Jackson to Talk With Officials in Mexico on Debt, Development

The Rev. Jesse Jackson announced Tuesday that he and a delegation of Mexican-American leaders will meet with Mexican officials in Mexico this month to discuss “debt, development and drugs and its impact on immigration.”

Jackson declined to say which Mexican officials would attend the meeting or exactly when the trip would take place.

“You cannot speak of an immigration policy on this side without looking at economic development on the Mexican side,” Jackson said at a rally in Balboa Park. “You cannot talk about the budget defict here without talking about the Mexican debt problem.”

Included in the delegation will be state Assemblyman Peter Chacon of San Diego, former New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya and Latino activist Mario Obledo.

Stresses Economic Growth

During his speech before 2,000 cheering, chanting supporters here, Jackson spent much of his time talking about the relationship between the United States, Mexico and other Latin American countries and the importance of economic development south of the border.

“We have 85 million neighbors with which we share 2,000 miles of border,” he said. “When it rains in Mexico, we get wet in California. When the sun shines in Mexico, we feel the heat in California.

Jackson suggested that the U.S. consider investing in Mexico and Latin America as it did in Europe following World War II, when America pumped billions of dollars into rebuilding the economies and infrastructure of those war-torn countries.

“It’s better to have prosperous neighbors instead of impoverished neighbors,” he said. “So long as there is poverty on one side of the border, there will be emigration to the other side.

“Let’s build up Latin America, with 400 million neighbors, allies and customers,” he said. “We should be exporting grain and tractors and medicine and computers and infrastructure.

‘Live Together as Brothers’

“If they’re buying and we’re selling, and they’re selling and we’re buying, we both live together as brothers and sisters and not die apart as fools.”

The money the Reagan Administration spent funding the Contras in Nicaragua, “I would have spent that same money chasing poverty and ignorance,” he said.

Jackson urged an expansion of the nation’s culture to include those of Latin America and Mexico.

Jackson reminded the crowd that the inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your hungry, your huddled masses yearning to breath free.”

“It didn’t say give me your English-speaking only,” Jackson said. “If it had said give me your English only, we would hardly have enough people to fill Rhode Island.”