Zedillo’s California Trip Heralds New Era

President Ernesto Zedillo, who sets off next week on a three-day sweep through California, plans to celebrate rapidly warming relations with the state but also confront touchy topics such as migration and Proposition 187, officials here said Friday.

Mexican Foreign Minister Rosario Green confirmed that “the whole theme of Proposition 187 will be present” during the trip. In contrast, Gov. Gray Davis’ staff had expected that the subject would not be raised.

However, both sides have hastened to play down disagreement over the ballot measure, which voters approved in 1994 and Davis sent last month to court mediation.

“President Zedillo will not criticize anything,” Green told a news conference Friday when asked about Proposition 187, which calls for ending health, welfare and education benefits to illegal immigrants. “He’s really going to strengthen the dialogue, communication and, of course, the friendship between Gov. Davis” and himself.

Zedillo’s trip, which begins Tuesday, will be the longest visit by a Mexican president to California and symbolizes an about-face in relations with the state since Davis took office. The governor’s predecessor, Pete Wilson, was reviled in Mexico for initiatives such as Proposition 187. Because of such tension, Zedillo has not visited California until now, the fifth year of his six-year presidency.

But both sides foresee a new era.

Zedillo’s ambitious agenda signals the importance that California holds for Mexico. On Tuesday, Zedillo will become the first Mexican president to address the state Legislature in Sacramento. He also will visit San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. The presidential visit, which includes meetings with business and cultural leaders, is so broad that it resembles a trip to a foreign country rather than a single state, analysts noted. And that, they said, makes sense.

“California is the most important relationship Mexico has with the rest of the world,” said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, a Mexican senator and political scientist.

California is one of Mexico’s major economic partners, as well as home to the biggest community of Mexicans abroad: 2.2 million people.

But the state’s importance goes beyond ethnic or economic ties, Mexican officials said. They see the state as a shaper of public opinion in the United States. A major goal of Zedillo’s trip is to communicate a positive message about Mexico.

“California is a trendsetter,” said one senior Mexican official who requested anonymity. “If California has a constructive attitude . . . to solve problems through good communication, this will permeate through the United States.”

Zedillo is returning a visit made by Davis in February, shortly after the governor took office promising to heal strained relations with Mexico, California’s No. 2 trading partner.

His trip will be largely symbolic and celebratory. But Zedillo will bring up thorny issues such as immigration, officials said.

Mexico is especially concerned about the growing number of migrants who died while trekking across remote deserts or harsh mountains in a bid to evade beefed-up U.S. border controls. About 300 Mexican migrants perished on the border last year, 177 of them on the California stretch, said Green, the foreign minister.

Immigration is the responsibility of the federal, not state, government. But “many aspects have to do with day-to-day” management of the border by local officials, the senior Mexican official said. “If there’s an atmosphere of xenophobia, this has an effect.”

Zedillo also is concerned about Proposition 187. A federal judge ruled last year that the measure for the most part is unconstitutional, and the Wilson administration appealed. Davis was urged by Latino groups to drop the appeal, but he asked for federal court mediation.

Green said her government was “following very closely what Gov. Davis is doing” on Proposition 187. But she added that she was confident the court mediation would “strengthen respect for the civil and labor rights . . . of Mexicans in the United States.”

*

Times staff writer Nick Anderson in Washington contributed to this report.