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9/30/2006 1:07 PM
By: Associated Press
MEXICO CITY -- Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said today the government will try to persuade President Bush not to sign a bill that would extend a 700-mile wall along the southern border.
In a news conference with reporters, Derbez strongly criticized the fence.
The Senate has joined the House in approving an extension of a wall along the border intended to stop illegal immigrants.
The Senate vote was 80-19. No one knows how much the fence will actually cost.
A $1.2 billion down payment for the fencing is part of a separate bill also on the way to the White House.
A homeland security bill Congress was completing on Friday included $380 million to hire 1,500 more Border Patrol agents and money to build detention facilities that hold 6,700 more illegal immigrants.
Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn voted for the fence bill. But they failed in their effort to amend the fence bill. They wanted to allow border communities to have some input in where fencing will be located and how much of it is erected in their areas.
Hutchison said she received a commitment from the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House promising to address the concerns when Congress returns from recess.
Congress has abandoned Mexico's top priority: an immigration accord that would have allowed more Mexicans to work legally in the United States. Bush had proposed a temporary worker program that would have given out three-year work visas to those with jobs lined up in the U.S.
Instead, U.S. lawmakers have focused on increasing security along the border. The added security has angered Mexico, which sees the actions as a militarization of the two countries' common frontier.