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The National Interest
End of an Affair?: Immigration, Security and the U.S.-Mexican Relationship
by Robert S. Leiken
. . . September 11 intruded rudely on the budding U.S.-Mexican romance like an uninvited witch at a wedding. To many Americans, immigration, which had seemed only to dish out gentle and inexpensive gardeners and nannies, suddenly appeared dangerous. Immigration was now viewed through the somber lens of homeland security, as vulnerability stared at us from every airport, bridge, chemical and nuclear plant, water system, computer terminal, salad bar and unopened envelope. Even benign Canada, across a far less problemetic border, held horrors. . . .
After 9/11 Bush had a mission that took him away from his personal passions. He turned to old comrades, Britain and Canada. Now his newest new friend was Vladimir Putin. Mexico, however, refused to play the patient Griselda. When Foreign Minister Castaneda championed America’s "right of reprisal" and vowed that Mexico would not "haggle" over its loyalty, Mexico’s media, intellectuals, old-line politicians and influential left-wing erupted. The Senate, led by the erstwhile ruling party, called for Castaneda’s scalp. Santiago Creel, the fiery foreign minister’s chief rival in Fox’s quarrelsome cabinet, insinuated that Castaneda was acting as a stooge for the Americans. Fox fell uncharacteristically silent. Friendship with Bush was now exacting a price as the Fox Administration failed to grasp, as Tony Blair did instantly, the sea change in the American public and their politics.
The Top Level Talks on migration, as they were called, were put off; when they eventually resumed the Americans insisted on devoting them to shoring up the border, not legalizing Mexican migrants. Fox complied, thinking Bush would come around with time. But when the presidents next met at an international meeting in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002, the body language was noticeably different and the immigration dowry had gone missing. Bush, courtly and evasive, said the deal would come manana. . . .