Thread: Schwarzenegger Meets Counterpart in Mexico

Schwarzenegger Meets Counterpart in Mexico
MEXICALI, Mexico - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, looking to improve his image with Hispanics at home, proclaimed his friendship for Mexico Friday following meetings with his Baja California counterpart on security and immigration.

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Schwarzenegger and Gov. Eugenio Elorduy pledged to maintain "a permanent working relationship," and the U.S. governor said he planned to travel to Mexico "in the near future" to meet with President Vicente Fox, and invite him to California.

Schwarzenegger met with Elorduy longer than original expected and both emerged with broad smiles to greet a group of about 40 business administration students in a cross-border study program.

"The citizens of our states have important familial, economic and cultural ties that cannot be ignored," the two said in a joint statement at the end of their two-hour meeting. "When we work together to produce positive results, the citizens on both sides of the border reap the benefits."

Schwarzenegger faced questions from Mexican reporters about his support for citizen border patrols, but stressed he would never support armed vigilante groups or rights violations.

"No one ought to be armed, no one ought to harass anybody, and nobody ought to violate the human rights issues," he said.
He promised more studies on a controversial proposal to line the 80-mile All-American Canal with concrete starting this year. The canal directs water from the Colorado River to farms in California's Imperial Valley, but Mexican farmers and wildlife depend on water that seeps from the porous canal and have opposed the project.

"We have agreed to thorough review ... of the economic and environmental implications for both California and northern Mexico," according to the governors' joint statement.

The trip marked the start of a $1 million campaign aimed directly at Hispanic voters in California using Spanish-language television ads to improve his image among Hispanics.

He stressed his many trips to Mexico in the past, noting he had won a bodybuilding contest in Tijuana once, and had shot all or parts of four movies in Mexico. "I always felt safe, I was always welcomed with open arms" in Mexico, Schwarzenegger said.

Schwarzenegger has come under fire from many of his state's 12 million Hispanics for opposing driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and proposing health and welfare cuts that would have hit Hispanics hard.He repeated his refusal to sign the license bill, but said he favored a guest worker program in which workers would have a right to drivers licenses.

In Mexico, he has developed a reputation as being anti-immigrant."He doesn't want Mexicans to go," to California, said Victor Faz, a 16-year-old street taco vendor in Mexicali. "And they are the ones that help the state get ahead."

But not everyone is critical. Asked what he thought of the California governor, Ricardo Vivanco, a 28-year-old loan company worker in Mexicali, said: "He makes good movies."

Schwarzenegger appeared to enjoy the visit. "I think the more we travel around the world and learn from various other countries, the better it is, the more we become one community rather than fighting one another."


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OK Arnold don't start back peddling on us.

Schwarzenegger appeared to enjoy the visit. "I think the more we travel around the world and learn from various other countries, the better it is, the more we become one community rather than fighting one another."

Ahnuld....