July 9, 2007

Mexican Reactions to the U.S. Rejection of the Immigration Bill

Frontera NorteSur

Widely condemned across Mexico’s political spectrum, the US Senate’s failure to pass an immigration reform bill has touched off reactions that could influence the course of Mexican politics as well as US-Mexico bilateral relations.

In the wake of the recent vote, legislators from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) demanded that the administration of President Felipe Calderon adopt a more aggressive defense of undocumented Mexicans in the United States.

Ricardo Garcia Cervantes, the chairman of the North American Foreign Relations Committee in the Mexican Senate [and a member of the National Action Party], contended that Mexico’s federal government “has to do its jobâ€