Thread: Utah governor talks trade, immigration with Fox

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... ernor.html

Utah governor talks trade, immigration with Fox


ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:58 p.m. July 13, 2005

MEXICO CITY – Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman discussed trade and immigration issues with President Vicente Fox on Thursday, while saluting the contribution of Mexican migrants to his state's economy.
Fox again expressed hope that the U.S. Congress will approve an immigration accord that would grant some form of legal status to the millions of undocumented Mexicans living and working in the United States.

The president praised Huntsman, whose state is home to an estimated 200,000 Mexican migrants, saying that since the beginning of his term in November, his office has championed key laws making it easier for migrants to obtain driver's licenses and use Mexican voter cards as official IDs.

Huntsman called Mexico a key strategic partner and said his state's biotechnology, software, and medical equipment industries were interested in gaining greater access to markets in this country.

At a joint news conference with Mexican Deputy Foreign Secretary for North America, Geronimo Gutierrez, Huntsman said any immigration accord will have to be approved at the federal level, but added "we in states have to live in the real world, so we do things like work on mobility for a work force, Mexican nationals."

"Issues like education, these are the issues that we deal with," he said, adding that officials in Utah and other U.S. states work to provide "to the best of our ability basic services, a sense of mobility, hopefully a sense of integration that will allow our economies to work longer term."

Gutierrez said he and Huntsman agreed immigration reform was the responsibility of both Mexico and the United States and that discussions about it had become an important part of the debate about bilateral issues.

"Constantly, we see discussion of this topic on both sides of the border, unlike in the decade of the 1990s ... when it was much more marginalized," Gutierrez said. "I think that's important because it's a topic that's vital to both societies."

Huntsman invited Fox to visit Utah, a trip Gutierrez said the president hopes to make later this year or before leaving office in December 2006.

"Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman discussed trade and immigration issues with President Vicente Fox on Thursday,"

OK, we'll trade Huntsman to fox for two jackass' they would be smarter in the long run.