Latin American Leaders React To Immigration Bill's Demise

June 30, 2007 11:03 a.m. EST

Christopher Rizo - AHN Staff Writer
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Leaders in Latin America have expressed disappointment that the U.S. Senate was not able to approve an overhaul to the nation's immigration laws.

The Washington Post reported that Mexican President Felipe Calderón called it a "grave error" while Salavdoran President Elias Antonio Saca said it was a "pity" that the White House-backed plan was rejected after languishing for weeks amid concerns that the proposal would not do enough to protect the nation's borders.

After years of hoping that Washington would pass a comprehensive immigration bill, the leaders' hopes were all but dashed. They had hoped that Congress would approve a reform package that would establish a guest-worker program and give an estimated 12 million immigrants in the country illegally a path to citizenship.

In an editorial published Friday in Mexico City's El Universal, the newspaper said it is "highly hypocritical that the United States admits migrants as peasants, but does not accept them as citizens."

The paper blamed equally Mexico for not generating jobs so millions didn't have to flea north.

Meanwhile, President Saca, in El Salvador, said, "I lament what happened in the Senate. I hope that the senators consider this well, because there are 12 million people [in the United States] who are undocumented."

"What a pity, what a pity, but those are decisions of the legislators," Saca told reporters.

And, in Guatemala, newspaper Prensa Libre described the Senate vote as "deplorable." The vote, the paper said, was evidence that the United States is "a country hostile toward immigrants."

"Little by little, the number of people who lose their appreciation of [the United States] will grow," the paper said. "With what happened yesterday, everyone loses, sooner rather than later, and there are fewer possibilities of healing that wound."

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