Thread: Bush assures Calderon on immigrants

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/1021804

Bush assures Calderon on immigrants
Mar 13, 2007

US President George Bush meets Mexico's President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday looking for a fresh start in relations as he reassures Mexicans he has not given up on overhauling US immigration policy they deeply resent.

The talks in the Yucatan, the two leaders' first summit, pose a complex challenge for Bush on the final stop of a Latin American tour aimed at shoring up his standing and countering the anti-US influence of leftist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Mexico's importance to US business and trade are unrivalled in the hemisphere. Yet relations are so historically fraught that Mexicans have long lamented, only half-jokingly, that their country lies "so far from God, so close to the United States."

A sense of neglect has set in as Bush, who promised to make Mexico a priority when he took office in 2001, has become distracted by the Iraq war, which has made him even more unpopular in Latin America than he is at home.

Illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States is the thorniest problem between the two neighbours, with drug trafficking a not-so-distant second.

And these issues stand to dominate the agenda when Bush meets Calderon, a fellow conservative elected last year, bucking a trend toward the left in Latin America.

The two ideological allies are likely to find more common ground after Bush pledged in a visit to Guatemala on Monday to revive his push for immigration reform, saying he hopes for a breakthrough with the Democratic-led Congress by August.

"The system needs to be fixed. We don't want people to feel like they have to get stuffed into the back of a truck and pay exorbitant fees to 'coyotes' to come and try to realize dreams," Bush said, referring to human smugglers who transport undocumented workers across the porous US-Mexican border.

Mexicans account for more than half of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

But Bush also defended recent raids leading to deportation of illegal immigrants, an approach that has drawn sharp criticism during his five-country tour of Latin America.

Unkept promises

Bush had made similar reform pledges to Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, who had a close rapport with the US leader, but left power without an immigration deal.

Bush failed to get an overhaul through the Republican-led Congress last year due to conservative concerns about border enforcement. Whether Democrats in an uproar about the Iraq war will now be open to an immigration deal is uncertain.

Anger across Latin America at US immigration and trade policies have helped bolster Chavez, who has shadowed Bush on a regional counter-tour hurling insults from a distance.

Chavez, a close ally of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro, was in Haiti on Monday leading cheering crowds of slum-dwellers in chants of "Down with Bush!"

On his trip, Bush has sent a softer message, saying he is just as interested in alleviating poverty in the region as in promoting free trade. But many Latin Americans are sceptical.

Bush insists he wants immigration reform to couple tighter border controls with a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants.

While Calderon welcomes aspects of the proposal, he has made clear his opposition to Bush's plan for building more fences on the border and has also denounced deployment of National Guard troops to back up Border Patrol agents.

Bush defended the fence plan on Monday, saying it was necessary to give U.S. lawmakers confidence to back the guest worker program.

At Tuesday's talks, Bush is also expected to discuss a regional deal to share information about increasingly powerful smuggling gangs who move drugs through Central America and Mexico into the United States.

US President George Bush meets Mexico's President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday looking for a fresh start in relations as he reassures Mexicans he has not given up on overhauling US immigration policy they deeply resent.

It's always good to see the DECIDER decide what's best for those who are his subjects. In corporate slavery, it's important to stay focused on the low hanging fruit of labor. Never mind that none of those (Mexicans) South of the border are even eligible to vote for him (YET)!

It is pretty clear with that sharing thing, what Bush means. That is part of the North American union.

And these issues stand to dominate the agenda when Bush meets Calderon, a fellow conservative elected last year, bucking a trend toward the left in Latin America.

bush got Calderon elected!

They both know exactly what they are doing, what game they are playing with AMERICA and AMERICANS.

This is nothing but disinformation. Calderone owes EVERYTHING to bush and cabal.

I get tough, you balk, I stand firm, you balk..........and I look good to Americans and you look good to mexicans.

WHAT A JOKE

I wish foreign leaders would quit relying on America to do everything for them...they need to lead their people, create jobs on their own....

I'm fed up with countries always asking America for something!

Because the Mexican rich want to get to richer they send their poor to america so that they don't have to spend resources on the poor. Just let the stupid americans pay for the poor and use let america use it resources to support the poor mexicans. boy oh boy are american politicans selling american out.

"The system needs to be fixed. We don't want people to feel like they have to get stuffed into the back of a truck and pay exorbitant fees to 'coyotes' to come and try to realize dreams," Bush said, referring to human smugglers who transport undocumented workers across the porous US-Mexican border.

Judging by how many third world people cross our border daily and how many more want to and judging by Tush's above words, apparently he doesn't want the third world people to be inconvienced, checked out or work towards the right to come here. So his plan is to give out blank checks to an unlimited number of uneducated, barbaric and diseased people a year. What do we get from millions of adults with a sixth grade or less education who doesn't speak a word of English and know barbaric behavior as the only way to survive? First off, it's a great way to help create a socialist welfare state. Secondly when it come to violence & crime, filth, disease and sprawl, we ain't seen nothing yet!

I wish I could call it treason, but I guest its not. Sure sound like it to me, we need to watch this bill because it may have more then just a thing for illigals. It may also have pieces of the North American union in it.