Villaraigosa Urges Mexico and California to Join in Creating Jobs

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa called Friday on Californians and Mexicans to help one another create jobs on both sides of the border.

“I [went to Mexico] as an American trying to get jobs for Americans, but also to get Mexicans jobs in Mexico, which will benefit all of us,” he said.

Returning from a five-day trip, which demonstrated that local and state concerns in California often have global implications, Villaraigosa told reporters at Los Angeles International Airport that he had urged Mexican officials to buy American airplanes and coal, which would directly benefit workers here.

Addressing U.S. anxiety over illegal immigration, Villaraigosa said he had observed economic development projects in Mexico that, if expanded, could create decent jobs for Mexicans in their home regions.

Villaraigosa said such programs could target the Mexican states that send the most migrants to California and could be seeded with money from remittances by immigrants in the United States to relatives at home.

Such a plan is “tough on immigration, because it’s smart and effective. It’s also constitutional,” he said, apparently referring to Proposition 187, the state measure that would have kept illegal immigrants from public schools and most social services.

Proposition 187 was approved in 1994 by nearly 60% of California voters, but a federal court decision ruled much of the measure unconstitutional.

Earlier this week, Villaraigosa had thanked Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo for traveling to California to speak out against the controversial ballot measure.

Asked if his latest remarks on Proposition 187 could hurt his future political campaigns, Villaraigosa, who is considering running for mayor of Los Angeles, said he was not worried.

A 1994 exit poll by The Times found that Los Angeles voters approved the measure by a slimmer margin than voters statewide. Since then, the number of immigrant Latino voters in the city has swelled.

“Honestly, I think a lot of people would like to close that door [on the issue]. There are more productive things we can do,” Villaraigosa said of the proposition.

The militarization of the border and increased patrols have not stopped illegal immigration, he said, citing job creation in Mexico as the best way to protect U.S. borders.

Conversely, Mexico can do much to promote California’s economic health, the speaker said. A focal point of the trip for his delegation, which included business, labor and government officials, was securing Mexican contracts.

At the top of the list was an effort by Boeing, Southern California’s largest private employer, to sell more than 150 passenger jets to Mexico’s state-owned airlines, Aeromexico and Mexicana.

The $6.5-billion contract would give a potentially lifesaving boost to a troubled Boeing operation in Long Beach that employs 1,500. The Boeing 717, a 100-seat jet built there, is in danger of being scrapped because of few orders, industry analysts say.

Requests for bids for the contract have yet to be issued, but Villaraigosa said the trip may have given Boeing a leg up on the potential transaction.

Another sought-after deal is the purchase of U.S. coal to fuel Mexican power plants. Villaraigosa said the group lobbied Mexico’s energy secretary, who agreed to consider revising purchasing requirements that preclude buying U.S. coal.

The coal purchase would be important to Los Angeles because the fuel would be shipped through the city’s port, taking advantage of an underutilized facility, Villaraigosa said.

“This trip was a really positive step toward a new relationship, one in which we’ll look at the border not as a source of conflict but as a source of opportunity,” he said.