Published: 04 November 2013 10:06 PM
Updated: 04 November 2013 10:31 PM
By DIANNE SOLÍS
dallasnews.com


Ben Torres/Special Contributor
Mexican Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora (center) meets with Michael Flusche, the North Texas deputy regional director for Sen. Ted Cruz, and Connie Karcher after speaking to the World Affairs Council of Dallas-Fort Worth during a luncheon Monday at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas.

Record deportations have prompted U.S. and Mexican authorities to work on a “more orderly” flow that avoids returning families to Mexico at late hours or at dangerous border locations, Mexico’s ambassador said Monday during a Dallas visit.

Eduardo Medina Mora said talks with U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have been productive. “We have not fully achieved this, but things are improving,” he said.

The Mexican ambassador was in Dallas to meet with Texas and Mexican business leaders. He spoke at a luncheon event at the Hyatt Regency that had multiple sponsors, including the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth.

In various meetings, Medina Mora took questions on topics including migration, business security in violent regions, and spying by the U.S. National Security Agency.

Medina Mora, 56, was appointed to his post nearly a year ago after the inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is from a resurgent political party that had ruled Mexico for seven decades after its revolution. Mora has held posts in the administrations of both dominant political parties in Mexico.

The ambassador characterized relations between the U.S. and Mexico as “intense and good” with no problems of access. “Of course, we have many irritants and many opportunities. This is the nature of these bilateral relationships,” he said.

About 350,000 to 400,000 people have been deported annually for the last five years by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Medina Mora noted that U.S. immigration officials have issued guidelines about not separating families. “We hope that these new guidelines are followed and that we have a more orderly process.”

He emphasized the revamping of the U.S. immigration system is a domestic issue for U.S. policymakers and not a matter for bilateral talks.

Fresh migration isn’t likely from his country, he said. Fertility rates in Mexico are now down to 2.2 births per woman, from around 7 births per woman in the 1960s, he said. Rates in Mexico City are as low as 1.8 per woman — or about the same as the fertility rate of the U.S., he said.

“Our new entrants into the labor force peaked in 2007,” Medina Mora said in a meeting with The Dallas Morning News editorial board.

On other matters, Medina Mora acknowledged difficult challenges of violence involving criminal syndicates in northeastern Mexico, the central Mexican state of Michoacán and the southern Pacific Coast. Violence has decreased in Juárez, across from El Paso, he said, but it shouldn’t be viewed as normal. “We are not in denial whatsoever.”

But he said “the overall problem didn’t derail the overall economic growth and trade and production.”

He reiterated complaints made by his government two weeks ago that spying by the U.S. on Mexico was an “illegal, illegitimate and unacceptable practice.”

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