US embassy cable - 05GUATEMALA888

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 GUATEMALA 000888 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR ASSISTANT SECRETARY NORIEGA FROM THE AMBASSADOR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/05/2015 
TAGS: PREL, SMIG, ELAB, PHUM, EAGR, EAID, EFIN, CVIS, KPAO, GT 
SUBJECT:  IMMIGRATION IN U.S.-GUATEMALAN RELATIONS: 
MINUTEMEN ARE POISONING THE WELL 
 
REF: 2004 GUATEMALA 02165 
 
Classified By: AMB JOHN R. HAMILTON, EMBASSY GUATEMALA. 
REASON: 1.4 (A) AND (B) 
 
1.     This is an action request:  See paras 8 and 9. 
 
2.  (C) Summary:   Supported by civil society and the 
mainstream media, the Guatemalan community in the U.S. has 
from the outset of the Berger administration brought acute 
pressure on the Government of Guatemala to be assertive with 
us on the community's behalf.  For its part, and largely 
because it has been seeking the impossible (e.g., Temporary 
Protected Status or TPS), the Berger government is 
increasingly frustrated by its lack of success.  Against this 
backdrop, and because it is deeply humiliating to 
Guatemalans, the Minutemen phenomenon in Arizona is making 
management of this issue immensely difficult.  In finally 
agreeing to vote with us on the Cuba resolution at Geneva, 
for example, Berger and FM Briz implied that their 
willingness to support us on issues like this in the future 
will depend on getting something from us - even if it is a 
political statement that just recognizes how important the 
subject is - on immigration.  I have some ideas for 
consideration in paras 8 and 9.  End Summary. 
 
3. (C) Immigration has been on the Berger government's agenda 
with us from day one.  It is partly a problem that Berger 
himself exacerbated, by taking his campaign for the 
presidency to the Guatemalan community in the U.S. 
(Guatemalans residing abroad cannot vote, but Berger's 
thinking was that they would influence votes back home and he 
was probably right.)  He has raised the issue repeatedly with 
me and has sought to raise it directly with the President - 
most prominently in a letter of last August that was answered 
by an instruction to me to give him an oral response. 
Feeling that he had been thwarted by the Embassy, the 
Department and NSC from making his case to the President, 
Berger raised the subject with Governor Bush in a visit to 
Florida in which he publicly endorsed Miami's candidacy to be 
the FTAA secretariat.  He almost certainly would have raised 
it with Secretary Rumsfeld here March 24 had I not persuaded 
him in advance that it would be inappropriate to venture so 
far outside DOD's area of responsibilities. 
 
4. (C) And now comes the Minutemen phenomenon.  It is almost 
impossible to overstate the damage it is doing.   The media 
has been saturated with the subject.  Guatemalans feel deeply 
humiliated by what they have been seeing on TV and hearing on 
the radio.  Even in the midst of the intense coverage given 
to the Pope's death and funeral, the leading Guatemalan 
newspapers have editorialized in agonized, offended tones. 
Op-ed writers of left, right and center are finding in our 
inability to put a stop to the "hunting" of their 
co-nationals echoes of U.S. "imperial behavior" of an era 
long past.  No amount of publicity that we might arrange of 
our support for democracy, human rights, poverty reduction 
and a dozen other worthy causes we work here day in and day 
out has punch enough to offset the injury.  Guatemalans did 
note that both the President and the Secretary have 
disassociated the USG from the Minutemen, but the positive 
effect has faded as the coverage has continued undiminished. 
 
5. (C) Another element in this mix was the long struggle to 
get adequate IPR legislation (on data protection) restored 
and the disruptive protests that the left has organized 
against CAFTA.    Despite what we think is its progressive 
record on social issues, the Berger government feels 
vulnerable to the left's persistent harping that it is 
governing for the benefit of the rich - domestic and foreign 
(i.e., U.S. transnationals). 
 
6. (C) It thus became difficult to keep government officials 
on the subject when, even as  the smell of tear gas was still 
in the air and coverage of the Minutemen was grabbing the 
public's attention, I began to demarche the government on the 
Cuba resolution.  I got somewhat the same reaction when I 
last raised Congressional ratification of the Article 98 
agreement signed last November.  On Cuba, and under 
instructions from Berger, Briz said his government feared 
adding more fuel to the fire of its conflict with the 
domestic left, especially given the appearance of U.S. 
indifference to Guatemalan concerns.  He raised three issues: 
drugs, military modernization and immigration.  My review of 
what we've done for the Guatemalans lately in the first two 
areas succeeded more or less in neutralizing them. 
 
7. (C) But it is immigration that bothers the government most 
and it was this subject to which Briz repeatedly returned, 
pleading that we give the government "something" to help it 
manage this issue.  Acknowledging that the President's 
statements on immigration reform at Crawford March 23 were 
very positive, Briz said no one in Guatemala, however,  puts 
those statements into anything but a U.S.-Mexican context. 
Briz also lamented (for the umpteenth time) that Guatemala 
feels aggrieved that El Salvador and Honduras - but not 
Guatemala - have TPS.  I walked Briz yet again through the 
reasons why TPS for Guatemala could not be justified, which 
was useful because it led him to comment that even a purely 
political U.S. statement would be of great help - provided 
that it came from a high-level Washington official and made 
specific mention of Guatemala.  In finally agreeing to vote 
yes on the Cuba resolution, Briz reiterated his plea for a 
public statement on immigration.  And in the typically 
elliptical way that officials on lighter side of an 
asymmetrical relationship have of expressing themselves, he 
intimated that his ability to support us on issues like this 
in the future would depend on how responsive we can be to 
their concerns on immigration. 
 
8.(C) Comment and action request: I do not think it is wise 
to let this issue continue to fester and, actually, in 
seeking a public statement, Guatemala is not asking for all 
that much.   It seems to me that we could find an occasion to 
make a public statement of the sort Briz is seeking.   One 
venue would be when he visits Washington - in about three 
weeks time - and has a seventh floor appointment. 
 
9. (C) There are two other possibilities:  A)  We understand 
that the inter-agency group on remittances is about to broach 
its interest in launching a pilot program on remittances with 
the Guatemalan Government.  This will probably be raised by 
Treasury U/S Taylor directly with Minister of Finance Bonilla 
at the World Bank/Fund Governors' meeting in Okinawa,Japan, 
but we could also stage a public rollout when Briz goes to 
Washington.  B)  Last year DOL and USDA signed letters of 
agreement with the Government of Mexico to improve protection 
of Mexican migrant workers in the U.S. via a joint outreach 
program with the Mexican embassy and its consulates.  At the 
time (ref), we recommended looking at the possibility of like 
agreements with Guatemala and the rest of Central America. 
We repeat that suggestion now. 
 
HAMILTON