Two years ago the Bush Administration negotiated an agreement with the Mexican government promising that it would count the period that Mexicans now residing legally in the U.S. spent working illegally in the country. The illegal period of employment would count towards any future social service or pension benefits.

The agreement does not yet have the force of law and has not been signed by the parties. It was drawn up in 2004, but was not made public since it was never sent to Congress for debate. The text of the agreement was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request made by The Retired Enlisted Association Senior Citizens League (TREA), a group that is actively engaged in discussing issues related to the future of Social Security. TREA spokesman Brad Phillips said that the agreement has confirmed the group's worst fears.

The document abounds with legal terminology, making it difficult for the layman to understand. Nevertheless, the main idea is simple: the government will assume the responsibility of paying Social Security pensions to former undocumented immigrants who have become permanent residents or citizens for the entire time that they worked in the country illegally. The government will take on this responsibility at a time when the future of the Social Security trust fund is endangered by the enormous burden of retiring baby boomers.

"If you give access to this trust fund to people who worked in this country illegally, then the trust fund will only go bankrupt sooner," said Phillips. "After this agreement is announced, opponents of granting various benefits to undocumented immigrants will have an excellent bargaining chip."

Social Security Administration spokesman Mark Lassiter claimed that in its current form the agreement between Washington and Mexico has no effect on prevailing law, which does not stipulate that people can receive Social Security pensions calculated to cover time spent working illegally.

"You have to be in the U.S. legally to receive a Social Security pension," said Lassiter, adding that the Social Security Protection Act, signed in 2004, expressly prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving a pension.

Phillips, however, pointed out that there is a provision in the 2004 law that Lassiter did not address. This provision states that if an undocumented immigrant becomes a legal permanent resident as a result of amnesty or a law like the one President Bush has unsuccessfully tried to push through Congress, then this person's pension will be calculated according to the entire duration of his/her employment in the United States.

The agreement has not yet become law because it has not been signed by President Bush or sent to Congress for ratification. As soon as the president does send it to Congress, legislators will have 60 days to review it and render a decision. If they do not bring it to a vote, the bill will automatically become law.

History shows that Congress has not voted down any of the 21 international agreements concerning dual taxation, which are known as totalization agreements. Such agreements – and the agreement with Mexico is one of them – state that foreign workers are not subject to dual taxation. Otherwise, foreign workers would pay taxes to the country whose passport they hold and to the second country where they work. In order to receive a Social Security pension in the United States, workers must have been employed for 10 years. Most of these agreements were concluded with European governments, although not one of them carries the enormous financial repercussions that an agreement with Mexico would carry.

A number of legislators believe that President Bush did not send the agreement to Congress for review for fear that it would be debated within the larger context of the controversy surrounding the future of Social Security and that it would therefore be doomed.

Lassiter stated that this agreement, which has caused concern among critics of illegal immigration, has not yet been reviewed by the State Department because the Mexican government has still not drawn up its own legislation on illegal immigration. Washington has sent the Mexican government an official request for position statements from local legislators, but has not yet received a response.

"Everything is at a standstill for now," noted Lassiter.

Rafael Laveaga, a staff member at the Mexican embassy in Washington, said that the Mexican Congress must ratify the agreement, but that the process has not yet reached this stage.

In 2003, the investigatory arm of the Congressional Budget Office published a report stating that data on illegal immigration provided by the Mexican government are unreliable, so it is difficult to determine the exact number of undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States, and even more difficult to say what percentage of this group can count on obtaining a legal status.

Staffers at the Budget Office dispute the preliminary figure arrived at by specialists at the Social Security Administration that puts the cost of pensions for former undocumented immigrants at $105 million over the first five years that the law is in effect.