Mexico’s Fox Pleased with Immigration Initiative

Mexican President Vicente Fox expressed his pleasure with George Bush’s new immigration initiative today:

President Vicente Fox on Thursday praised the immigration reform proposed by President Bush and claimed it as an achievement for his own administration. But Fox and other Mexican officials indicated the new American proposal did not meet all their goals. “We’re going for more. We’re going for more,” he told reporters during a visit to a shelter for street children.
Fox has repeatedly urged Bush to legalize the millions of Mexicans who cross the border illegally to work in the United States. The money they send home is Mexico’s second-largest source of foreign income, behind oil.

No one will be surprised to hear that Fox is happy; almost any change from the status quo has to be an improvement, with the exception of mass expulsion. Fox probably would prefer an amnesty program, but he’s not going to get one. We tried that in the 80s, during the last Republican economic expansion, and as some of my e-mail stated, all that occurred was more illegal immigration.
The true causes of illegal immigration are the poor economies of Mexico and Central America and the need for cheap labor for our agricultural industry. Until those two issues are resolved, especially the local economies of the immigrants, then we will continue to see massive waves of workers looking to solve both problems. Either we can realistically address the result while we try to tend to the causes, or we can stick our head in the sands as we have done for decades.