Politics: USA: Bush's Latin American diplomacy becomes platform for his last campaign--a guestworker program + shutting out illiegal immigrants

Associated Press' Deb Riechmann reports from Merida, Mexico "Bush seeks better ties in Latin America" (Mar14,2k7) via Houston Chronicle. Riechmann stresses that the US President's tour of diplomacy to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico would climax in the Yucatan Penninsula. There, Bush also sent a related message to the American Congress.

President Bush sent a long-distance message to Congress from the southeast tip of Mexico: The future of U.S. relations south of the border hinges on immigration reform.

"I'm going to keep repeating it while I'm here in Mexico — that I know our country must have comprehensive immigration reform," said Bush, who returns to Washington on Wednesday after a second day of meetings with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Bush is to speak on the Yucatan Peninsula to the Mexican people and the newly elected Calderon before leaving, but he hopes his words will be heard 1,400 miles away on Capitol Hill where his immigration proposal has been blocked. ...

The president could not promise Mexico that Congress will pass his guest worker program. He could only promise to work hard to make it law.

"President Calderon holds deep convictions on the matter of migration, and so do I," Bush said Tuesday night in a toast to Calderon on the breezy verandah of a manicured hacienda where the two dined on fresh shrimp ceviche and duck.

"Our nations share a 2,000-mile border, and that should be a source of unity, not division," Bush said. "So we're working together to keep both sides of the border open to tourism and trade, and closed to criminals and drug dealers and smugglers and terrorists and gun runners."

With those words, Bush closed a warm, sunny day of meetings, hacienda hopping and sightseeing at Mayan ruins with Calderon, who heralded the meeting as a "new stage in bilateral relations."

Just before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush stressed the importance of the U.S. relationship with Mexico. The war in Iraq, which Mexico did not support, and Afghanistan shifted Bush's focus to the Middle East and Mexicans felt neglected. ...

Bush worked to allay their concerns, saying the barrier and stepped up enforcement along the border were only the first steps in a comprehensive immigration law overhaul that he hoped would include a guest worker program. ...

Besides shoring up relations in Latin America, Bush's trip could help reach Hispanics, who make up the fastest-growing minority group in the United States. And it helps Bush, who has waning political clout, push his immigration agenda through Congress.

Mexico, which for years has been urging changes in U.S. immigration policy, plans to begin an aggressive lobbying effort to get a deal. With the clock ticking on Bush's presidency, Bush said he hoped legislation would be completed by August.

Bush's proposed a guest worker program, which Congress has not embraced, would allow Mexicans to seek temporary work visas to work in the United States. ...

I'm hopeful but doubtful that Bush's plan for a strong border with a close-off of most illiegal migration plus a guest worker process for illegals presently in the USA, will succeed. I don't see anything else around that is more workable. Neither on the R+t, nor the Left.