NEWS & PRESS

Poet takes lead on U.S.-Mexico issues

By Elliot Blair Smithy
USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY -- As an obscure poet, Juan Hernandez
                  distinguished himself with a pointed beard and handlebar
                  moustache that gave him the appearance of a member of czarist
                  Russia's royal court.
                  Now, lifted from obscurity by Mexican President Vicente Fox,
                  Hernandez, 45, leads a high-profile drive here to support
                  migrants who live and work in the USA. ''Mexico knows where it
                  wants to go even more clearly than the United States knows
                  where it wants to go,'' he says.
                  Hernandez's arguments on behalf of migrants are among the key
                  issues as U.S. and Mexican government negotiators sit down to
                  discuss the countries' brittle-but-dynamic border. Officials
                  convened Wednesday for two days of meetings in San Antonio to
                  consider ways to improve border security. They reconvene in
                  Washington on Friday to discuss potential changes in U.S.
                  immigration law that would benefit Mexicans working in the USA.

                 These questions have taken on more urgency in the aftermath of
                  the deaths of 14 Mexican immigrants last month as they
                  wandered for days in Arizona's scorching Sonora Desert.
                  The talks were engineered in February by U.S. Secretary of
                  State Colin Powell and Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge
                  Castaneda, although no Cabinet-level officials -- including
                  Hernandez -- are participating in these initial discussions.
                  Hernandez joined Fox's quest for the presidency five years ago
                  and helped direct the campaign to its historic victory over
                  the country's longtime ruling party last July.
                  He has been turning up regularly on both sides of the border
                  to promote the administration's emerging policies:
                  * Hernandez was among the first Mexican officials to visit the
                  hospital bedsides of 12 immigrants who survived last month's
                  ordeal in the Arizona desert. ''That was very impressive,''
                  Arizona Gov. Jane Hull says. ''He is secure enough in what
                  he's doing that he has the ability not to point fingers of
                  blame at Arizona or the United States but rather to say
                  (border safety) is something we need to work on.''

* He has been seen in Texas defending Mexican bus operators who carry immigrants to the USA and often are subject to onerous regulations on both sides of the border.

* A few weeks ago, Hernandez visited a U.S. credit union in North Carolina on a tour to extend banking privileges to undocumented Mexicans and to drive down wire-transfer fees for Mexicans sending money back to their families.

* Before that, he was in Santa Ana, Calif., to dedicate the first of what Mexico envisions as several trade-development offices throughout the USA. Today, he is one of Fox's closest advisers and the country's first migratory affairs chief. He is writing a book on migrants he tentatively calls Heroes.

                  His constituency, once viewed by most Mexicans as economic
                  refugees, is an emerging power here. Migrant workers sent $4
                  billion to Mexico in the first three months of this year,
                  double the amount in the same period a year ago.
                  The son of an American mother and Mexican father, Hernandez
                  supports expanding the number of U.S. guest-worker visas
                  available for Mexicans and offering amnesty to the estimated
                  3.5 million Mexicans who live illegally in the USA. He also is
                  the architect of a drive for a migrants-rights office in the
                  Mexican attorney general's office to prosecute offenders on
                  both sides of the border.
                  A Ph.D. in literature who has held faculty positions at
                  several American universities, Hernandez supports more
                  cross-border education.
                  He'd also like to enfranchise Mexicans in the USA with the
                  right to vote via absentee ballot, possibly by Internet. For
                  now, they cannot vote without returning home.
                  ''The vote must promote democracy in Mexico, but it shouldn't
                  be seen as a measure by which Mexicans should stop being
                  active in the United States,'' Hernandez says.
                  U.S. officials cautiously embrace Hernandez's objectives but
                  don't always agree on the details. Last month, when Hernandez
                  appeared to endorse issuing a so-called ''survival kit'' to
                  help Mexican migrants safely cross the border into the USA,
                  U.S. officials criticized the proposal and demanded an
                  explanation. Hernandez quickly backed down.
                  Hernandez spends at least a day a week in the USA promoting
                  immigrants' rights and opportunities. Nevertheless, he says
                  his success ultimately will be measured by what he does to
                  improve the lot of Mexicans tempted by jobs in the USA.
                  ''If I do nothing to bring (employment) to migrant-sending
                  areas in the next five to six years, you can say I've done
                  very little at all,'' Hernandez says. ''We must create
                  opportunities at home.''