MEXICO TO HELP FIGHT TRAFFICKING BUT WON'T STOP BORDER CROSSERS

PHOENIX -- Mexico's public safety director said Friday he will work
with U.S. and Arizona officials to cut drug traffic and arrest human
smugglers but not to keep people from emigrating to this country.

Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza said his government realizes the flow of
illegal drugs from Mexico to the United States, as well as the
business of ferrying people across the border, are binational
problems. He said the criminals running those activities end up
sending guns and money back to Mexico, where they wind up in the
hands of criminal gangs.

"Either we fight this battle together and win it together or we won't
be able to achieve our goals," he said after a meeting with Gov.
Janet Napolitano.

The governor expressed the same sentiment, saying efforts to cut the
importation of methamphetamines into this country require "both
countries and both states to be working together."

But Medina-Mora made it clear the scope of that battle is limited.

"Our obligation in terms of constitution and the law is fighting
organized crime and people who are exploiting the needs of migrants,"
he said. Organized crime groups are "facilitating" the flow of people
across the border, Medina-Mora said. He said there is no interest at
this point in going after the migrants themselves, at least not until
Congress enacts a new "guest worker" program.

"When and if we get an agreement or the U.S. gets a scheme in which
Mexicans willing to travel to the U.S. for taking work opportunities
with willing employers in the U.S. within a legal framework adopted
by the U.S. Congress, Mexico for sure will take care that Mexican
migrants willing to come up will follow the legal channels to do so,"
Medina-Mora said. Part of the issue, he said, is his own legal
constraints. "The Mexican constitution provides freedom of transit
within Mexico for Mexicans," Medina-Mora said.

That means the new checkpoints his government is setting up,
including one at the airport in Hermosillo, are aimed at catching
people from other countries who entered Mexico illegally to make
their way to the United States.

Napolitano said Mexico already has taken "very impressive" steps that
will help cut crime in Arizona. For example, she said, Mexico has
sharply cut the amount of pseudoephedrine allowed in the country,
which means less methamphetamine can be manufactured from the
otherwise legal decongestant. And she said the Mexican government is
setting up five new checkpoints along federal highways heading to
this country -- roads used by drug and human smugglers. Napolitano
said the Mexican government is coming up with a new national
identification card with "biometric" identifiers -- essentially a
code that translates into each person's fingerprints. And she said
Mexico will require that every vehicle registered in the country be
fitted with a computer chip "so they can be tracked and traced should
they be involved in a crime, should they be stolen."