811.504 Mexico/12–744
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by Mr. William G. MacLean of the Division of Mexican Affairs
Mr. O’Donoghue telephoned at 4 p.m. on December 9 to report that he had been called to the Mexican Foreign Office at noon in regard to the Mexican request that Mexican illegal entrants into the United States picked up by our Immigration and Naturalization Service along the western part of the border be returned through Texas ports rather than through Mexicali and Tijuana. (See memorandum of telephone conversation of December 7, 194441 and an exchange of notes of the same date with the Mexican Embassy in Washington42).
The Mexican Foreign Office had been informed of this Government’s suggestion that arrangements could be made to recruit properly qualified agricultural workers in Lower California to take care of the problem set forth in the Mexican note under reference. Mr. O’Donoghue said the Mexican Government had informed him that it appreciated the offer but could not accept it because the contracting of workers near the border would immediately result in a wide-spread movement of workers to the border in the hopes of being recruited and that this movement would cause many additional problems.
Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Mexican Foreign Office asked this Government to deliver these illegal entrants in Nogales if it was not possible to deliver them to Texas ports. He said that residents of Lower California could be returned there but that all others, from the mainland of Mexico, should be delivered at Nogales. Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Mexican Government considered this a very urgent problem and would like to have a reply by Monday. I said that I would take up the matter with the Acting Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service43 and get as quick a reply as possible and that I hoped to be able to communicate that reply to Mr. O’Donoghue on December 11.