Feb. 6, 2008, 11:27PM
Calderon hopes U.S. shifts lead to immigration reform
Mexico's leader to visit U.S. on a five-city swing


Los Angeles Times


MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday that a shifting political climate in the United States could improve the chances that a new administration in Washington would help bring a comprehensive reform law that would legalize the status of Mexican immigrants.

"My hope is that whoever the next president is, and whoever is in the new (U.S.) Congress, will have a broader and more comprehensive view of the (immigration) problem," Calderon said. Speaking at his presidential residence on the morning after the Super Tuesday presidential primaries in the United States, Calderon said he took heart from the results, although he did not mention specific candidates.

"It seems to me that the most radical and anti-immigrant candidates have been left behind, and have been put in their place by their own electorate," he said.

Calderon is scheduled to arrive in Sacramento, Calif., next Wednesday, on the final leg of a five-day U.S. visit that also will take him to Chicago, Boston and New York to visit local officials and representatives of Mexican immigrant communities. Calderon said he planned to tell fellow Mexican citizens "that we are actively working to defend their human rights."

"No matter their immigration status, they are human beings with dignity and rights that should be respected."

He said one goal of his trip, which will include a talk Monday at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, would be to build public support for an immigration law that would allow millions of Mexicans to work in the U.S.

He said Americans would recognize "sooner or later" that the health of the U.S. economy is linked to integration with its neighbor.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5520527.html




Im hoping its" later" or better yet "never".....