NEW ENVOY'S FIRST ASSIGNMENT IS U.S.-MEXICO TALKS

WASHINGTON - Tony Garza, confirmed by the Senate as the next U.S.
ambassador to Mexico, is expected to join Bush administration
officials in Mexico City later this month.

The high-level discussions will center on immigration and other
bilateral issues, officials said Wednesday.

Secretary of State Colin Powell will head a U.S. delegation at a
Binational Commission meeting Nov. 25-26. He's scheduled to meet with
Foreign Relations Secretary Jorge Castaneda and other Mexican Cabinet
members.

Garza, 43, selected by President Bush to serve as ambassador, received
Senate confirmation to the post Tuesday.

He's awaiting a swearing-in ceremony before his posting becomes
official.

"We expect it to happen fairly soon," Richard Boucher, a State
Department spokesman said.

Garza is expected to go to Mexico "fairly shortly, but we don't have a
definite schedule yet," Boucher said.

U.S.-Mexico relations have soured in the past year over disagreements
on immigration reform, capital punishment and U.S. water rights.

Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox failed to reach new agreements
on thorny issues when they met last month in Cabo San Lucas during an
Asia-Pacific Economic forum.

The Binational Commission meetings are designed to stimulate
dialogue.

"I'm sure migration issues, everything between the U.S. and Mexico
gets discussed," Boucher said. "This is a broad meeting involving
high-level delegations from both sides to try to go over sort of
everything in our relationship that we can work on in advance."

The president's nomination of Garza to replace Jeffrey Davidow, the
popular ambassador appointed by President Clinton and retained by
Bush, had languished for months in the Senate. Lawmakers failed to act
on a number of appointees prior to the Nov. 5 election.

Garza also must resign as a member of the Texas Railroad Commission,
to which he was elected in 1998. He'll then go to Mexico to assume his
post.

The fast-paced schedule "couldn't have come at a better time," said
Armand Peschard, director of the Mexico Project at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Peschard said Mexican officials are frustrated with a lack of progress
on issues such as immigration reform, while U.S. officials have become
engrossed with a war on terrorism and bolstering homeland security.

While the bilateral relationship has become distant, Garza is in a
position to change the tenor of the talks.

Garza has a personal link with the president. As governor, Bush helped
shape Garza's political career within the Texas Republican Party when
he appointed the Brownsville native to be secretary of state.

That tie between Garza and Bush should appease Mexican leaders who are
growing wary of a U.S.-Mexico relationship that has failed to bear
fruit on key issues.

Peschard said Garza would serve more as "a White House special envoy
to Mexico, rather than a run-of-the-mill ambassador."

The appointment of Garza, who has become a wunderkind in the Texas
Republican Party, also is being hailed by Lone Star state lawmakers.

"I am confident that Tony Garza will do an outstanding job in Mexico
City," said Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, "and as ambassador will help
create jobs and opportunity on both sides of the border."

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said Garza's bicultural upbringing
along the U.S.-Mexico border "has provided him with a deep insight to
the issues facing our two countries."

"This perspective will be the keystone of his tenure as ambassador,"
she said.

Garza was raised in the Rio Grande Valley, where his father owned a
gas station that serviced automobiles for U.S. and Mexican motorists.

Garza later became the first Republican to be elected Cameron County
judge.

His appointment as U.S. ambassador to Mexico is part of "the classic
American success story," said Rosanna Salazar, a GOP media consultant.

"It's an extraordinary appointment for Texas and for the Valley to
have one of our own in such a position in Mexico City," she said.
"Tony is a Texan and his roots run deep in the state, his roots run
deep in the Valley and he'll take those values and that perspective to
Mexico City."

During his confirmation hearing, Garza told the Senate Foreign
Relations subcommittee on Western Hemisphere affairs the U.S.-Mexico
relationship is strong, with increased levels of cooperation on trade
and efforts to counter narcotics trafficking.

Fox, however, is becoming increasingly vocal about the lack of
progress on immigration reform that would eventually lead to legal
status for 3 million undocumented Mexicans working in the United States.

The Mexican president is urging the Bush administration to develop a
guest worker program that would give human rights protections to
thousands of Mexicans who face the dangers of crossing the border each
year for jobs in the United States.A rift in U.S.-Mexico relations was
exposed when Fox canceled a trip to Texas in August after Gov. Rick
Perry refused to seek a 30-day stay of execution for Javier Suarez
Medina, a Mexican national who killed a Dallas police officer in 1988.

Mexico prohibits the death penalty, and a disagreement over whether
Suarez was denied access to Mexican officials was cited for the
cancellation.

On the U.S.-Mexico water dispute, Garza said he would be an aggressive
advocate for Texas owners of water rights, but said it was important
that a bilateral dialogue continue over the problem that stems from
resource management.

Mexico has failed to pay 1.5 million acre-feet of Rio Grande water
owed to Texas farmers under a 1944 treaty, leading to $1 billion in
crop losses during the past decade.

An acre-foot of water is equal to 326,000 gallons.