While on a two-day trade visit to Mexico, Governor Schwarzenegger met with Mexico’s President-elect Felipe Calderon. While promoting California exports, he strongly criticized a US plan to build an additional 700 miles of fence along the Mexican border. He said the plan to prevent the illegal entry of Mexicans was crazy, unless more workers were allowed in legally. Calderon has also called the planned fence deplorable.

Due to politicized immigration crackdowns, Californian farmers have experienced significant labor shortages. The governor stated that the fence is only a limited solution to the illegal immigration problem. “It is crazy for the federal government not to simultaneously … also create a law where we can bring more people into the country legally,” Schwarzenegger said. On Friday, mayors from American and Mexican border cities signed a document denouncing the fence. They declared that the border needed solidarity, not separation. Bush signed the plan for the fence into law despite strong opposition in October.

source