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Thursday, July 29, 2010
Richardson and Schwarzenegger to Co-Host Border Governors Conference in Santa Fe
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger officially announced yesterday that they will co-host an interim meeting of the Border Governors Conference on September 19-20th in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The agenda for the one-and-a-half day meeting will focus on the key issues of border security, economic development and energy. The meeting will bridge the gap between last year’s conference in Nuevo Leon and next year’s meeting in Baja California, as this year’s conference in Arizona was cancelled by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
“We strongly believe in the work of the Border Governors Conference and consider it vital to continue the progress made by the Conference,” stated Governors Richardson and Schwarzenegger in a joint invitation to the members of the Border Governors Conference. “As border governors, we see the impact of border issues like security, economic development, and energy issues every day. While we may not always agree on every issue, as leaders of the U.S./Mexico border region we must maintain a strong dialogue to help assure cooperation along the border, resolve regional border issues, and make sure bi-national issues are given proper attention by our federal governments.”
The cost for the meeting will be split between Governors Richardson and Schwarzenegger with the bulk of the monetary support coming from private sponsors.
A joint statement released by Governors Richardson and Schwarzenegger said that every member of the Border Governors Conference is invited to the interim meeting, including the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, as well as the U.S. states of Arizona and Texas. The two Governors are also inviting senior representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, Health and Human Services, and Department of Commerce and their Mexican counterparts. The U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and Mexican Ambassador to the United States are also formally invited to the meeting.
The ten Border States represent a joint economy that ranks third in the world. The Border Governors Conference consists of six Mexican and four U.S. Border states. This long-standing conference allows vital regional and state to state dialogue. With 42 different ports of entry, the region also represents one of the most dynamic trade and border crossing regions in the world.
July 29, 2010 at 10:34 AM in Border Issues, Gov. Bill Richardson, Santa Fe | Permalink
Comments
One of the things I wish were possible in the context of a conference that could bring attention to international cross-border concerns to Washington, is the hemispheric big picture.
What has caused this exodus to occur goes back decades and over a century or so. Big business interests that invest in the billions and over time, in the trillions, have caused this. This is historically, much like the "clearances" of the 16th and 17th century in the British Isles which sent a lot of people to the Americas.
Subsistence farming, an indigenous community practice going back into millennia, is not as profit-centric as large scale agribusiness. To make way for large scale investments many indigenous people are in one way or another, pushed off land and out of home communities. When they organize against this, there is violence. Over the decades hundreds of thousands have been killed - and hundreds of thousands have fled north.
One is tempted to think things have calmed down, for instance, since the civil war in Guatemala ended in 1996. However just recently there has been news about labor organizers killed there.
From a multinational perspective, this general condition is a win-win. Create incentives that moves land towards maximum profit through mass marketing to American consumers, and in the process create lower labor costs as displaced workers enter the workforce. Neat.
Keep people divided over immigration as if border crossers really had a choice. Again, neat. Nobody pays attention to who is causing this.
Only the President and Congress can really address the overall causes of this hemispheric issue. NAFTA and other agreements are part of it, but it goes beyond that even. What is needed is sustained attention to this international state of affairs. It could take years if not decades to reverse the trend.
Posted by: Stuart Heady | Jul 29, 2010 4:01:54 PM
