Vicente Fox - U.S. Will 'Beg' for Mexican Workers

Since 04-01-06

Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/30/103635.shtml?s=et

Mexican President Vicente Fox is defending earlier comments where he insisted that the U.S. will soon be "begging" Mexico to send workers to alleviate a coming U.S. labor shortage.

"I dare say that in 10 years, the U.S. will be begging, will be pleading with Mexico to send it workers," said Fox, who meets with President Bush in Cancun today to discuss what he calls the "migration" problem.

In his March 3 remarks to the BBC, Fox warned that the U.S. had better take advantage of the Mexican labor pool while it has the chance, because when America starts begging for Mexican workers, "Mexico won't do it because it will have its people employed [here at home]."

In an interview Wednesday night, Fox said he stood by his comments.

"Let's put it this way," he told MSNBC's Rita Cosby. "[The] U.S. economy will need additional labor than what they have, because population growth in United States is not growing."
Fox said he foresaw the day when his country's excess labor pool would dry up.

"Mexico will level off it's population by year 2030," he explained. "Mexico will never pass 130 - 135 million people and then it will level-off so we won't have that kind of energy that youth, but more so, we will need them here in Mexico to sustain our retirement, pension families which will be many."

For the time being, however, the Mexican leader said he remained opposed to U.S. proposals that would crack down on workers who leave Mexico and enter the U.S. illegally.

Asked about U.S. plans to build a border fence, Fox told Cosby: "I don't think building a wall or try to take that kind of measure will help the issue. I think we both have the capacity . . . give migration a legal form, an ordered flow and a full respect to human rights of everybody."

He also opposes plans to station the U.S. military along the Mexican border, saying:

"No, it's not the way to solve it."

Instead he credited illegal Mexican shoppers with keeping malls along the border in business.

"Right there in the border, there is one million persons, people crossing every day . . . The way they cross to consume on the U.S. side, this incredible amount of big shopping centers in the border on the U.S. side, it's Mexican consumption makes them successful."