Page 6-Friday, June 5, 1981-The Michigan Daily

Mexicans

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'receptive' to
U.S. job plan

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WASHINGTON (AP)-The Mexican
government is receptive to a "guest
worker" program that would let
Mexicans seek temporary jobs in the
United States, but would like to in-
crease ten-fold the proposed limit of
50,000 per year, it was learned yester-
day.
The experimental program is one op-
tion suggested by the President's Task
Force on Immigration and Refugee
Policy, according to a final draft of its
report obtained by The Associated
Press Radio Network.
The guest-worker program and other
immigration issues are expected to be
major topics of discussion when
President Reagan meets with Mexican
President Jose Lopez Portillo in
Washington next week.
The task force suggested a two-year
experiment allowing Mexicans to take
jobs that are difficult to fill from the
American labor force and have been
cleared by state officials.
In Mexico City, a top official who
spoke about the issue on condition that
he not be named said his government
likes the idea, but believes the limit on
the special work visas should be expan-
ded to at least 500,000 or possibly as
much as 1,000,000.
Nonetheless, "We are willing to listen
to a proposal that is serious and well-

intended toward the Mexican gover-
nment" and provides some assurance
against abuse of the workers, he said.
In addition to the guest-worker
program, the task force recommends
doubling the number of legal Mexican
immigrants allowed to seek permanent
residence in the United States each
year. The ceiling now is 20,000. The
same increase would apply to Canada,
and if either country failed to use all its
allotted visas, they could be used by the
other. For example, if only 10,000
Canadians chose to enter the U.S., as
many as 70,000 Mexicans could.
The report says this policy would
recognize "our unique relationship with
our neighbors," and would also ease the
pressure for illegal immigration from
Mexico. Some Mexican nationals have
been waiting as long as nine years to be
legally reunited with relatives in the
United States, according to im-
migration records.
The task force report also suggests as
one option for the President to grant
permanent, legal status to 1.2 million
illegal aliens who were in the United
States prior to Jan. 1, 1980, and who can
prove they lived here for five con-
secutive years. In addition, the report
suggests granting another 1 million
illegal aliens temporary worker status.

Argentinians still
worry about Peron

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)-
To her supporters, she is the people's
guiding light and a political prisoner.
To the military, she is a thief who stole
from disaster victims. Whatever her
true nature, Isabel Peron remains at
the center of the Argentine con-
sciousness, five years after her ouster
as president.
Peron is a prisoner at what used to be
her presidential country retreat 20
miles outside this capital. In March,
rumors spread that she was about to be
pardoned and shipped out to Panama,
where 26 years ago as a dancer at the
Happyland nightclub she met exiled
Argentine leader Juan Peron.
BUT NOTHING happened, and the
50-year-old former president remains
detained, incommunicado. In-
creasingly she is becoming a focal point
of speculation about supposed disputes
among Argentina's generals, and about
the future of Peronism, still this
nation's most powerful popular
movement.
The petite blonde Peron, who was
vice president and succeeded her
husband as president when he died in
1974, has been in detention since the
military toppled her in a coup in March
1976.
Three months ago she was sentenced
to eight years in prison for transferring
funds from a Peronist charity-money
destined for flood victims in the in-
terior-to her personal account.
THE EX-PRESIDENT would have
been eligible for parole this fall, when

her time in detention would have
equaled two-thirds of the eight-year
sentence. But in April her acquittal on
another charge-that she misused
presidential funds--was thrown out on
appeal, and she now faces another trial
and possibly a further 10-year sentence.
"These proceedings and their in-
justice have turned her into a glorious
torch that will illuminate the cause of
the people. She is the last resort for the
citizens' dignity," said the Peronist
party and its labor union allies in a
recent statement.
Deolindo Bittel, vice president of the
party Peron nominally heads, said the
government reopened the presidential
funds case in an effort "to break
Isabel's iron will to remain loyal to her
principles and her people."
"The arguments of her lawyers will
not even be listened to, because the ob-
ject is to render her politically un-
viable," he said.
The military government, which con-
tends the proceedings are completely in
the hands of the judiciary, says a par-
don is not being considered.
The political future of Peron-a
woman who a few years ago reportedly
expressed a desire to join a convent in
Spain-remains a matter of conjecture.
She has declined to smuggle out
messages through the few visitors she
is allowed at her home-prison. But
some of them say, without elaboration,
she "wants to play her role." Others
say she might take up residence in
Panama if freed.

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