U.S., Mexico Agree to Repatriation Plan : Immigration: Program will send some who enter the States illegally far south of the border.

President Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo on Tuesday announced a pilot program that will send some illegal immigrants detained in San Diego back into the interior of Mexico rather than just across the border.

The one-year test program will begin in the next couple of weeks, said the two presidents, speaking during Zedillo’s first state visit to the United States.

Under the program, detained illegal immigrants will have the option of being returned to major cities in the interior of the nation. This will reduce the burden that illegal immigration imposes on the border region, Clinton Administration officials said.

The Administration will pay the travel costs for up to 10,000 people, officials said.

“It is absolutely voluntary on the part of individuals who would decide that they would prefer to return home rather than to be in the difficult situation of being unemployed in the border area far from home,” said Richard Feinberg, an expert on Latin America with the National Security Council.

The repatriation project comes as immigration is becoming a hot-button issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. The issue is just one piece of a broad, conservative Republican attack on Clinton’s Mexico policies, which has targeted both the North American Free Trade Agreement and Clinton’s bailout of the United States’ southern neighbor after the peso collapsed in December.

Zedillo appears to recognize the political pressures that Clinton will face in the upcoming campaign and seems unlikely to loudly protest any get-tough immigration measures the White House might take to insulate itself from GOP attacks. U.S. officials indicate that it is left unspoken that Zedillo owes Clinton some support on the issue because Clinton responded so quickly to Mexico’s financial crisis.

“I can’t imagine a more sensitive issue between us than immigration,” one senior Administration official said. “We both need each other’s help on that.”

The presidents’ meeting was generally upbeat. Zedillo announced just days before his arrival that Mexico was repaying the first $700 million on $12.5 billion in loans from the United States.

Clinton said the fact that Zedillo quickly stabilized the Mexican economy vindicated his Administration’s decision to go ahead with the bailout in the face of fierce Republican opposition.

“The Mexican economy has turned the corner, and the markets have taken notice,” Clinton said.