I knew Savage would slam him for this, rightly so. I will tape Savage when its on tonight.
"..wave of immigration..
Vincente Fox says he will be at the head of the line now that the election is over and after G.W. received more hispanic votes!
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=19148
BILATERAL RELATIONS: U.S., Mexico Return to Agenda
November 9, 2004
Pablo Bachelet
Mexico is expected to renew its offensive to secure an immigration agreement with the United States in a bilateral meeting today with Secretary of State Colin Powell and other top U.S. officials.
The 21st Binational Commission meeting also will deal with border security and a long-running dispute over water sharing, analysts and diplomatic sources say.
The encounter, in Mexico City, comes just a week after President Bush won a second term, thanks in part to better-than-expected support from Hispanic voters.
Bush received about 44 percent of the Latino vote, up from 35 percent in 2000, and Mexican President Vicente Fox is expected to seize the moment to get immigration talks back on track.
"To some extent it puts the Fox administration at the head of the line in terms of trying to put certain issues on the Bush administration's radar screen," said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, the Mexico project director at the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Washington-based policy institute. "The Mexicans have already started beating the drums on immigration."
The analyst said Fox may also scout the terrain for a more ambitious second wave of integration by bringing up issues such as movement of labor from one country to another and harmonizing government regulations in sectors such as telecommunications, a step that would make the North American Free Trade Agreement more akin to the European Union.
SECURITY DIMENSION
Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge is also attending the talks, along with a handful of other U.S. Cabinet officials. Mexico is the United States' second largest trading partner, with more than $630 million worth of goods crossing the 2,000-mile border every day.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush and Fox seemed close to an immigration deal that would have allowed Mexicans who live and work illegally in the United States to open a path toward residency.
MEXICAN PRESENCE
About half of between eight million and 11 million illegal immigrants are Mexicans. The Mexican community in the United States is a crucial economic pillar for Mexico, thanks to the $14 billion in remittances it sends back home.
But Bush put the immigration talks on hold after the Sept. 11 attacks , and mostly-Republican opponents of immigration reforms have stalled initiatives in Congress that would extend more benefits to immigrants, from more generous guest-worker programs to awarding in-state university tuition rates for the children of illegal immigrants.
Besides immigration, water is also a contentious issue, especially in Bush's home state, Texas. The United States says Mexico owes it about 700,000 acre-feet of water under a 1944 treaty.
WATER 'A PRIORITY'
The State Department said the matter was a "priority" for the Bush administration.
Bush proposed an immigration reform in January that would have awarded temporary visas to illegal immigrants but did not follow up with a legislative initiative. That calculation may now change, given Bush's strong performance among Latino voters.
"You'd think [the Republicans] would be mindful of their new friends," said Angela Kelley, with the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration group.
Fox has also collaborated with Washington on border security and combating drugs. This, Peschard-Sverdrup said, could increase the Mexican president's leverage for an immigration agreement, as Fox could argue that he needs concessions from Bush to placate opponents who say the Mexican leader has failed to deliver on immigration.