Border governors flex influence muscle
By Hernán Rozemberg
The Arizona Republic
June 23, 2002 12:00:00
Leaders from U.S.-Mexican border states said Saturday that last year's terrorist attacks created unprecedented interest in the region and now is their best chance to influence federal policy in both countries.
Emerging from a series of closed-door meetings at the 20th Border Governors Conference in Phoenix, the representatives from Mexico's six border states said that for 19 years, they've seen little action taken in Mexico City after submitting detailed conference reports. This time, they say, they will insist on getting answers.
Hotly debated issues like the sharing of water and electricity can be worked out only at the federal level, but border governors say they have to stop bureaucracy from getting in the way of major decisions.
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"By directly petitioning our federal government, we're making sure our recommendations will be thoroughly examined and that some kind of decision will be made on them," said Fernando Canales Clariond, governor of Nuevo León.
Some border issues are a matter of life and death. The governors decried this summer's record pace of migrant deaths in the desert and renewed their call for the creation of a guest worker program that would provide legal jobs and curb risky border crossings.
Representing Arizona for the last time as she approaches the end of her term in office, Gov. Jane Hull reiterated the need for guest workers but also went further, noting she'd like to see the formal border disappear within two decades.
"Borders have a way of blocking our vision," she said.
"I see a region some day without walls. I envision a region where our children chat in English and Spanish, where we have an equal footing economically and we no longer need to count the bodies of migrants in the desert."
But until and if that change occurs, border governors want to make sure increased border security does not equal decreased cross-border commerce and tourism.
Arizona border towns, whose economies directly depend on Mexicans crossing north each day to shop, are still recovering from financial losses as shoppers disappeared after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
