Fox plans LV visit

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 11:11 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- Mexican President Vicente Fox today told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., he intends to visit Las Vegas, Reid said.

Reid chatted with Fox at a breakfast with congressional leaders in the U.S. Capitol today. The senator had invited Fox to come to Nevada early this year, and Fox today said he would try to fit the trip into his schedule by the end of the year, Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said.

Fox also thanked Reid for his efforts to pass legislation that would allow more Mexican immigrants to become U.S. citizens, Naylor said. In an address to a joint session of Congress Thursday, Fox called on lawmakers to make sweeping changes in immigration policy and to legalize some of the estimated 3 million undocumented immigrants in America.

The Senate last night passed a bill that allows some undocumented workers who qualify for permanent residence through family or employer sponsorship to stay in the United States pending the final steps in a process to apply for legal status. President Bush generally supports the measure. The House has not voted on the legislation.

Nevada officials have much to discuss with the Mexican leader, including complex immigration issues, the city's growing Mexican population, and future business trade. Mexico also plans to open a consulate in Las Vegas.

Fox, on his first official visit to the United States for a three-day trip this week, visited Ohio and was visiting Florida today.

Fox has sidestepped the most controversial question in the immigration dispute -- whether to grant residency and a path toward citizenship to the estimated 3 million Mexicans who already have entered the country illegally and are working here without proper documents.

"Regularization does not mean rewarding those who break the law," Fox said in his address to Congress. "Regularization means that we will provide them with the legal means to allow them to continue contributing to this great nation.

"The agreement that we seek would establish a higher ceiling for permanent visas to Mexicans coming to this country," he continued. "And it would also expand opportunities for Mexican workers to obtain temporary work visas so that they can enter the United States safely and legally."

Moving effortlessly between Spanish and English, the tall former Coca-Cola executive quoted from the Bible and from John F. Kennedy. He cited a passage from the Corinthians book of the New Testament and recalled Kennedy's famous "New Frontier" metaphor as a symbol of transformed U.S.-Mexican ties.

Senators and representatives from both parties burst into applause when Fox, whose election 14 months ago ended seven decades of single-party rule in Mexico, declared: "The relationship between Mexico and the United States has changed in one fundamental way. True democracy in Mexico, for decades an unfulfilled dream, is now a reality."

After the address, Fox flew with President Bush on a campaign-style trip to Ohio, where they addressed a Hispanic-dominated crowd at the University of Toledo and visited a Latino community center.

In comments before their departure, Bush responded to Fox's appeal Wednesday, at a White House arrival ceremony, for an agreement by the end of the year on the status of undocumented Mexican workers in the United States.

"I can assure the president and the people of Mexico we've heard his call, he's a strong, forceful leader, and we will do everything we can to come up with a solution to this complex problem," Bush said.

Yet Bush, facing opposition to broad amnesty from conservatives in his Republican Party, noted that he must "come up with a solution that ... Congress can accept."

Bush said he wants to balance undocumented workers' contributions to the United States -- plus employers' desire for more legal low-skilled laborers -- against the rights of foreigners who use legal and often drawn-out means of entering the country.

"One of things that I have told the president is I'm willing to consider ways ... for a guest worker to earn a green card status," Bush said. "And yet I fully recognize there are a lot of people who've stood in line, who said, 'I'll abide by the laws of the United States.' And we're trying to work through a formula that will not penalize the person who's chosen the legal route, and at the same time recognizes the contribution the undocumented has made."