Posted on 08/27/2005 10:44:33 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
MEXICO CITY – Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez said Mexican business executives told him yesterday they feel "totally rejected" by California political leaders, a contrast to their warm relations with Texas officials.
After a private meeting with a dozen business leaders here, the Los Angeles Democrat said executives regard the current wave of "anti-immigrant hysteria" in California as an affront to them.
The speaker said he invited the group to come to California for a meeting with business and political leaders to improve relations.
"I said, 'We want your investment in the state,' " Núñez said he told the members of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology.
The speaker, who met with Mexican President Vicente Fox on Thursday, plans to end his three-day trip today by attending a soccer game. He said one of the members of the business group is a soccer team owner who is interested in putting a team in California.
Núñez said the business leaders welcomed the timing of his trip, which comes amid declarations of border emergencies by the governors of Arizona and New Mexico and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's rejection of Núñez's request for a similar declaration in California.
Schwarzenegger has drawn criticism in Mexico for his repeal of a law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain a California driver's license and for supporting "Minutemen" border watchers.
Núñez said the Mexican business leaders, noting that the governor of Texas makes frequent visits and calls to Mexico, told him that their "horrible" relations with California are not just linked to Schwarzenegger.
"They don't feel they are taken seriously," Núñez said.
Núñez said the "politics of the situation" is not allowing the full development of economic relations between California and Mexico. The Mexican business executives further complained to him about slow border crossings and tariffs.
In Sacramento, Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said that the San Ysidro border crossing near San Diego is the busiest in the world, with 45.3 million crossings in 2003.
She said that Schwarzenegger and Baja Gov. Eugenio Elorduy talked last year, and again at a border governor's conference in Coahuila last month, about improving the SENTRI program that speeds passage at the border by issuing special passes to people who pass background checks.
"California absolutely benefits from having Mexico as its largest trading partner," she said.
Thompson said Mexico is more than an equal trading partner. She said Mexico's exports to California totaled $20 billion in 2002, while California exports to Mexico totaled $16 billion.
Amid a busy day of meetings and media interviews, Núñez also addressed a large rally of a small-farmer group, the Confederation Nacional Campesina, which has called for a revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement to protect members of the organization from large foreign competitors.
They're leaving out the key term here: ILLEGAL ALIENS.
And if they can't abide by it, then to hell with 'em. Let 'em take their idiot business to frickin' Guatemala for all I care.
I havent heard any Americans who are anti-immigrant. Americans are against ILLEGALS. We are against people who just decide to walk across the border anywhere they like and enter our country with God knows what strapped to their backs.
Now if the Mexican businessmen dont like that, " They can take their job and Shove it".
Why don't the execs invest in their own country? Put the unemployed to work! Or is it the case that the Mexican government on the federal and state level is so corrupt that only a fool would invest in Mexico?
Breaking News:"California absolutely benefits from having Mexico as its largest trading partner," she said.TIJUANA, Mexico -- The Mexican border city plans to give prostitutes electronic health cards and regulate brothels in an effort to clean up its gritty image. The city is forcing about 50 clandestine brothels to meet public safety and hygiene standards, like putting clean sheets on beds, or face closure.
All's well that ends well.
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