Latin America demands US immigration reform

By Silvia Ayuso Jul 21, 2010, 9:06 GMT

   Washington - In a mid-May White House visit, Mexican President Felipe Calderon pressed the immigration issue in a way that reflected its importance back home, clearly making official Washington uncomfortable with his demands for reform.

   'For us, migration is not only your problem,' he told the US Congress. 'We also consider it to be our problem.'

   Many banners and posters - often in Spanish - have been waved for months in Washington and other US cities in rallies urging politicians to fix the country's broken immigration system.

   An unprecedented state immigration enforcement law passed in April in Arizona only raised tempers on both sides of the issue and brought condemnation from Latin America.

   The law requires police to request immigration papers during traffic stops and other routine interactions, if they suspect someone may be in the country illegally. Supporters insist the law is intended to be race neutral, but critics say the law will inevitably lead to racial profiling against Latinos in a state on the Mexican border.

   After months of protests organized around the country, the administration of President Barack Obama filed a lawsuit challenging the Arizona law.

   The Justice Department filed the lawsuit on July 6 in a district court in Phoenix, arguing that Arizona had infringed on the US constitution, which gives the federal government power over immigration policy.

   Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina have joined one of the lawsuits against the Arizona measure.

   Arizona politicians argue that years of federal inaction forced them to adopt the law in the first place. Rising fears of violence along the border from Mexican drug traffickers and people-smuggling rings have fueled the issue in the state.

   The Arizona law is set to take effect at the end of July.

   In some Latin American countries, US immigration policy is a domestic political issue, creating pressure on national politicians who elevate it to a diplomatic issue with Washington.

   The United States is commonly estimated to have about 11 million residents who lack the documents to remain legally. Most are Latino, predominantly from Mexico, though several other countries across Central and South America and the Caribbean have significant populations in the United States.

   In late May, Michelle Obama was speaking with a group of children at a school outside Washington when Daisy Cuevas spoke up. 'My mom says that Barack Obama is taking away everybody that doesn't have papers,' the 7-year-old said.

   Scrambling to improvise a delicate answer with news cameras rolling, the first lady replied: 'That's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right.'

   'But my mom doesn't have any,' Daisy replied.

   The US-born girl's mother was reported to be a Peruvian overstayer. US immigration authorities have not pursued the family.

   Just days later, Peruvian President Alan Garcia held previously scheduled talks at the White House with Obama, indirectly endorsing the US president's still vague reform plans and asking the US Congress 'to support this idea.'

   But immigration reform at the federal level does not appear likely to succeed at least in the short term, with mid-term elections looming in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

   'Ahead of the November elections ... there is no way that it's going to be discussed, because for both parties it is an issue which can cause political problems,' Honduran Congress Speaker Juan Orlando Hernandez said after a visit this spring to Washington, including meetings on Capitol Hill.

   Hernandez said that legislators acknowledged 'that this is an issue that needs to be solved. The problem is when to solve it.'