http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44793-2005Mar17.html?nav=pq

<quote in-part>

Immigration Reform, Hopefully the New Foreign Aid

By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, March 17, 2005; 10:30 PM

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps the only point of agreement in
the contentious debate about immigration in the United States
is that the system is broken. The increase in
illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border
-- as well as the growing number dying in the attempt --
is the clearest indication that what is
supposed to curb the influx does not work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44793-2005Mar17.html?nav=pq

<quote in-part>

Immigration Reform, Hopefully the New Foreign Aid

By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, March 17, 2005; 10:30 PM

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps the only point of agreement in
the contentious debate about immigration in the United States
is that the system is broken. The increase in
illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border
-- as well as the growing number dying in the attempt --
is the clearest indication that what is
supposed to curb the influx does not work.

A decade of border initiatives

that failed to
slow the flow should serve as evidence that
law enforcement alone can never solve the problem.
What's more, border deaths should remind us that
any system in which people are willing to risk their lives
to circumvent is doomed to fail.

Next week, President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox
and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin are
scheduled to hold a mini-summit in Texas in which
immigration will be on the agenda.

In preparation for the gathering, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice traveled to Mexico last week
to foreshadow Bush's message: Washington is
committed to an immigration system that is "humane,"
that "respects America's laws" and that "recognizes the economic
realities between Mexico and the United States."

The Bush administration should be lauded
for setting a goal to transform the reality of immigration.

Indeed, it is when policy-makers grapple with
the humanity of the situation that the search for solutions
becomes comprehensive enough.

[ ... ]

Currently, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and
Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., are crafting legislation

that would follow the guidelines of Bush's proposal.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders in the House favor
more enforcement and punitive measures
rather than far-reaching reform.
Their initiative, which passed the House in February,
would restrict immigrant driver's licenses,
and make it more difficult to obtain political asylum.

Neither Bush's nor the competing legislative proposals
come close to the comprehensive nature of
creating a North American Investment Fund in which
money from Canada and the United States would help Mexico
reverse its growing development gap with its northern neighbors.
The idea for the fund was presented this week
by the Council on Foreign Relations.
The proposal is not new and skeptics doubt
whether Bush's team will consider a proposal of
such nature when the president meets with Fox and Martin.

Meanwhile, the major hope for development cash in Mexico
and many other Latin American countries
continues to be tied to immigration. Last year,
immigrants in the United States, many of them illegal,
sent to their relatives back home more than $45 billion
in so-called remittances. This has
exceeded foreign direct investment and foreign assistance
to the region three years in a row.

Such "aid'' would seem to exacerbate the problem
of illegal immigration. Had remittances not become
the only conceivable way to change the fortunes of entire families
south of the border -- where the gap between rich and poor
is widening -- one might argue that so many people
would not be willing to make the harrowing journey
to find work in the United States.

[ ... ]

</quote>

As much as it pains me to say it, Sanchez -- or her handlers -- have got
a point. Be that as it may, the US and Canada have been caught up in
something of an economic catastrophe following the triple crashes of the
DotCom Implosion, 9/11, and the frog-cooker escalations of both housing
and fuel costs. Scraping together the spare cash to hand over to the
corrupt governments of latinamerica isn't sensible; direct investment
would be sensible but most of the corporate investors are sensibly
putting their money where they get the most bang for the buck, Asia. The
only present source of major investment in latinamerica is by the
competing forces of transnational crime -- mostly smugglers -- and the
so-called Remittance Men. It might indeed be something for which we
should hope, that this Remittance Flood be more organized. In Mexico, so
far as I can tell, there's no organization, no pooling of resources by
the recipients of remittances, no investment in likely capital-growth
funds or real capital facilities. In El Salvador, to the contrary,
Presidente Tony Saca is aggressively promoting the remittances, some
rather successful DC-area Salvadoran expatriate businessmen are
organizing poolings of the remittances and development of growth
industries in El Salvador, with the intention of creating opportunities
for both profitability and employment by, for and of Salvadorans in El
Salvador.

Still, there is some question of to what degree El Salvador, a rather
small and very densely populated nation, can industrialize its way to
solvency, much less to actual prosperity. Lenders may be very reluctant
to fund development in a country which is notoriously placed to suffer
from tropical storms, volcanism, and earthquakes. Most cash crops which
can be grown in the area are grown competitively already, in neighboring
nations as much as in El Salvador, creating a variety of surplusses in
the markets which keeps profit margins rather low. El Salvador's future
should probably be based on a reform of government and the regulatory
environment, becoming a data or banking haven in competition with such
nations as Switzerland or the Bahamas. Already one fifth of all
Salvadorans live abroad, mostly in the USA. A further diaspora would
probably be wise, and a lower population in combination with remittances
could increase the ability of the Salvadoran government to provide the
citizens and nationals with an education sufficient to make them
competitive in the world markets. In the meanwhile, El Salvador has to
join aggressively with surrounding nations in suppressing the explosion
of gang membership and activity. It will take a great deal of thought
and endless effort to make the proper choice, between an overpopulated
future of abject poverty in a country descended into the savagery of an
enemy tribe of tattoed faces, or a future as a sparsely-populated but
wealthy nation of bankers, researchers, and businesspeople.