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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Felipe Calderon Makes Migrants an Issue
 Arturo Salinas - Associated Press
| | At Friday's rally, the 43-year old former Energy Secretary, said he has relatives from his native state of Michoacan who work in the United States. |
Tijuana, Mexico - Presidential hopeful Felipe Calderon took his campaign to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, saying the United States should view Mexican migrants as people seeking a better life, not as a threat to national security.
Calderon, candidate for President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party in July's election, was a virtual unknown last summer, but he is now gaining on leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in opinion polls.
"I want to say from Mexico to the American government, to the congressmen ... Mexicans crossing the border are not terrorists," Calderon told a campaign rally in Tijuana. "Mexicans crossing the border are risking their lives for a better life."
At Friday's rally, the 43-year old former Energy Secretary, said he has relatives from his native state of Michoacan who work in the United States.
"I myself have first cousins, relatives, that are trying to build a life behind this wall," he said. "I have not been able to see them in years. And the worst is that they themselves have not been able to see their children."
Calderon urged U.S. lawmakers to approve a new guest worker program, so Mexicans could work in the United States without risking their lives.
Between Oct. 1, 2004, and Sept. 30, 2005, more than 400 people died trying to sneak over the southern U.S. border, outstripping previous annual records.
President Bush has proposed a temporary worker plan for foreigners, but it has met strong opposition in Congress.
Calderon said that if he is elected president, he will strengthen the network of Mexican consulates in the United States to give more support to the more than 10 million Mexican citizens who live there.
However, he also promised to work to improve opportunities in Mexico so its citizens will not be forced to leave their homeland.
"I dream of a Mexico where there are opportunities to find worthy and fair work," he said, "so our friends and countrymen will come and look here." |
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