Mexicans Say Guard Won't Slow Migrants
AP on Yahoo ^ | 5/15/06 | Marina Montemayor - ap

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Looking for someone to help him cross into the
United States, Jorge Gutierrez said Monday it will take a lot more
than U.S. National Guard troops to keep him and other migrants out.

Most Mexicans believe the plan, to be announced Monday night by
President Bush, will do little to stop the flow north. President
Vicente Fox called Bush this weekend to say he didn't believe sending
soldiers to the border was the answer.

The countries have rarely seen eye-to-eye since Bush and Fox agreed to
work toward immigration reform five years ago at a meeting at Fox's
ranch in Mexico. Fox wants the Bush administration to give amnesty to
millions of migrants living in the U.S. and allow more to seek jobs
legally from outside the country.

Bush rejected the idea of an amnesty and instead proposed allowing
people with job offers to enter the United States and work legally for
three years. The topic has generated fierce debate in Congress, where
members are divided between those who want to see more security at the
border and those who want immigration reform.

Bush is expected to propose sending National Guard troops to the
border as a stopgap measure while the Border Patrol builds up its
resources to more effectively secure the 2,000-mile line between the
U.S. and Mexico.

The move is aimed at winning support for immigration reform from
conservatives who are more interested in tightening security along the
border.

Gutierrez, who had just arrived in Juarez from Torreon to look for a
way to cross illegally into the United States, said he didn't believe
the troops would make a difference.

"No guard, no wall will keep us from crossing," he said.

Jesus Rodriguez, 49, agreed. He was looking for ways to cross one of
Juarez's international bridges. "For Mexicans, there are no
obstacles," he said.

Francisco Loureiro, who runs a migrant shelter in Nogales, across the
border from Nogales, Ariz., criticized the plan as an "aggressive
action more than anything because the migrant is not a criminal or a
terrorist."

"His only objective is to work ... and a government that supposedly
lobbies for world peace is now acting against defenseless migrants who
are helping to fill a need for employers in the U.S," he said.

Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters Monday that while
Fox "expressed his concern" over the proposal to Bush, he had no
choice but to respect it.

"It is a sovereign decision," he said. "We can't interfere."

Mexico has had a tough time convincing the U.S. that it is doing
everything it can to prevent and provide alternatives to illegal
migration, especially when it is dependent on the remittances migrants
send home.

In 2005, migrants sent about $20 billion to Mexico, where remittances
represent the second-largest source of foreign income, after oil
sales.

The government may have been able to prevent the growing backlash
against migrants in the United States if it had showed it was
improving opportunities for Mexicans at home, said Rodolfo Garcia, an
economist at the University of Zacatecas.

Consequently, instead of sharply protesting Bush's National Guard
plan, Fox's administration is more likely to justify it, Garcia said,
hoping that it will help Bush soften attitudes toward guest-worker and
legalization proposals.