Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, Dec. 23, 2002

The White House and Mexican government insist that negotiations on the matter are informal and still in the preliminary stages.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchanan told the Washington Post that the issue is being explored only at a "technical level" at this point, and the administration has not decided to move forward with formal negotiations.

"A totalization agreement with Mexico would have significant implications," she said.

And Miguel Monterrubio, a spokesman for the Mexican embassy, told the Post that several meetings have taken place between the Social Security Administration and its Mexican counterpart since November 2001, but he too called them informal.

But a Social Security Administration memo obtained by the Post reveals that the agreement "is expected to move forward at an accelerated pace," with the backing of both governments, and could be in effect as early as October.

According to the Post, the agreement could create 37,000 new claims from Mexicans who had worked in the United States legally and paid Social Security taxes but have been unable to claim their checks, according to a memo by Ted Girdner, the Social Security Administration's assistant associate commissioner for international operations.

In addition to the flurry of new claims, an additional 13,000 Mexicans entitled to benefits but cut off by provisions of a 1996 immigration reform law could also begin receiving their checks.

In the 1996 law, Congress decreed that foreigners not legally residing in the United States could no longer claim benefits, unless their home countries were subject to a treaty. Those beneficiaries alone were owed nearly $50 million in 1998, according to a Mexican government document.

U.S. and Mexican government statistics indicate that the agreement could cost the U.S. $720 million a year within five years of its going into effect, the Post reported adding that one independent estimate put the total at $1 billion a year -- a large sum, but hardly comparable to the $372 billion in Social Security benefits being paid to 46.4 million recipients.

The Post says Latino lobbyists close to the Fox administration claim that Mexico’s President Vicente Fox has been urging President Bush to sign a Social Security agreement with Mexico as something of a consolation prize to make up for the failure of Bush to pursue promised immigration reforms.

Concern is rising in Congress, and among some White House economic aides that any agreement on Social Security could add a new burden to the benefits system, just as the baby boom generation is preparing to retire.

House Ways and Means Committee staff members met Friday with Social Security officials to arrive at the projected costs for such an agreement.

"We are concerned about the sheer magnitude of the agreement," a House Republican aide who is an expert on Social Security told the Post.

About 94,000 beneficiaries living abroad have been brought into the system by the 20 already existing international agreements. A Mexican agreement alone could bring in 162,000 in the first five years.

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