Mexico Trucker Online

SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCIA, Mexico — U.S. legislators and their Mexican counterparts revived hope of approving a controversial U.S. aid package that would help embattled Mexican police fight narcotics traffickers.

U.S. lawmakers originally conditioned the aid package, known as the Mérida Initiative, on safeguarding against human rights violations and corruption.

Mexican lawmakers considered this a unilateral imposition of U.S. oversight and said they would reject the aid if changes in the proposal were not made.

Lawmakers from both countries said here Sunday that the language of the proposal would be changed to Mexico’s satisfaction.

“We’re coming out very pleased,” said María Elena Álvarez, a Mexican congresswoman with the governing National Action Party. “We didn’t expect this much.”

Also known as Plan Mérida, the multiyear package was originally proposed to cost $1.4 billion to help police south of the border battle drug gangs.

President Bush requested an initial $500 million for Mexico and $50 million for Central America for fiscal year 2008.

Under President Felipe Calderón, Mexico has aggressively tackled narcotics cartels but has increasingly relied on federal police and the military, which are prone to heavy-handed tactics.

But the fight has claimed more than 450 law enforcers in the past year and a half. Brazen narco-killings — including beheadings, grenade attacks and daytime shootings in public — are almost daily occurrences.

Approving the aid package is “critical,” said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, who said the opportunity was not just about helping Mexico.

“We’re really investing in our future national security,” said Reyes, whose district is right across the border from one of the most violent drug gang turfs in Mexico, Ciudad Juárez.

“We are concerned,” he said. “What happens and affects Juárez in essence affects El Paso.”

The two-day 47th Mexico-U.S. Interparliamentary Group meeting was under heavy police security in this upscale suburb of Monterrey, an industrial powerhouse in northern Mexico.

Legislators also talked about immigration reform in the United States, lack of which has greatly disappointed Mexico.

U.S. lawmakers said reform in an electoral year would be unlikely.

“I have faith in my colleagues in Congress and also in the two (U.S. presidential) candidates that we are going to return to this issue soon,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., referring to immigration reform while speaking to the media in Spanish at the event’s closure.

Sean Mattson - Express News Mexico