GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Mexico's president-elect Vicente Fox pledged
                  Monday to push for a free-trade zone from Mexico to Panama, as part of a bid
                  to stem illegal immigration from Central America.

                  Kicking off a four-day tour of Central America, Fox repeated arguments he has
                  made in talks with U.S. leaders -- that economic opportunity and free trade are
                  key to stemming the tide of immigrants.

                  "Economic reasons are increasingly causing illegal immigration from here into Mexico,
                  as they are from Mexico into the United States," Fox told a news conference Monday,
                  after arriving here late Sunday.

                  "We need to begin creating economic and social plans that can have a regional
                  effect, plans that will improve conditions in border regions by erasing obstacles
                  to free trade," Fox said.

                  But like Fox's proposal for a common market with the United States -- a
                  proposal which got a chilly reception when he visited Washington in August --
                  there are some stumbling blocks to free trade with Central America.

                  Mexican and Guatemalan business owners expressed concern that organized
                  crime on both sides of the border and illegal immigration may make it difficult to
                  achieve the kind of free market both Fox and Guatemalan President Alfonso
                  Portillo have championed.

                  Another touchy subject has apparently not come up during Fox's visit here: The
                  Guatemalan president has admitted to gunning down two Mexicans after a
                  drunken brawl when he was a student in southern Mexico in 1982.

                  Portillo claimed the killings were in self-defense, but said he fled to Guatemala to
                  escape prosecution.

                  Each year, immigrants from Central America cross into Mexico by the hundreds
                  of thousands to make their way to the United States or work at low-paid
                  agricultural jobs in Mexico.

                  Fox, who is to travel on to neighboring Honduras later Monday, said the kind of
                  free-trade agreements like the one signed between Mexico and Guatemala, El
                  Salvador and Honduras would pave the way toward social stability in the region.

                  "We will not adopt the concept of being the big brother of Central America like in
                  the past," Fox said. "We are brothers, period, on the same economic and social
                  levels."

                  Fox, who takes office as Mexico's president Dec. 1, brought governors and
                  business leaders from southern Mexico along with him on the tour, which is
                  scheduled to include visits to Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua.