Five years after they first pledged to work together to find ways to open legal channels for Mexicans to seek work in the US, US President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox ended a two-day meeting on Friday essentially where they were in 2001: agreeing on an approach, but unable to win the support they needed to turn their vision into law.
At a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Bush and Fox spoke with conviction about the reasons they supported comprehensive immigration changes that would include expanding guest worker programs and opening new paths to citizenship.
But their comments also made clear that the bold immigration agenda that they supported at the start of their administrations never got far off the ground, in part because of their own missteps and miscalculations, but mostly because of forces out of their control.
PHOTO: AP
"I believe a guest worker program will help us rid the society and the border of these coyotes, who smuggle people in the back of 18-wheelers," Bush said.
"I believe it'll help get rid of the document forgers. I believe it'll help people on both sides of our border to respect the laws of our border, and enforce our borders," he said.
The US president added, "I believe it is important to bring people out of the shadows of American society, so they don't have to fear the life they live."
Still, the president dodged a question about the plans by Republican leaders in Congress to press for an immigration plan that does not include guest worker programs and focuses instead on border security.
When pressed on whether he would veto such a plan, Bush said, "I said I want a comprehensive bill. You're presuming there won't be a comprehensive bill. I believe there will be."
Harper announced that the three nations had formed a committee of business leaders to discuss ways to keep North America competitive with Asia. And he announced a summit meeting on development, scheduled for next year in Canada.
The longstanding dispute over US tariffs on imports of Canadian softwood lumber remained unresolved, with Bush promising to negotiate and Harper threatening legal action.
Bush stood firm against Canada's opposition to a new law that will require all people coming into the US after next year -- whether from Canada or Mexico -- to present a passport or some other tamper-proof document.
For Bush the past two days have been as much about trying to defuse a debate over immigration in the US that pits him against leaders of his own party, as about reviving a relationship that turned sour after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
For Fox, the meeting was an opportunity for a little vindication before he leaves office on Dec. 1. He made sweeping immigration reforms in the US the center of his foreign policy. In pursuit of those goals, he has stood with the US to defend free trade and tight border security against leftist leaders across Latin America.
Referring to Fox and Bush, Demetrios Papademetriou, the co-director of the Migration Policy Institute, said, "Both countries misjudged the political situation in the United States, and so they miscalculated what they could really deliver to each other."
Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, said of the two presidents, "They began dating five years ago. They are dating five years later. There isn't much more activity than that."
Shaiken added: "In Mr. Fox's case, the causes could be traced to his poor political skills. For Bush, it was the lack of political capital he put behind Mexico. But in the end, it's Fox who will leave office a spinster."
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
RSS