Ambassador prioritizes immigration

Determined to secure a migration accord, Mexico plans to begin an aggressive lobbying effort similar to its push to join the North American Free Trade Agreement, the country´s new ambassador to the United States said Tuesday

Wire services
El Universal
Miércoles 21 de febrero de 2007

Determined to secure a migration accord, Mexico plans to begin an aggressive lobbying effort similar to its push to join the North American Free Trade Agreement, the country´s new ambassador to the United States said Tuesday.
Mexican consulates in the United States will be on the front lines of the effort, and will talk with state and federal lawmakers, business chambers, civic organizations and "all actors of U.S. society" who support a comprehensive immigration reform, Arturo Sarukhán said.

"There are few matters so important to the future of this country," Sarukhán told reporters in Mexico City before departing for Washington.

The new ambassador said Mexico has a brief window before campaigning begins for the 2008 U.S. presidential election to convince Washington to approve immigration reforms.

"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 Sarukhán, who was consul general in New York during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and a campaign adviser to President Felipe Calderón.

Mexico wants Washington to usher through 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.

U.S. President George W. Bush supports giving Mexican migrants temporary work visas. But he has failed to win support in the U.S. Congress. Prior to November´s congressional elections, a Republican-led Congress favored increasing security and building border walls to prevent illegal immigration.

Sarukhán expressed "cautious optimism" Tuesday about the new U.S. Congress dominated by Democrats and said Mexico wants to move the debate away from security, which he said immigration reform opponents used to put the brakes on the issue.

"Migrants are not criminals nor a threat to the security of the United States," he said. "The thinking that walls must be built to detain the flow of migrants because that flow threatens security is wrong."

KEY TOPIC AT SUMMIT

Migration is expected to be a key topic when Bush meets with Calderón in Mexico next month as part of the former´s Latin American tour.

Former President Vicente Fox campaigned hard but unsuccessfully for a new U.S. guest worker program for Mexicans during his six-year term, frustrating many Mexicans.

Sarukhán said Calderón´s government would be "intelligent and careful" in its campaign "to not generate unrealistic expectations about what we can and cannot accomplish."

He 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 United States."

http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/23493.html