[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 13 (Monday, April 3, 2006)]
[Pages 607-610]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Following Discussions With President Vicente Fox of Mexico in 
Cancun, Mexico

March 30, 2006

    President Fox. We are ready. Good afternoon. I would like to welcome 
President Bush to Quintana Roo, to Cancun, and to Mexico. It is a great 
honor to have him here, particularly in this place in Cancun, which is 
all set and receiving many visitors. But the best visitors are President 
Bush and Prime Minister Harper, with our working agenda that will be 
fruitful and positive for the three countries in Latin America.
    Some words from Mr. Bush.
    President Bush. Mr. President, thank you very much. First of all, 
thanks for inviting us to Cancun. It's such a beautiful part of the 
world. The hospitality is magnificent. I know you were hit hard by 
hurricanes, which reminds me that I need to thank you and the Mexican 
people for your strong support and help after Hurricane Katrina.
    I will never forget being on the--in the gulf coast area of my 
country, helping people--lift people's spirits. And we went to a school 
that had been destroyed by Katrina, a little elementary school. And 
there was the Navy construction team working side by side with members 
of the Mexican Navy. It was a great sign of cooperation, and it reflects 
the spirit of friendship that defines the relationship between our two 
countries and defines our personal relationship.
    When you were speaking, I thought about the first time I went to 
visit you. I was newly-elected and flew down to your fantastic ranch. 
And that started a very important relationship. And I think it's 
important for the people of our countries to know that while we haven't 
agreed on every single issue, that nevertheless, we work in the spirit 
of friendship and cooperation.
    Today we had a very important discussion. We discussed border 
security. The President understands, and I understand, we have an 
obligation to secure our borders. And I want to thank your Government 
for sending out such a strong statement about the need for--that the 
shared responsibility we have. In other words, border security is not 
just one country's prerogative; it's the prerogative and

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duty of both countries. And we spent time talking about how to work 
together to continue to strengthen that cooperation necessary to do our 
duty.
    I also appreciate the President's work to enforce Mexico's southern 
border. It's a difficult job, but nevertheless, the President shared 
with me the strategies he's employing to do that job as well.
    Obviously, the migration issue came up. I told the President there 
is a legislative process that's going forward, and that it may look 
cumbersome to some, but that's how our democracy works. I told the 
President that I am committed to having a comprehensive immigration bill 
on my desk. And by ``comprehensive'' I mean not only border security--a 
bill that has border security in it, a bill that has interior 
enforcement in it, but a bill that has a worker permit program in it. 
And that's an important part of having a border that works.
    We don't want people sneaking into our country that are going to do 
jobs Americans won't do; we want them coming in, in an orderly way--
which will take pressure off of both our borders. And I explained to the 
President my vision of the citizenship issue. I don't believe somebody 
should be allowed to come into our country and get ahead of the line, 
the citizenship line.
    And so I told President Fox that I think a program that will work is 
somebody working on a temporary basis with a tamper-proof ID card. And 
if they want to become a citizen, they can get in line, but not the head 
of the line. And I reminded the President, I called for an increase of 
green cards the other day in Washington, DC, as one way to help manage 
this issue.
    But at any rate, we're in the middle of a legislative process. I'm 
optimistic we can get a bill done, and I look forward to continuing to 
work with members of both parties to get a bill done.
    We also talked about President Fox's vision of working together in 
our hemisphere, particularly in Central America. And he's proposed a 
very innovative set of ideas to help stabilize and help encourage growth 
in Central America, starting with an energy initiative. And of course we 
appreciate your leadership on that issue, and I look forward to sending 
some of our experts down to listen to the ideas being talked about.
    One idea, of course, we want to inject in the conversation is the 
idea of developing alternatives to gasoline that comes from crude oil, 
that we'd like to see more use of ethanol, and how we can work together 
to increase the crops necessary to become the feedstock for an ethanol 
production.
    But at any rate, the point I'm making is, is that we've got a lot to 
do in our relationship. President Fox is--if people take an objective 
look at his record, one of the things that I'm most proud of, and I 
think our country must be most appreciative of, is the stability of the 
Mexican economy. It's important to have a trade partner that has got a 
stable economy. And, Mr. President, you've done a fine job of providing 
stability and increasing the net worth of your citizens, and that's 
important for the American economy as well. The more net worth there is 
in Mexico, the more likely it is a Mexican may be wanting to buy a U.S. 
product--and vice versa, by the way. And so our trade has made a 
difference in the lives of our citizens, and your leadership has made a 
difference in the state of your economy.
    So it's good to be with you again, sir. Thank you for your warm 
hospitality.
    President Fox. Thank you, President Bush. Thank you. I would like to 
mention with great satisfaction how productive the relation with the 
United States has been on bilateral basis, how the NAFTA, the Free Trade 
Agreement of North America has been, in order to promote development 
here in Mexico. And all this is part of a commitment and obligation of 
generating opportunities, making sure that we can build up, create jobs, 
create greater income, revenues for the families in Mexico, the 
maquilla, the--[inaudible]--industry installed in the border of the 
country.
    There is a deficit of 100,000 people. They want to give jobs to 
100,000 people due to the great growth that's going on. And not only in 
this field but in many other fields, in many other areas, we have been 
working. We might say that something that appeared in the mass media in 
Mexico--opposition of a state, clearly, very clearly in Mexico of the 
political parties--the Congress; the House of

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Representatives; the upper chamber, the Senators; the Executive power, 
the President of the Republic; the Governors of the States; everybody, 
everybody has a very clear idea in the topic of our relationship with 
the United States and particularly, migration. It is a shared--shared--
responsibility, and we understand very clearly here in Mexico all the 
main characters of the political scenario that we have to work so as to 
assume our responsibility.
    Furthermore, we are working with Central American countries with the 
same purpose. Let us assume shared responsibilities. It is very clear 
for us that tomorrow, the Congress of the United States might approve 
any sort of bill, any sort of matter, migration-wise. It is a sovereign 
decision, of course, in the United States, but Mexico assumes its 
responsibilities to work with passion, with commitment, diligently, with 
our economy and developing opportunities for our people.
    Our commitment with the citizenship is very broad. For example, with 
the United States, we work closely with Homeland Security, with the 
Ministry of the Interior here in Mexico, with Secretary Abascal. 
Secretary Abascal has a total support of the President of the Republic, 
and the possibility of adding the support of all the ministries and all 
the different Federal agencies that have to do with safety and security, 
so that we can give steps forward in this topic in the border.
    We want to have a safe border for the benefit of our citizens and 
for the benefit of our relationship with the United States. Likewise, we 
have intensified our actions with the OASISS project. We are going after 
the criminals that are trafficking with people, that are, let's say, 
promoting illegally the movement of citizens to the United States--the 
alien smugglers. We have stopped more than 120 of these criminals, alien 
smugglers.
    Likewise, in the southern border, as President Bush said, we are 
very active, very active on what has to do with patrol, constructions of 
different stations so as to stop migrants, illegal migrants, people that 
are coming illegally to the Mexican territory, and sending them back to 
their own countries, with due respect to human rights. But we're doing 
an efficient work in that sense.
    Now, with the same type of orientation, the idea that we share with 
President Bush, to consider an important element to thrust development 
in the Central American economies so that they can grow, they can 
generate jobs, that through this project and through this program they 
can generate actual opportunities in these countries, and this is a 
program of energy.
    With this program, we want to achieve the construction of refineries 
for oil, different docks to build natural gas, sources of electric 
energy on the other hand, and conversion of natural gas--liquid, fluid 
gas to natural gas. It is a program that we shall approve next May, the 
Central American countries and Mexico. And we are cordially inviting the 
United States to attend, to know, to observe, to see the project, so as 
to know, how can we interact with the strength and the capacity of North 
America so as to integrate a strong development and solid process in the 
Central American countries.
    We have spoken--we have mentioned about the whole American canal. We 
have to reactivate the working commission in this area so that we can 
discuss ideas and give solutions for both parts, as we have always done, 
worked together, have a dialog, find solutions. And this is what we have 
proposed in reference to the total or whole American channel.
    Thus I want to thank President Bush for his attendance, for his 
presence, and for his work, as well as all his team.
    Tomorrow in the trilateral meeting, we will be covering other 
topics--the topic of safety and security and then some other developing 
topics amongst the three countries, the three partners that belong to 
this bloc of both economy, trade, and association for our prosperity and 
security of North America.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 4:12 p.m. at the Fiesta Americana Condesa 
Cancun Hotel. President Fox spoke in Spanish, and his remarks were 
translated by an interpreter. President Fox referred to Prime Minister 
Stephen Harper of Canada; and Secretary of Government Jose Carlos Maria 
Abascal Carranza of Mexico. The Office of the Press Secretary also 
released a Spanish language transcript of these remarks. A tape was not 
available for verification of the content of these remarks.

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