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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Fox in Tijuana: 'Walls are not the Solution'
 Sandra Dibble - SD Union-Tribune
| | In a Tijuana speech yesterday, Mexican President Vicente Fox opposed the U.S. sending the National Guard to the border. (Peggy Peattie/Union-Tribune) |
Tijuana – They were just miles away but worlds apart, two presidents grappling with the thorny issue of illegal immigration from opposite sides of the fence.
As President Bush swung through southern Arizona yesterday, Mexican President Vicente Fox traveled to his country's northern border, speaking out against U.S. proposals for strict immigration enforcement.
“Walls are not the solution,” Fox said after sharing lunch with a group of factory workers in Tijuana. “And neither is the National Guard.”
Fox took advantage of his visit to two of Mexico's largest border cities – Tijuana and Mexicali – to signal his opposition to President Bush's plans to send 6,000 U.S. National Guard troops to help secure the border with Mexico. In his strongest criticism yet, Fox denounced a proposal for double-and triple-layered fencing along 370 miles of the border, which was approved Wednesday by the U.S. Senate.
In recent days, Fox has been harshly criticized in Mexico for not speaking out about the plan to send the National Guard to the border, a move that Bush proposed Monday. Mexican media have portrayed Fox's efforts to influence U.S. immigration reform as a failure, and Mexico's leftist candidate for president on Wednesday accused Fox of a tepid response to the military deployment.
“He has not the slightest intention of making an energetic protest,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a campaign stop in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. “He is acting like a puppet, a plaything of foreign governments.”
Fox and his foreign minister agreed late Wednesday to send a diplomatic note expressing the Mexican government's concern about a deployment of the National Guard.
As his office prepared to message Washington, D.C., yesterday, Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbéz insisted “there is no chilling nor heating up” of the relationship between Mexico and the United States.
The Fox government simply wants to make it “very clear that the National Guard should not be used for matters of apprehension or detention, not only of our countrymen but of any nationality that is crossing the border,” he said.
The Mexican president broached the topic of U.S. immigration policy at least twice during his visit to Baja California. His first stop of the day was Mexicali, just 50 miles west of Yuma, Ariz., where President Bush toured the border and expressed his support for additional fencing to slow the rising tide of illegal immigration.
Fox voiced his objections about the border fence during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of a truck plant, Kenworth de Mexico.
He praised the region's thriving commerce, and said fences were counterproductive to the interests of both countries.
“The construction of barriers at the border does not offer an effective response for a relationship between friends, neighbors and partners,” Fox said.
Later, in Tijuana, when he met with workers at the electronics maquiladora Plamex, Fox spoke directly – and sternly – to the American public.
“To those in front – I am referring to the United States – I want to tell you to be very respectful of Mexico, to be very respectful of the dignity of Mexicans, to not see them as lesser, and to not discriminate against nor violate the human rights of our dear countrymen in the United States,” he said.
Fox has consistently pushed for a guest worker program, and has urged the United States to consider amnesty for most of the estimated 11 million to 12 million immigrants living illegally in the country.
The legislation being considered by the Senate includes a measure to heighten control over the borders, but also creates a guest worker program and offers a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.
Senate leaders say they hope for passage of the controversial legislation before the Memorial Day weekend. It then would have to be reconciled with an enforcement-heavy bill that the House of Representatives approved in December.
As the Senate prepares to vote, Fox plans to travel to California, Washington state and Utah.
Fox is scheduled to speak to a joint session of the state Legislature on Thursday in Sacramento, before attending a reception and dinner hosted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Mexican president will then fly to Los Angeles on May 26 for a private meeting with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa before returning to Mexico.
Schwarzenegger's office said his meeting with Fox would focus on shared economic goals such as increasing tourism and trade. California is Mexico's second-largest trading partner after Texas, with California exports to Mexico totaling $18 billion last year.
“I think the key thing is not to make the immigration issue overshadow everything else. There are other serious issues that we have to talk about,” Gov. Schwarzenegger said Wednesday in Sacramento. “We can all benefit by the more we work together.”
Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com |
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