Bush plans would-be immigrants aid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On the eve of his trip to Mexico, Peru and
El Salvador, President Bush promised initiatives to ease the plight of
would-be illegal immigrants, saying, "There are
people in our neighborhood who hurt."
He embarks on the trip not quite ready, however,
to resume drug-surveillance flights over Peru or seek a base of U.S. counterterrorism
operations near Peru's
border with Colombia, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said
yesterday.
Mr. Bush leaves today on a four-day trip that
begins with a stop at the U.S.-Mexican border at El Paso, Texas. From there,
he continues on to Monterrey,
Mexico, for two days of meetings related to a U.N. conference on aid
to developing countries.
Cuba's Fidel Castro will be at the summit;
but Miss Rice said firmly that Mr. Bush has no plans to cross paths with
the communist dictator.
In advance of the economic deliberations with
his international counterparts, Mr. Bush met Tuesday and yesterday with
Latin American journalists at the White
House and underscored his plan to make more than $5 billion in new
foreign aid contingent on recipient nations instituting corruption-fighting
economic and political
reforms.
"I want to do it in a way that rewards countries
which battle corruption, which honor education, which focus on health care,
so that there [are] good habits
developed," Mr. Bush said yesterday.
Under the new foreign-aid initiative announced
last week, Mr. Bush would offer developing nations about $1.7 billion the
first year, about $3.3 billion in the
second year and the full $5 billion in the third and subsequent years.
The money would come on top of current U.S. aid levels and would be awarded
largely as
grants rather than loans.
Foreign aid to corrupt governments only helps
"an elite group of leaders," not needy citizens, Mr. Bush said.
As evidence of his administration's commitment
to its southern neighbors, aides said Mr. Bush will announce in Mexico
minor new initiatives aimed at creating jobs
in the poorest areas of Mexico that send so many undocumented immigrants
across the border in search of a better life.
The idea is to create "economic circumstances
in Mexico that allow them to [stay] home," Miss Rice said.
The president had hoped to carry with him
on the trip a freshly minted law that included an amnesty provision to
allow hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to
stay in the country.
But he has not been able to push through the
Senate a House-passed bill he wants to extend the deadline for those immigrants
to apply for residency without
leaving the United States.
Mr. Bush's state visit to Lima, Peru, on Saturday
will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited that Andean
democracy.
Despite hopes widely expressed by U.S. and
Peruvian officials in advance of the trip, Mr. Bush does not have a decision
to announce to President Alejandro
Toledo on the resumption of drug-interdiction flights, Miss Rice said.
The flights were suspended last April after
a Peruvian air force jet, working in coordination with a CIA surveillance
plane, shot down a missionary plane, killing an
American woman and her 7-month-old daughter.
Late yesterday, the White House issued a statement
in the name of Press Secretary Ari Fleischer that expressed regret over
a tragedy that "should never have
happened," said the United States is prepared to compensate the victims'
families, and promised tighter safety precautions before any surveillance
program is
restarted.
Asked about reports in the Peruvian press
that Mr. Bush planned to ask Mr. Toledo about establishing a U.S. counterterrorism
operation near Peru's border with
Colombia, Miss Rice said such talk is "premature."
Before returning to Washington late Sunday,
Mr. Bush will stop in El Salvador's capital, San Salvador, for talks with
President Francisco Flores that will wrap in
the seven other Central American presidents over a working lunch.
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