Thread: Fox: Mexico aims to create opportunities

Fox: Mexico aims to create opportunities

He rejects criticism from U.S., says goal is to keep citizens home

12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 7, 2006

By LENNOX SAMUELS / The Dallas Morning News

APODACA, Mexico – President Vicente Fox on Tuesday rejected American criticism that Mexico is not doing enough to curb immigration to the U.S., 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," Mr. 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."

Mr. 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 Mr. Fox said 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, Mr. Fox said during a working tour of the state of Nuevo León. "That's a lot of jobs," he said.

In several appearances in Apodaca and Monterrey, Mr. 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."

Mr. Fox cited Mexico's economy, saying that it was growing by 5.5 percent yearly and that the growth rate for March stood at 7 percent. He said Mexico is "narrowing the gap" with U.S. interest rates, inflation and 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 they can take those jobs, he said. "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 U.S., Mr. Fox said he was constitutionally prohibited from taking action against migrant movements.

"Imigration 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 U.S. 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 said.

"This is what we need," Mr. Fox 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."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 565e4.html

"I never looked at migration as a problem. I look at it as an opportunity."

This is the first honest thing Vicente Fox has ever said.

Yeah, Mexico's migrants are a twenty billion dollar opportunity for Mexico and all Mexico has to do to make that much money is do nothing. Wow what an investment. And your incentive Mr. Fox for stopping this is...anyone...anyone...hello?

I have your back but, I think we are outnumbered.

Trouble

"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."

Sending 22 million illegals to suck a country dry and advocating reconquista is no way to treat a neighbor either.

Fox is 100% right...migration is an "opportunity" to decimate our border towns and our national parks with tons of garbage, promote diseases and crime and give his predominantly non-taxpaying citizens services that are supported by the American citizens. He talks just like the idiots who run LULAC, MALDEF, Casa de Maryland et. al.

Fox's

"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."

STOP RIGHT THERE YOU LOW-DOWN GOOD FOR NOTHING NATION WRECKER. YOU ARE THROUGH TELLING U.S. ANYTHING. YOU ARE THROUGH DICTATING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. YOU ARE THROUGH COERCING THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.. YOU ARE THROUGH ENCOURAGING YOUR COHORTS WHO YOU ARE AN ACCOMPLICE TO IN ENCOURAGING THEM TO BREAK OUR AMERICAN LAWS TO GO INTO OUR GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS IN AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE THE WILL AND THE VOICE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

He's a few months out the door, and now he wants to fix things ???