Mexico City – President Vicente Fox responded over the weekend to criticism from U.S. authorities about a recent surge in violence and illegal immigration along the border, saying that the United States shares responsibility for the problems and should work harder with Mexico to correct them.
Fox said he rejected “forcefully” the statements by the Bush administration and governors of border states, contending they had unfairly depicted Mexico as a safe haven for organized crime, though his government has arrested more leading drug traffickers and dismantled more cartels than any of its predecessors.
He also said Mexican immigrants had been portrayed unfairly as potential terrorists when they had in fact become a pillar of the U.S. economy.
In an interview aboard the presidential airplane Saturday, Fox acknowledged that his government had a long way to go to make the border secure. But he said the United States should stop casting blame for problems created by both countries.
He also said the United States should not allow concerns about border security to derail efforts to adopt new measures, two of them currently before Congress, that would allow millions of additional Mexicans to become guest workers in the United States.
On the changes in immigration policy, he said: “There is will on the part of President Bush, according to what he has expressed publicly, and what he has expressed in conversations with us. So, I trust that in the coming weeks and months, we will succeed finally in arriving at a positive resolution for the benefit of both countries.”
More pressing realities, however, may once again stand in the way. Work on immigration policy was first postponed four years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks. Then it was put off for Bush’s re-election campaign. Now, it may be set aside again as the United States struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
But Fox does not have a lot of time left; he is entering his last year in office.