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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2007 
Mexico to Lobby for Immigration Reform
 Julie Watson - Associated Press
| | Migrants retreat to Mexico during a failed attempt to illegally enter the US by floating down the New River, considered the nation's most polluted waterway, in Calexico, California. The US government is holding growing numbers of illegal immigrants in jails far from their lawyers and family, and even sometimes in tents, where their rights are not respected, civil liberties groups say. (AFP/David McNew) |
Mexico plans to begin an aggressive lobbying effort in the United States to secure an immigration reform agreement, the country's new ambassador in Washington said Tuesday.
Mexican consulates in the United States will talk with state and federal lawmakers, business chambers, civic organizations and "all actors of U.S. society" who support comprehensive immigration reform, Arturo Sarukhan said.
"There are few matters so important to the future of this country," Sarukhan told reporters in Mexico City before departing for Washington.
The ambassador said Mexico has a brief window to convince Washington to approve immigration reforms before campaigning begins for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
"We are going to put into place the same kind of diplomatic and lobbying effort that we did in the early 1990s when NAFTA was being decided," said Sarukhan, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mexico wants Washington to usher in reforms to create a guest worker program, provide a legal path for millions of Mexicans living in the United States and allow for the reunification of families split by immigration laws.
President Bush supports giving Mexican migrants temporary work visas he has failed to win support in Congress.
During his six-year term, former President Vicente Fox campaigned unsuccessfully for an expansion of temporary U.S. work visas, frustrating many Mexicans.
Sarukhan said the government's lobbying effort would not overshadow its promise to speak out to protect the rights of Mexicans living in the United States, which he said "forms the backbone of our diplomacy in the U.S." |
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