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News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005
Mexican Offical Expresses Hope Schwarzenegger Won't Trip Up Again Wire services
| "Yesterday was a total screw-up in the words I used. Because instead of closing, I meant securing. I think maybe my English, I need to go back to school and study a little bit." -Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger | Mexico City - Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said Thursday he hopes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won't trip over his English again, a day after the the governor apologized for suggesting the state should close its border with Mexico. Schwarzenegger blamed the Tuesday remark on his faulty command of English - his second language - and said he had intended to say the border should be secured.
"We hope that he won't be tripped up by his English again, and that this time around he has used the right English," Derbez told reporters in Mexico City, noting that the original comments "were wrong, an error and something we're not going to accept."
Schwarzenegger was referring to illegal immigration when he made the remark while speaking to newspaper editors and publishers Tuesday.
"Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and in the United States," he said. "Because I think it is just unfair to have all those people coming across, have the borders open the way it is, and have this kind of lax situation."
But on Wednesday, he said "Yesterday was a total screw-up in the words I used. Because instead of closing, I meant securing. I think maybe my English, I need to go back to school and study a little bit."
"We have a terrific relationship with Mexico," Schwarzenegger said. "I filmed four movies in Mexico, I love to go on vacation to Mexico. We have a great trade agreement with Mexico." |
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