Powell on Mexican "migration" to U.S.: speaking in Mexico last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear that now that 9/11 is "behind us" and President Bush has been re-elected, the administration hopes to move forward on "migration"--including Mr. Bush's proposed temporary worker program.(Snapshots)(Colin Powell)(George W. Bush)

The President has made clear to me, and he has certainly shared his view with [Mexican] President [Vicente] Fox, that we want to see progress on migration. We didn't see the kind of progress we hoped for in his first four years because of 9/11, because of the difficulties we faced in our Congress, to be frank.

But 9/11 is behind us now. We want to move forward. The President has a mandate as a result of the election and he wants to move forward on migration....

--SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL November 9, 2004 interview with Reforma Mexico City, Mexico

[W]e had big ambitions at the beginning of 2001 when President Bush and President Fox came in. There were many issues we wanted to talk about. But 9/11 came along, and we had a reaction to 9/11 in our Congress as well, and among the American people, saying, we have these individuals who came into our country and dealt us this serious blow in New York at the World Trade Center and in Washington at the Pentagon. And we need to get better control of our borders, so we can't loosen things up right now. We have to tighten things up right now.

Although we know no Mexican has ever performed this kind of terrorist act against America, at the same time, we had to put in place uniform policies that slowed everything down and made it difficult to get migration legislation through our Congress. But as I say, we are now in a new environment. President Bush is in his second term, his last term, and I think he plans to work more aggressively with the Congress, but to start in a reasonable way, a modest way--start with the temporary workers' program, see if we can get that through, and then see where we go from there....

We should have modest objectives that move us in the ...