By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 4, 2001; Page A01

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 3 -- President Vicente Fox said today he expects it will take four to six years to complete a comprehensive U.S.-Mexico immigration
reform, including legalization for some undocumented Mexican workers in the United States.

Hopes had been high -- especially in Mexico, where immigration is the top foreign policy priority -- that intense negotiations underway for the last six months might
yield substantive new agreements to announce when the Mexican president makes his first state visit to Washington this week. But political realities in Washington
have set in, and Fox's prediction was a recognition that they cannot be ignored.

"We are aware of what we can do and what we cannot do in the short term," Fox said in an interview. "So no rush. . . . We have time to build. President Bush's
administration is just beginning. Mine is just beginning. I think that our estimate is that within the next four to six years we would then have something really
worthwhile."

Bush and his advisers have warned recently that immigration reform will have to proceed slowly, perhaps divided into pieces for consideration by Congress. They
say that any real change may have to wait until after the 2002 midterm elections. Some say the U.S. Congress may never approve granting residence to workers
who entered the United States illegally, which critics see as rewarding a crime.

Fox said, however, that he is "absolutely not disappointed" that he and Bush will not have any substantive announcement to make this week, declaring that both
leaders have time to get the job done.

Fox needs a victory on the immigration front to quiet increasingly vocal critics here who say he has promised much but delivered little since taking office last Dec. 1.
And Bush, whose personal ties with Fox have been a hallmark of his foreign policy, is counting on Fox to help him woo the fast-growing Hispanic vote in the United
States, which is seen as critical to his reelection chances in 2004.

Fox arrives in Washington Tuesday night. He will be the guest of honor at Bush's first state dinner Wednesday evening. The two presidents also plan a week of
public appearances designed to underscore their personal chemistry and increasingly close relations, including a visit to Mexican Americans in Toledo.

Mexico has sought to concentrate on the immigration issue for years. But it has long been overshadowed by U.S. insistence on focusing bilateral talks on trade and
drug trafficking. But since their elections last year, Fox and Bush have pressed immigration to the top of the agenda.

When they met in February on Fox's Mexican ranch, the two presidents started a negotiation that included the possibility of expanded guest worker programs, as
well as an element that Mexico considers crucial: legalizing the status of at least some of the 3 million to 4.5 million undocumented Mexicans now living in the United
States and already paying U.S. taxes.

Speaking at Los Pinos, the forested presidential compound here, Fox said that he sees legalization as an important part of any agreement. He stopped short of saying
that he would reject a deal that did not include at least some legalization, but noted that the United States "has benefited from migration since the founding of the
country." So, he said, legalization of those already there makes sense.

"I want to appeal to U.S. citizens that in this subject we can find real opportunities for both of our countries," he said.

Conservatives in the U.S. Congress, including Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), have said they would block any legalization effort. Fox addressed the critics by saying that
undocumented Mexican workers have been an important part of U.S. economic growth in recent years.

"It's very difficult for me to understand how the United States could have grown at rates of 5 1/2 to 6 percent in the recent past" without Mexican immigrant labor,
Fox said. "For the American people, for the United States' economy, Mexican immigration has been very important for development."

Fox also said reforms he has instituted since taking office in December -- ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party's seven unbroken decades of often corrupt rule
-- have given Mexico a new moral authority in international affairs. He said despite a sluggish economy, foreign capital is flowing into Mexico at record rates,
projected to top $15 billion this year -- up from $10 billion to $12 billion a year. Fox said that demonstrates that "more and more we're building trust and confidence
in our country."

In that new environment, Fox appealed to the United States to see Mexico as a "partner for prosperity" and accept Mexican immigration as an opportunity.

"Trust is key, and if anything, what we're going to be doing these next three days in Washington is building up trust -- Americans should trust Mexico," Fox said.
"Mexico is on its way to modernization. It's undergoing a deep transition in political, economic and social terms. And trust is critical for our discussions related to
migration, drug trafficking or any other issue."

Fox's long-term vision, for the next 30 or 40 years, includes a gradual softening of the U.S.-Mexico border, allowing for freer flow of people, goods and capital. He
has said he envisions Mexico, the United States and Canada joined in a North American alliance similar to the European Union. Part of that would be a common
development fund, in which the wealthy northern countries would contribute billions of dollars toward Mexico's development.

Fox said today he still supports that idea in the long term. But immediately he would like to see an expanded role for the North American Development Bank, which
was created as part of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement to handle environmental problems along the border. He said part of that expansion could
include a new system of "border bonds" to fund border-area infrastructure. For example, it could help pay for improvements of natural gas and electricity
transmission equipment to improve the flow of energy between the two nations, he said.

Fox said the spirit of cooperation already underway in border communities is a model for what the binational relationship should be. "This spirit we want to enlarge
and take to all over the U.S.," Fox said. "We not only want to be friends and neighbors, we want to be partners."

                                               © 2001 The Washington Post Company