Bush, Calderon promote "comprehensive" immigration "reform"

Our allegedly American president welcome Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon to the White House just two days after the midterm election, and promoted "comprehensive" reform:

PRESIDENT BUSH: ...I have made it very clear to the President-elect that Mexico is a priority of this administration... I know a fair amount about Mexico; after all, I was the governor of Texas. I assured him that we will work very closely together. We talked about trade. We talked about mutual interests, fighting drugs, and we talked, of course, about migration. And I assured the President-elect that the words I said in the very Oval Office that we sit about a comprehensive immigration vision are words I still believe strongly.

...PRESIDENT-ELECT CALDERON: (As translated.) President Bush and I had a very good conversation today. And we reaffirmed the purpose that we both had, which is to strengthen the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States even more.

I expressed to President Bush my concern regarding the issue of migration. President Bush was very open to all the arguments that I have presented to him. And we both stressed the need to have a comprehensive vision with which we can move forward. This is, of course, an extremely important issue. It is not the only issue in our bilateral relationship... We want to foster our trade relationship, our economic relationship even more. We both understand that the only solution to many of the problems that we have is to create well-paid jobs in Mexico. And for that, we need even more investment. We will continue to show the importance of democracy, the importance of free trade, the importance of all of these issues that will make us an even stronger nation, which will also strengthen the bilateral relationship... [etc...]

Thankfully, Greg Flakus has jogged my memory that I meant to mention Bush's choice of words:

The president's use of the word migration is sure to ruffle the feathers of many critics of his immigration policy because that word is often used by groups who see the influx of Mexicans across the border as part of the natural flow of labor. The word is also used by groups who believe Mexicans have a special right to come to the United States since much of the land in the American southwest was part of Mexico and was taken by the United States after the war with Mexico that ended in 1848.

Immigration · Thu, 11/09/2006 - 14:39 · · Importance: 1