 MEXICAN PRESIDENT VICENTE FOX RAISES IMMIGRATION ISSUES DURING CALIFORNIA TRIP
This Wednesday, Mexican President Vicente Fox was the first Mexican President to visit Silicon Valley, California. Fox visited the Valley during a three-day tour of California, in which he had two primary focuses. One was working toward the development of high-tech industries in Mexico, and the other was the treatment of Mexican workers in the US, both by the US and Mexican governments.
It was also Fox’s first visit to the US since taking office last December. Mexicans in the US all want something from his presidency, but what they want varies tremendously depending on their status. Undocumented workers are looking toward Fox for a push to guarantee them legal rights, including the right to work, to travel freely, and help in dealing with money transfer services, which have been sued over the often exorbitant exchange rates they charge. They hope that Fox will be able to use his personal influence with US President George W. Bush to help create a guest worker program that would allow many undocumented Mexican workers to obtain legal status.
Mexican high tech workers, both in the US and Mexico, and Americans in the industry, look to Fox to improve economic stability in Mexico and to improve primary education in the country so that it will better be able to participate in the worldwide high tech economy. It is also believed that improved economic conditions in Mexico would do much to slow immigration, but legal and undocumented.
There are already more than 40,000 Mexicans employed in high tech work in Mexico, primarily in the state of Guadalajara, home to an IBM plant since 1975 and Hewlett-Packard plant since 1982, as well as a growing number of new manufacturers. It is in large part because of high-tech manufacturing in Mexico that it has become the number one trading partner with California. Of the billion in exports from Mexico to California last year, high tech products accounted for .6 billion. However, many criticize the conditions in the Mexican factories, saying that the hours are long, and the wages low, in some cases barely six dollars a day.
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