Center for Comparative Immigration Studies

Immediately following the 2000-1 inaugurations of Presidents Vicente Fox and George W. Bush, Mexico and the United States entered into intense negotiations aimed at a bilateral guestworker agreement on migration. Although the terror attacks of September, 2001 put these negotiations on hold, the progress which had been made—and the extent to which Mexico set the bilateral agenda—highlight the transnational character of U.S. immigration policy-making. But what do sending-states want when it comes to U.S. immigration policy, and when and how can they influence the process? This paper draws on 90 elite interviews conducted with Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean Basin policy-makers to answer these questions, and discusses Mexico’s increasing engagement in U.S. immigration policy-making since the 1980s.