WASHINGTON — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — former U.N. ambassador and former presidential candidate — is ever the diplomat.
The fight he is currently mediating involves neighboring Arizona’s immigration law. Richardson, a Democrat, opposes the legislation and lobbied Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, not to sign it.
The law, which allows police to check the immigration status of people they have stopped or detained for a possible unrelated offense, is the most restrictive immigration measure in the country and has ignited a national debate on civil rights and immigration policy.
Richardson said the law has created a “serious breach” between the U.S. border states and their Mexican neighbors. He is trying to fix it by inserting himself into a negotiation to keep a long-standing meeting of U.S. and Mexican governors from falling apart.
The Border Governors Conference, scheduled for September, was to be held in Phoenix. The six Mexican governors who were due to attend angrily pulled out in protest of Arizona’s anti-illegal-immigration approach and asked to meet elsewhere. Brewer canceled the meeting altogether.
Richardson has stepped in to calm the skirmish. He is looking for another venue — maybe Washington, Santa Fe or a city in Texas or California. He has told the Mexican governors that the meeting should go on.
“I feel very strongly, and so do the Mexican governors, that we need to have the conference because this is a conference that has been going for 30 years,” Richardson said. “It’s a conference that diffuses a lot of problems.”
Illegal immigration will be topic No. 1, but the governors also plan to discuss border violence, education and issues such as the H1N1 influenza virus.
