Guest Worker Program Urged : Mexico: Border governors support immigration program, but Davis takes no stand on issue, and leaves early.

Two of the thorniest issues in U.S.-Mexico relations--immigration and drugs--took center stage in surprising new forms Friday as governors from states along both sides of the border wound up their yearly get-together.

Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull won the support of her counterparts in Texas and New Mexico for a proposal to create a guest worker program that would enable more immigrants to work legally in the United States on a temporary basis.

California Gov. Gray Davis declined to join in calling on the federal government to expand a little-used program under which agricultural workers are issued temporary visas to enter the United States.

An aide said Davis, the only Democrat among the four Southwest border governors, received the Hull proposal Thursday afternoon. A letter supporting the idea bore the names of Hull, New Mexico Gov. Gary E. Johnson and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who did not attend the conference.

“The governor is not interested in signing it at this point,” said Davis aide Michael Flores.

Davis helped kick off the border gathering Thursday evening but returned later that night to Sacramento to tend to state business, Flores said.

Hull said federal legislation addressing the guest worker issue in general terms would be offered in the next two weeks by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). “We’re not talking specifics,” said Hull. “We’re talking concepts. There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

Hull said a new guest worker program could help fill vacant jobs in construction and other industries in states like Arizona, which has become the nation’s hot spot for illegal immigrants skirting tougher border controls elsewhere. Those crossings have sometimes turned deadly as migrants succumb to desert heat and arid terrain.

“Current border policy isn’t working,” Hull said in remarks closing the two-day session. “Something must be done to acknowledge the fact that U.S. businesses need workers. Something must be done to acknowledge the fact that workers follow work.”

Hull’s counterparts from Mexico voiced support for her suggestion, saying that it would match demand with supply.

“We have the work force here and they have the need for workers there,” said Patricio Martinez Garcia, governor of Chihuahua.

Johnson raised eyebrows by using his closing remarks to lambaste the U.S. war on drugs as “a miserable failure.” He proposed studying legalization of drugs as an alternative to a soaring prison population.

Johnson, a conservative Republican, has acknowledged past use of marijuana and cocaine in the 1970s but said he is now personally opposed to drug use.

“We are locking up tens of thousands of people in the United States on drug crimes and we have to look for alternatives,” he said.