811.504 Mexico/1–3146
The Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith) to the Secretary of
State
restricted
No. 28,212
Mexico, D.F., January 31, 1946.
[Received
February 7.]
Sir: Reference is made to my Despatch No.
28,200 of January 29, 194683 … regarding illegal entrants into the United
States.
I now have the honor to inform the Department that at my request Mr.
O’Donoghue84 of the Embassy staff this morning
called on Dr. Manuel Tello, the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and
left with him an informal memorandum dated January 29, 1946, a copy of
which is attached hereto.83 Mr. O’Donoghue discussed the question of these
illegal entrants into the United States with Dr. Tello and there is
attached a copy of a memorandum reporting this conversation.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure]
Memorandum of Conversation, by the First
Secretary of Embassy (O’Donoghue)
[Mexico, D.F.,] January 31,
1946.
I called at the Foreign Office this morning and left with Dr. Tello,
the Under-Secretary of Foreign Relations, the original of the
attached informal memorandum of January 29, 1946,83 regarding Mexican nationals
illegally in the United States. I told Dr. Tello that I felt sure he
would recall the conversation we had had last year at the time the
authorities of Baja California had closed the borders of that State
to Mexican deportees and voluntary returnees from the United States
unless they could prove that they had for six months prior thereto
been residents of Baja California; I said that as a result thereof
our Immigration Service had been returning a considerable number of
such individuals to Mexico through the ports of El Paso, Texas, and
Nogales, Arizona, but that even in such cases there had been
difficulty in arranging for transportation over the Mexican lines to
the interior of Mexico. I said that I recalled that some time this
month the Mexican Embassy in Washington had protested or at least
made representations to the State Department respecting the number
of these Mexicans illegally in the United States and who it was
desired should be returned to Mexico. I told Dr. Tello that there
were more than 10,000 such Mexicans now estimated to be in the
Imperial Valley in California where they were creating quite a civic
problem; that the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service was doing what it
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could to return these individuals to Mexico and at the moment was
having some success inasmuch as the authorities of Baja California
had requested up to 3,500 such migratory workers for the cotton
picking season. I added that this was all very well at the moment
but that when this cotton picking season was over most probably Baja
California would once again close its borders and refuse to permit
the return of Mexicans illegally in the United States.
I said to Dr. Tello that we had recently received an exhaustive
report in regard to this question and that it appears there is
practically no Mexican immigration patrol on the Mexican side of the
border for hundreds of miles in the area of Baja California; that it
is obviously impossible for the United States Immigration Patrols to
carry out this control by itself. I said I did not know what the
solution of the problem might be but that it had occurred to me that
if the President of Mexico should authorize the recruiting of
agricultural labor for 1946, it might be possible to set up a
recruiting center near, but not too near, the border where many of
these Mexicans now illegally in the United States might be brought
for contracting and permitted to enter the United States under
perfectly legal conditions.
Dr. Tello said that he has been for some time concerned over the
existing condition and that as long as I had brought these facts now
to his attention he would talk with the Foreign Minister and also
discuss the problem with the Ministry of Gobernación which is
responsible for the patrols.
I have no hope that anything constructive will result from this
conversation but I do feel that it gives us a little protection in
view of the requests which the Mexican Embassy in Washington will
most probably continue to make for the return of these aliens
illegally in the United States.
