MEX PRESIDENT SAYS HE'LL KEEP ILLEGALS HOME - BUT THE SOUTHWEST BELONGS TO MEXICO!

Mexican president promises to keep Mexicans at home

By LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon won't be fighting for migration reform when he meets with President Bush next week. Instead, he will be be spelling out what he intends to do to keep Mexicans at home.

Calderon, who was inaugurated on Dec. 1, has pledged to take 100 actions in his first 100 days in office, many of which represent the first steps toward "curing" Mexico's long tradition of illegal migration to the U.S.

If implemented, his proposals could help transform Mexico from a labor-exporting country with relatively low growth, productivity and wages into an investment-rich, job-producing economy with better living standards for its 107 million people, nearly half of whom still live in poverty.

"We are laying the foundation for a more just, healthy society with better and more equal opportunities for all," he said.

Even a modicum of success for Calderon would improve on the record of his predecessor Vicente Fox, who failed to persuade the United States to accept Mexican guest workers and also could not put in place proposed reforms.

Like Fox, Calderon faces powerful Mexican monopolies and oligopolies, union leaders and old-school politicians who have resisted changes to a system that concentrates power and wealth in a small number of hands and blocks attempts to improve competition, lower consumer prices and open the job market to more people.

Unlike Fox, Calderon has shown he can rally lawmakers and others behind his plans: Congress unanimously passed his 2007 federal budget and he has united state governments behind a nationwide crackdown on drug trafficking.

Among other things, he has proposed labor, energy and judicial reforms to encourage investment, promote competition and create jobs; improved tax collection to generate more revenue to fight poverty and improve education; universal health care and support for small and medium-size businesses.

"Curing" migration will take many more than his six years in office, Calderon says. With this in mind, he set the goal of boosting Mexico's per-capita income from the equivalent of about $8,000 today to around $30,000 by 2030.

"It won't be easy. It won't be fast, but yes, it is possible," Calderon said.

Calderon and Bush will meet in Merida, the capital of Yucatan state, on March 13 and 14. Officials have not disclosed in detail the talks' agenda, but in addition to migration, the two are expected to discuss drugs and unresolved trade disputes over trucking rights and agricultural products.

U.S.-bound migrants include not only poor and poorly educated unskilled laborers, but also middle-class entrepreneurs, college graduates and professionals. Many actually have jobs in Mexico, but the salaries don't match their talents and experience, and workplace discrimination is widespread.

"I think he's on the right track, but migration is a long-term problem," said Jorge Chabat, an international affairs expert at Mexico City's Center for Economic Research and Instruction.

Jose Antonio Perez, a 27-year-old college graduate from the oil-rich Gulf coast state of Veracruz, has a degree in mechanical engineering, but no real career prospects in Mexico.

His jobs have included a five-month, unpaid engineering internship at a boat-repair company; a two-year job with a telephone company that offered no benefits and no chance of advancement; and his current teaching job, which requires little of his engineering skills and offers no insurance benefits, vacation, or job security.

Perez works 12 hours a day Monday through Friday teaching high school mathematics and computers - a post that pays $12,000 a year. He supplements his income with odd carpentry and bricklaying jobs, or selling clothing and even cars.

"I sleep four hours a night," he said. "I can't even think of having a family until I get something more secure."

More than a year ago, when several of Perez's friends were working illegally in the United States, they earned as much as $26,300 a year pumping gas or working in carpentry.

The friends have since returned, but their stories have inspired Perez. If his situation doesn't improve in six months, he plans to cross the border as well.

"I could be a carpenter or a locksmith," he said.

Calderon - who often notes that he has relatives in the United States, although he has not revealed their legal status - says he is well aware of the difficulties Mexicans face trying to live and work in their own country.

He recently told the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico: "The ideal situation for Mexico is not to have Mexicans migrate."