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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2006 
Mexico Predicts Immigration Accord 'Sooner Or Later,' Calls Border Wall 'Useless'
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | No one knows how much the border fence will cost, but U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law on Wednesday a bill from Congress making a US$1.2 billion down payment on it. |
President Vicente Fox's spokesman criticized the U.S. border fence proposal this week, and predicted the two countries would eventually reach an immigration accord.
The comments came after the Mexican government sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing a U.S. Senate vote authorizing 1,125 kilometers (700 miles) of new fencing along the border.
The bill must still be signed into law by President George W. Bush. Mexico is lobbying the U.S. leader to veto it.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday the U.S. was talking to Mexico about the issue of immigration, but he did not give details.
Mexican presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said his country still wants a comprehensive immigration reform that would allow more people to migrate to the United States legally.
“The wall will be useless and unworkable,” Aguilar told reporters.
He said the border fence would affect the environment and ecology, and even the reproduction of some species.
But he said Mexico had no plans to file the kind of environmental lawsuit that was used to temporarily block another big U.S. border project, the lining of the All-American Canal, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The irrigation canal delivers Colorado River water to farms in California's Imperial Valley.
A 37-kilometer (23-mile) section of the canal has leaked river water into a groundwater aquifer shared with Mexico for decades, and plaintiffs in the case claimed that farmers and wildlife south of the border now depend on the seepage.
U.S. authorities want to line the earthen structure with concrete to save water. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August ordered work on the canal to stop while an appeal is heard in a lawsuit aimed at blocking the project.
“For the moment, a measure like the one used in the case of the All-American Canal is not being contemplated,” Aguilar said.
Later Tuesday, all eight parties in Mexico's Congress joined forces to sign an accord exhorting the federal government to use all the diplomatic means at its disposal to try and stop the construction of the fences.
Mexican Government Says Border Fence Probably Won't Be Built
Associated Press
The spokesman for President Vicente Fox said on Wednesday that the United States will probably not build 1,125 kilometers (700 miles) of new fencing along the border that divides the two nations.
Spokesman Ruben Aguilar said the U.S. Congress hasn't approved funding for the US$1.2 billion (euro950 million) project.
“There is no money to build it, so it won't be built,” Aguilar told reporters. “Even though the wall was approved, there is no funding.”
No one knows how much the border fence will cost, but U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law on Wednesday a bill from Congress making a US$1.2 billion (euro950 million) down payment on it. A 14-mile (23-kilometer) segment of fence under construction in San Diego is costing $126.5 million (euro100 million).
On Monday, the Mexican government sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing last week's U.S. Senate vote to authorize the new fencing as part of congressional efforts to combat illegal immigration.
And on Tuesday, all eight parties in Mexico's Congress joined forces to exhort Fox to use all the diplomatic means at his disposal to try to stop the construction of the fences.
The bill must still be signed into law by President George W. Bush. Mexico is lobbying Bush to veto it.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday the U.S. was talking to Mexico about the issue of immigration, but he did not give details.
Aguilar said on Tuesday his country still wants a comprehensive immigration reform that would allow more people to migrate to the United States legally.
“The wall will be useless and unworkable,” Aguilar said, adding that it would affect the environment, including the reproduction of some species. |
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