On state visit, Mexico's Fox pushes for deal on immigrants

WASHINGTON -- Mexican President Vicente Fox, arriving in Washington for President Bush's first state visit by a foreign leader, challenged Bush on Wednesday to reach an accord within four months on granting legal status to 3 million undocumented Mexican workers in the United States.

In his arrival remarks on a sun-splashed, late-summer day outside the White House, Fox set a second difficult goal: ensuring that there will be no Mexicans living illegally in the United States by the end of his presidential term in 2006.

"We want to continue making progress toward the establishment of an agreement on migration which will be of mutual benefit to us, and which will recognize above all the value of migrants as human beings and as workers whose hard work is a daily contribution to the prosperity of this great nation," Fox said. "The time has come to give migrants and their communities their proper place in the history of our bilateral nations."

In his greeting -- which he delivered before Fox spoke -- and in later comments after the two men held talks, Bush declined to set a specific timetable for a deal on illegal immigration. He and Fox did not field questions from reporters. Bush was scheduled to host Fox at a state dinner at the White House.

Standing beside Fox at the arrival ceremony, Bush said he had purposely chosen the former head of Coca-Cola's operations in Mexico to be the first head of state to make an official visit.

"This is a recognition that the United States has no more important relationship in the world than the one we have with Mexico," Bush said.

Speaking in Spanish, he cited a Mexican proverb: "He who has a good neighbor has a good friend."

But while Fox also noted his friendship with Bush, he applied political pressure by setting specific deadlines for resolving the status of the estimated 3 million Mexicans living in the United States without visas or passports.

"We must, and we can, reach an agreement on migration before the end of this very year, which will allow us, before the end of our respective terms, to make sure that there are no Mexicans who have not entered this country legally in the United States, and that those Mexicans who have come into the country do so with the proper documents," Fox said.

At a lunch hosted by Secretary of State Colin Powell, Fox later noted Powell's background as the son of immigrants from Jamaica.

"If the subject is migration, who better to discuss this subject with -- who better to hear out what we have to say on the subject, and who better to commit himself, than the son of immigrants?" Fox asked.

Republican congressional leaders refused to accept Fox's deadline of reaching an accord by the end of the year. Their Democratic counterparts expressed more support.

"I think we could pass a new immigration policy," said Rep. Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader. "And if the Republicans in Congress and the president want to do something on this issue, we could do it fairly rapidly."

Rep. Hilda Solis, a California Democrat of Mexican and Nicaraguan descent, accused the Bush administration of backing away from earlier support on granting legal status to undocumented workers.

"They are reneging on what they originally said, and people are going to be angry about that," she said.

In his presidential campaign last year, Bush expressed sympathy for Mexicans who enter the United States illegally to improve their economic plight.

The immigration debate places Bush between competing Republican constituencies -- business leaders in search of a stable and legal supply of low-skill workers and conservative activists who say amnesty unfairly rewards those who violated the country's border laws.

U.S. and Mexican negotiators floated the possibility in July of granting legal amnesty to Mexican illegal immigrants. But some Republican lawmakers criticized the idea, and Bush in recent weeks has distanced himself from it.

After meeting Tuesday with Trent Lott, Republican leader of the Senate, Bush said he had previously told Fox that "there's no appetite for blanket amnesty in Congress." He said the issue of illegal immigration also involves people from other countries and that "this is going to take a while to bring all the different interests to the table."

Fox was to address a joint session of Congress Thursday morning. Lott and two other senior Republican senators from Mexico border states, Phil Gramm of Texas and Pete Domenici of New Mexico, praised him on Wednesday but refused to back his timetable for undocumented workers.

"This is the first time since I've been a senator that we have a president of Mexico that is not bad-mouthing America," Domenici said. "He's talking about America as a friend, as a partner, instead of complaining about their problems as if we caused them."

Lott said he supported a guest-worker program that would allow Mexicans and other laborers to be in the United States "for a period of time," but he appeared cool to the idea of giving some of them permanent residency.

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said Fox's challenge on a quick immigration accord did not take Bush or his top officials by surprise.

"We were aware that President Fox had this objective," Rice said. "And, indeed, we think that it would be terrific if we were able by the end of the year to achieve agreement."