Bush admin: Some Mexican immigrants won't be fingerprinted.

[dawn]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040304/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_mexico_9

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will back off plans to require that visa-carrying Mexicans who make short visits to America and stay close to the border be fingerprinted and photographed, The Associated Press has learned.

The move is a concession to Mexican President Vicente Fox (news - web sites), who begins a two-day visit to President Bush (news - web sites)'s ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Friday.

A congressional official who was briefed Thursday by the Homeland Security Department said the administration will not require the fingerprints and photographs at the border. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

During testimony before a congressional panel, Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security's undersecretary for border and transportation, would only say the idea was under consideration. However, afterward he told reporters, "I think that is what probably will be necessary."

Agustin Gutierrez Canet, a spokesman for Fox, called the development "a friendly and positive gesture toward Mexico."

As part of the new US-VISIT program, those people were to be fingerprinted and photographed before crossing the border starting sometime before the end of the year.

[displacedtexan]

1. Just think!

You follow the rules, x over to Laredo or San Diego 4 or 5 times... then x over the 6th time and disappear.

Beats paying thousands of dollars and taking your chances with a mule (people trafficker), and it also beats xing on foot!

It's actually a really humane thing to do.

[dawn]

3. It is humane

But he just wants votes.

I bet conservatives in my home state of California will be mad, though. They are rabidly anti-immigrant. Bush will probably be booed at another GOP convention out here.

[hang a left]

2. In exchange for what?

[moondust]

4. Discriminatory policy.

"Equal protection!" the boy cried.