MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) --U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt were flying to Mexico City Friday for a
three-day visit aimed at reviving initiatives such as immigration reform.

In a signed column published by Mexican newspapers Friday, the two Democrats
pledged to keep the new, closer relationship with Mexico from falling by the wayside
in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

"There are those who want to use the terrorist attacks in the United States as a
justification for closing our doors to immigrants," according to the column. "Some
even say we should remove those immigrants already in the United States."

"The killers of September 11 probably would have approved of such a plan ... but
we shouldn't give them that victory," they wrote.

"Justice and security are not mutually opposed. We should create an immigration
system that is both just, and favors families and businesses."

The two men were scheduled to meet Friday with President Vicente Fox and
Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda.

On Sunday they are to tour the central state of Puebla, many of whose residents
work in the United States and where some families lost relatives in the World Trade
Center attacks.

The visit seems to bolster President Vicente Fox, who has seen his pet project --
better treatment for Mexican migrants -- largely stalled since the attacks, even as
economic fallout from September 11 begins to hurt Mexico's economy.

Mexican anti-drug officials said this week that increased insecurity at the U.S.
border has caused drugs to "build up" in Mexico, causing increased availability of
narcotics use.

At the same time, the United States has pulled back Coast Guard units that once
patrolled drug-shipping lanes to protect American ports against terrorist attacks.

That shifted more of the drug interdiction burden on to Mexico's Navy.

Daschle came bearing gifts: before leaving for Mexico, he said the Senate is ready to
end the drug-certification procedure that has angered Mexico for years.

"I think that we are finally able to say that we are doing away with the concept of
anti-drug certification as we have known it for years," Daschle told a Washington
news conference.

The certification procedure required the State Department to pass judgment on other
countries' anti-drug efforts and threatened the loss of financial aid for nations that
failed the test.

Mexicans, and many other Latin Americans, considered that an affront to their
sovereignty.

Daschle offered to "leave behind the old habit of blaming each other" for the drug
problem, a view that Mexican officials appeared ready to embrace.

In the past, Mexican officials have argued that anti-drug efforts would never work
until the United States reduced drug consumption.

"We can't speak in terms of a "consumer country" and a "producer country"
anymore," Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexico's director of national security, said
Wednesday. "Mexico is a consumer country ... and we must win the battle against
consumption."

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press