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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Mexico Focused on Creating Opportunities at Home, Fox Says
 Lennox Samuels - Dallas Morning News
| | Cuban children listen to a Mexican poet, not shown, read her poems in a school in Havana, Cuba, Friday, June 2, 2006. Poets gave public readings at city parks and churches, libraries and schools, even the rum museum and a tobacco factory. (AP/Javier Galeano) |
Apodaca, Mexico - President Vicente Fox on Tuesday rejected American criticism that Mexico is not doing enough to curb immigration to the United States, saying his government is focused on creating opportunities at home that will dissuade Mexicans from leaving.
"Our No. 1 commitment and priority is to build up jobs and opportunities in Mexico," Fox said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. "We're trying to build up a patrimony for our own people to stay here in Mexico."
Fox also said he supports a U.S. Senate measure that establishes a temporary worker program and a framework for illegal immigrants to achieve permanent residence over time.
"I go for the comprehensive (bill) approved in the Senate," he said. "This includes security. We have the same demand for and commitment with security. Mexico wants a secure border ... against drug trafficking, against people trafficking. A secure border that would bring peace and tranquility for all the citizens in those border states."
He said he does not believe that President Bush's deployment of the National Guard to assist the Border Patrol amounts to "militarization" of the U.S.-Mexico border, and that he had been assured guardsmen would serve in a supporting role to the Border Patrol and would not unilaterally apprehend migrants.
But he added that he does not consider deployment of the Guard, along with proposed construction of border walls, "appropriate."
"It is not the way to treat a friend, a neighbor, or a partner," he said. "And I want to tell (the public) in the United States that we are a partner."
Mexico spends $200 billion a year on U.S. goods and services, he said during a working tour of the state of Nuevo Leon. "That's a lot of jobs," he declared.
In several appearances in Apodaca and Monterrey, Fox hit hard on the theme of creating jobs to keep Mexicans at home. In a speech to employees of Celestica, a company that manufactures microchips and circuit boards, the president said that "what Mexico wants is to have its people here."
The president cited Mexico's strong economy, saying it was growing by 5.5 percent yearly and that the growth rate for March alone stood at 7 percent. He said Mexico is "narrowing the gap" with the U.S. interest rates, inflation and even the minimum wage, which he said is $4 an hour along the border - "not far" off the U.S. rate of $5.15.
"We're on a pace for a million jobs created just this year," he said in the interview. "On the border, in maquiladoras on the Mexican side, there are 100,000 jobs available."
The government needs to better train and educate Mexicans so that they can take those jobs, he added. "The challenge is to prepare our people to meet the jobs that are available."
Acknowledging that some critics have said Mexico needs to do more to reduce the flow of migrants across the 2,000-mile border with the United States, Fox said he was constitutionally prohibited from taking action against migrant movements.
"Immigration is a very complicated issue," he said. "I take the share of responsibility that corresponds to me."
But "our constitution totally guarantees free flow of (Mexicans). Nothing I can do. It would violate the constitution."
Instead, he said, his government is working to reduce the flow into Mexico of Central Americans, many of whom are bound for the United States. He said Mexico is investing in and cooperating with Central American countries to create better economies in the area. Mexico is helping with investment, infrastructure, education and job creation in those countries, he added.
"This is what we need," he said, "not walls and the National Guard, but intelligent, provocative ideas and programs."
"I never looked at migration as a problem. I look at it as an opportunity." |
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