[2] The conference provides a forum for state- and regional-level concerns, issues, and opportunities to be discussed by those in executive charge of the border regions.
The 1981 conference in El Paso, Texas, reached an impasse over whether to support U.S. President Ronald Reagan's proposed immigration reforms, which would grant amnesty to illegal aliens but require a 90 percent reduction in the number of undocumented Mexican workers entering the U.S. each year.
[6] The conference unanimously endorsed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993,[1] but not before some 200 demonstrators protested outside the Monterrey, Nuevo León, for better living conditions.
[4] A flurry of activity related to the conference took place in 2010, due to the passage of the Arizona SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law.
[8] The governors of the six Mexican states belonging to the conference vowed to boycott it in protest of the law, saying SB 1070 is "based on ethnic and cultural prejudice contrary to fundamental rights," and Brewer said in response that she was canceling the gathering.