• by IPS Correspondents (mexico city)
• Monday, November 07, 1994
• Inter Press Service

MEXICO CITY, Nov 07 (IPS) - Mexican government officials, experts and analysts expressed their concern Monday about a bill to be voted on in the U.S. state of California on Tuesday which would block undocumented workers and their families from using social services.

Jose Angel Gurria, official spokesman for Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party expressed alarm with respect to "the possibility of California's xenophobic environment spreading...throughout the United States."

Although U.S. President Bill Clinton announced on Thursday that if the discriminatory California law is approved he will block its application by declaring it inconstitutional, the issue concerns Mexicans because of its possible future political repercussions.

"Bill 187", designed to block access of undocumented immigrants and their families to health and educational services will be voted on in Tuesday's general legislative elections.

According to Gurria, "from a cost-benefit point of view, approval of the racist initiative would be prejudicial for the tax- payers of the U.S. state" as the controls that would be necessary to block immigrants' access to services would be more expensive than any possible savings.

Researcher Lorenzo Meyer with the College of Mexico said "the discriminatory law proposed in California could generate and favour epidemics, sociocultural exclusion and violent episodes by attempting to create a society of several rungs."

Meyer said the move reflects "conservative, reactionary and racist demagoguery which plays on the xenophobic feelings of a part of the population to win irrational votes, with full awareness that the proposal is absurd."

According to recent opinion polls, the lead of those who are in favour of the initiative over those who consider it racist and inappropriate has shrunk, while they continue to be a majority.

It is estimated that over three million undocumented immigrants and their families - mainly Mexicans - live and work in the United States.

Immigrants frequently take jobs which are rejected by the U.S. population and pay extremely low wages, but offer higher pay than could be earned in their countries of origen.

"If tomorrow (Tuesday) the bill is approved, when the courts open their doors on Wednesday, we will take it to trial on charges that it is unconstitutional," Richard Babcock, coordinator of the California campaign against the initiative told the press.

Some 500 people marched from the city hall to the border in the city of Tijuana, Mexico, where they established a "sentry" group to protest the move which they call "racist and xenophobic."

Similar protests have been held for several weeks along the 3,200-kilometre shared border between the two countries and facing the U.S. Embassy in the Mexican capital, where on Monday a demonstration was held.

A protest demonstration has been called for Tuesday in front of the Mexican Congress to demand "a more forceful posture against California's Bill 187."

The so-called 'Operacion Dignidad', organised by the Mexican government and various social organisations, has launched a boycott which has significantly hurt the sales of the firm that financed the initiative.

Carlos Guzman, a tourism coordinator in Tijuana, said that "by means of the 'Paisano' ('Countryman') programme, the Mexican government will help people who are deported, and protect and guide those who attempt to illegally cross the border as well as those who live legally in the United States."

Analyst Roberto Blancarte said the problem of Bill 187 "shows that the new idol - the supposedly free market - barely disguises a social Darwinism based on the survival of the strongest, scorning ethical criteria and solidarity."

By means of the North American Free Trade Treaty (NAFTA), Canada, Mexico and the United States have been joined since Jan. 1 in one of the world's largest free trade areas, with a combined population of 375 million and a total annual product of seven billion dollars.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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