FOX CALLS U.S. TRIP A SUCCESS

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Vicente Fox said Saturday his state visit
to Washington this week brought advances in fast-improving bilateral
relations and praised President Bush as a firm ally and friend of Mexico.

Fox and Bush were already friends before Fox's state visit and the two men
bonded again last week, meeting several times and traveling together to
Toledo, Ohio, where they spoke in sympathetic terms of Mexican migrants who
make dangerous border crossings in search of work in the United States.

Fox said in his weekly radio address Saturday that he and Bush were working
together to relax U.S. immigration laws and allow millions of undocumented
Mexicans in the United States to win legal status.

"He is a person with sensitivity, apart from having leadership and vision.
He is fond of Mexico and Mexicans, and he wants to help us in achieving all
these things and regularizing the situation of our countrymen there," Fox said.

Fox took power last December after an election victory that ended 71 years
of single-party rule in Mexico, and he has made improved relations with
Washington and an easing of U.S. immigration policy key goals of his
presidency.

Bush, who considers support from Hispanics critical to his 2004 re-election
hopes, strongly supports immigration reform. But he has also said it needs
to be crafted carefully -- and should not be rushed -- if it is to win
support in the U.S. Congress. Fox pushed his case in a speech to a joint
meeting of the Senate and House Thursday, saying Mexico has made major
advances in establishing a full democracy and fighting the drug cartels
that move huge quantities of cocaine through Mexico and into the United States.

Fox said Saturday the standing ovations he received in his speech to
Congress gave him goose bumps because it showed there was "truly a great
appreciation of Mexico."

"We are going to work together to improve many things in fighting organized
crime and ending drug trafficking. We are going to work with them, united
and organized, to bring more development, more jobs and more investment to
Mexico," he said.

"It was a trip that was worthwhile. It seems to me there were important
achievements."