July 17, 2010
Governor's Meeting Finds New Home

By PERRY STEIN And ANA CAMPOY

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Thursday he agreed to host a gathering of leaders from the United States and Mexico after their yearly border conference was canceled by the Arizona governor amid threats of a boycott by Mexican politicians.

But the governors of Texas and Arizona said they wouldn't attend—another sign of growing discord over immigration policies on both sides of the border.

"Obviously, all border governors are welcome and encouraged to attend, although the governors of Arizona and Texas have said they are not interested in joining a dialogue with their border colleagues," Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for Mr. Richardson, said Thursday.

The Border Governors Conference, which has been held 27 times, was scheduled to take place in Phoenix in September. But after Arizona passed its hotly debated illegal immigration law this year, the Mexican delegation refused to set foot in the state. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican up for reelection, cancelled the event late last month.

Beyond immigration, elected officials along the international border have a crowded list of issues that range from commercial trucks stuck at checkpoints to cattle pests that too easily gain entry.

Although states in both countries defer to their federal governments in most cross-border issues, the conference has been a forum to exchange information, participants say.

For months, delegates from the border states' economic development departments and environmental agencies, police forces and tourism offices, have been sitting at 13 "work tables" to come up with ways to cooperate on a variety of fronts.

The Arizona law, which requires police to inquire on the legal status of people they stop for other alleged crimes, was not on their agenda.

The law has been widely criticized in Mexico, where several border states held elections earlier this month. On the U.S. side of the border, all four governorships are up for grabs in November, and the ongoing immigration debate is galvanizing Democrat and GOP voters alike.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who is vacating office, said that he would attend the gathering no matter where it was held. Ms. Brewer and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another Republican up for reelection, have said that they would not.

At delegate work tables, where staffers and others perform much of the actual substantive work on cross-border problems for the conference, some participants lament that politics is getting in the way of their task. Still, they are ready to deliver their recommendations regardless of who shows up in Santa Fe.

"If we don't work together we are totally failing," said Francisco Marmolejo, a professor at the University of Arizona who co-chairs the science and technology committee.

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