Former Mexican official talks immigration at UO.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

Luis Ernesto Derbez knows how emotional the immigration reform debate can be.

Derbez, Mexico's former minister of foreign affairs, has discussed the issue with his counterparts in the Bush administration and with members of the U.S. Congress grappling with the issue.

But the challenge of coping with a continuous stream of migrants from Central America seeking work in the United States requires rational decisions based on economic realities, Derbez told University of Oregon students and faculty on Friday.

Derbez, who earned a master's degree in economics at the University of Oregon in 1978, has decades of experience in trade and immigration.

As minister of foreign affairs under former Mexico President Vicente Fox, Derbez negotiated trade agreements with China and Japan, and has been credited with giving the country a higher global profile in economic and political affairs. For 14 years, he worked for the World Bank, directing international aid programs in South America.

He currently directs the Centre for Globalization, Competitiveness and Democracy at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico City.

In an hourlong session with a half-dozen graduate students and faculty members, Derbez blamed the explosion in illegal migrants on failed policies of the past that tightened border controls and made it more difficult for Mexicans to cross back and forth.

"You close the door, and then people don't leave. They stay, and they bring their families," he said.

Derbez said the need for national security is the biggest challenge the United States faces. But a fence along the border doesn't address that problem when many illegals - about one-third, according to national data - enter the country legally with visas via airplane. That's how the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists got in, he said.

"You need a filter that makes sense," he said.

But finding common ground in the debate has proved impossible.

Many Americans claim that illegal immigrants take jobs from U.S. citizens. Immigrant advocacy groups respond that illegal immigrants typically do work that citizens refuse to do.

Compromises - for example, that the United States stem the flow of illegals by allowing some of them to work in the country legally for a period of time before returning them to their homeland - seem to make few people happy. And there's scant agreement on whether current longtime illegal residents should be offered legal status.

Derbez sees plenty to criticize in the voluminous immigration reform proposals circulating in Washington.

One proposal calls for illegal residents to leave the country and apply for legal readmission. How do you get 12 million people to leave, Derbez asked. How many jumbo jets would it take to fly them all home?

And once they have left the country, how many people would the government have to hire to process their applications for re-entry? And what will U.S. employers do meanwhile?

Derbez said that in order for U.S. politicians to produce a good bill, they need to see the value of migrants.

"Right now the discussion is emotional, not rational," he said.

He suggested a closer look at the value of migrants, who he said are more welcome in the Midwest than you might expect, especially in small towns hurt by outmigration over the years. In the past decade, migrants have come in, bought homes, started businesses and revitalized communities.

"These small towns gain population and wealth, good schools, small hospitals and income tax," Derbez said. "Life has improved, and the people realize it is a good thing."

Derbez proposed "regularizing" the status of illegal migrants in the country and creating a temporary worker program for those seeking to come.

But the real key to changing the illegal immigrant dynamic is a stronger Mexican economy, one with solid ties to its Central American neighbors and trade relations with nations such as China, Japan and India, he said.

Once the differences in wages disappear, Mexicans will have little desire to cross the border, he said.

In that event, Derbez wondered, what will the labor-hungry U.S. economy do? He cited a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey that predicts serious labor shortages in coming years. He speculated that the United States could turn to Chinese, Arab or African workers to fill the labor gap.

Or maybe they'd see the people of the nation they share a border with as the more logical choice, he said.