Mexico: Holy Toledo! - American visit of Mexican President Vicente Fox - Brief Article

National Review, Oct 1, 2001

President Vicente Fox of Mexico came to the United States like a campaigning politician, as indeed he was. Mindful that many Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, are not yet rooted in this country, and are still potential voters in his, he offered a glowing picture of their homeland. "I want to tell you," he said to a crowd in Toledo, Ohio, "not only that we love you and respect you, but that we need you back in Mexico . . . to promote the growth of our great nation."

But President Fox knows he cannot deal with all of them coming home just yet. In fact, he would like more of them to leave, especially in a period of economic contraction: Their remittances do more for the Mexican economy than Pemex, and the social burden of the poor among them is much better left with the gringos. So he also said at the White House that "[t]he time has come to give migrants and their communities their proper place in the history of our bilateral relations. We must, and we can, reach an agreement on immigration before the end of this very year."

The end of this very year is only four months away. President Bush is laboring mightily to assure alarmed congressmen that he does not intend to amnesty 3 million Mexican illegals, even as the vectors of his policy point towards amnestying many of them. Fox's announcement therefore cannot have been welcome.

But he may have hurt himself by some last-minute campaigning. On his way home, he declared that the Inter-American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty, an anti-Communist pact that has been in place since 1947, should be transformed into an alliance against poverty and crime, and that otherwise he might withdraw from it in 60 days. This is bound to hurt him with the Washington elites who have the fewest qualms about immigration. They worship at the altar of the status quo-so long as they remain the high priests of it. To spring a change on them might play well at home, but not with them.

Political ploys come and go. What comes are Mexican immigrants who sustain many businesses in every part of the country. Toledo is not exactly a border town, but it is the home of a growing Mexican community, which is why Fox went there. President Bush's policy, of breaking down international borders, so long as he can avoid seeming to do so, will keep those Toledos coming.