Immigration Reform Years Away, Fox Says

Sept. 4, 2001
MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox said yesterday that he expects it will take four to six years to complete a comprehensive U.S.-Mexico immigration reform, including legalization for some undocumented Mexican workers in the United States.

Hopes had been high - especially in Mexico, where immigration is the top foreign policy priority - that intense negotiations under way for the past six months might yield substantive new agreements to announce when the Mexican president this week makes his first state visit to Washington. But political realities in Washington have set in, and Fox's prediction was a recognition that such realities cannot be ignored.

"We are aware of what we can do and what we cannot do in the short term," Fox said in an interview. "So no rush. We have time to build. President Bush's administration is just beginning. Mine is just beginning. I think that our estimate is that within the next four to six years we would then have something really worthwhile."

Bush and his advisers have warned recently that immigration reform will have to proceed slowly, perhaps divided into pieces for consideration by Congress. They say that any real change may have to wait until after the 2002 midterm elections. Some say the U.S. Congress may never approve granting residence to workers who entered the United States illegally, which critics see as rewarding a crime.

Fox said, however, that he is "absolutely not disappointed" that he and Bush will not have any substantive announcement to make this week, declaring that both leaders have time to get the job done.

Fox needs a victory on the immigration front to quiet increasingly vocal critics in Mexico who say he has promised much but delivered little since taking office on Dec. 1. And Bush, whose personal ties with Fox have been a hallmark of his foreign policy, is counting on Fox to help him woo the fast-growing Hispanic vote in the United States, which is seen as critical to his re-election chances in 2004.

Mexico has sought to concentrate on the immigration issue for years. But it has long been overshadowed by U.S. insistence on focusing bilateral talks on trade and drug trafficking. But since their elections last year, Fox and Bush have pressed immigration to the top of the agenda.

When they met in February on Fox's Mexican ranch, the two presidents started a negotiation that included the possibility of expanded guest worker programs, as well as an element that Mexico considers crucial: legalizing the status of at least some of the 3 million to 4.5 million undocumented Mexicans now living in the United States and already paying U.S. taxes.

Fox said yesterday that he sees legalization as an important part of any agreement. He stopped short of saying that he would reject a deal that did not include at least some legalization, but noted that the United States "has benefited from migration since the founding of the country." So, he said, legalization of those already there makes sense.

"I want to appeal to U.S. citizens that in this subject we can find real opportunities for both of our countries," he said.

Conservatives in the U.S. Congress, including Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, have said they would block any legalization effort. Fox addressed the critics by saying that undocumented Mexican workers have been an important part of U.S. economic growth in recent years.

"It's very difficult for me to understand how the United States could have grown at rates of 5 1/2 to 6 percent in the recent past" without Mexican immigrant labor, Fox said. "For the American people, for the United States' economy, Mexican immigration has been very important for development."

BUSH-FOX SUMMIT: BACKGROUND:
President Vicente Fox's visit - the first state visit made to the United States during President Bush's term - will play out against a complex political backdrop.

Fox is eager for a foreign relations triumph after a difficult first nine months in office. He has been unable achieve a series of promised domestic reforms, and the Mexican economy has stalled, largely because of economic problems in the United States, which soaks up most of Mexico's exports.

Fox wants an expansion of the North American Development Bank, created as part of NAFTA, to include a new system of bonds for border-area infrastructure, such as power lines.
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