexico might have to accept a lesser deal of chilaquiles, a Mexican dish made with leftover tortillas.
A new metaphor, coined recently by current Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez, refers to migration reform as the slow, patient exercise of "piecing together an enormous jigsaw puzzle."
After taking the helm at the Foreign Ministry early this year, Derbez took immediate steps to tone down Mexico's policy objectives, saying it would be better to cut Castañeda's enchilada "into bite-size pieces."
Recognizing U.S. reticence to any sweeping deal, Derbez has spent much of this year making less imposing arguments for migration reform than those espoused by Castañeda, who had developed an all-or-nothing agenda.
Derbez has argued that issuing more work visas would improve U.S. security because authorities could keep better tabs on foreigners. He has tried to convince the U.S. that the lack of sufficient visas forces jobseeking migrants to sneak into the United States leading to scores of deaths annually as people attempt dangerous desert crossings by foot.
And now, on the heels of Derbez's quiet campaigning and two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mexican and U.S. diplomats appear to be talking the same language.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday the White House was ready to rekindle migration talks under a "step-by-step approach."
"Now that we are on the other side of 9/11, we're going to look for ways to move forward step by step to make sure that we can make [migration] safe, legal, and respectful of our need for labor," Powell told reporters in Washington after a closed-door meeting with Derbez.
Powell made clear the Bush administration could not "promise too much" on the issue, but said "there are some pieces of congressional legislation [for migration reform] that we can work with and see if we can move forward in the year ahead." He also said the Bush administration could resolve "some issues ... in the not too distant future that don't involve legislation," though he didn't specify what executive actions could be taken. Three migration reform bills are currently pending in the U.S. Congress, and range from an open-ended guest worker program to a limited expansion of visas for foreign agricultural workers.
Derbez, speaking at Powell's side, said Mexico was ready to work patiently toward a final accord, which he said would be reached in "the coming years." "The original design that we thought about is something that simply is not able to be true at this point in time," he said, adding the two countries were "working on a new design." It was a far cry from the demands of Castañeda, who once said Mexico wanted "the whole enchilada or nothing."
Castañeda, considered the architect of Mexico's new and more active foreign policy, is credited with pushing migration onto the U.S.-Mexico bilateral agenda. Presidents Fox and Bush appeared close to reaching some sort of accord in early September of 2001, but the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington left the centerpiece of Castañeda's agenda unattainable, and he resigned in January of this year.
Observers say Derbez's more modest approach is being better received in Washington.
"Castañeda had become an irritant. He was showing up in Washington demanding long meetings and constantly calling Powell and [U.S. National Security Advisor] Condoleeza Rice," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
"Derbez is just the opposite: a low-key technocrat."
Like many analysts, however, Grayson was skeptical Powell's cautious words would amount to significant progress in migration reform.
"So far, we've seen lots and lots of talk, but really no action."
