Mexico's Fox is US plaything on immigration-leftist

GUAMUCHIL, Mexico, May 18 (Reuters) Mexico's leftist presidential candidate accused President Vicente Fox of being a foreigners' puppet for failing to oppose US plans to use National Guard troops for border control.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's comments at a campaign rally reopened a feud with the conservative Fox that has damaged the leftist's standing in opinion polls before the July 2 presidential election.

Fox was timid in the face of US President George W Bush's announcement on Monday he would send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to support Border Patrol agents, Lopez Obrador told the rally in the town of Guamuchil.

Fox's government has mildly criticized Bush's plan, complaining it was not accompanied by a liberalization of US immigration laws to allow more Mexicans to live and work legally north of the border.

''He has not the slightest intention of making an energetic protest because he does not act like a statesman. He is not the president of a free, sovereign country. He is acting like a puppet, a plaything of foreign governments,'' the leftist said.

Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday that illegal immigration to the United States was ''Mexico's disgrace,'' caused by the government's failure to create enough jobs.

It was a new outbreak of rhetoric against the conservative government from Lopez Obrador, who announced a unilateral truce in early April in a fight with Fox.

Lopez Obrador has lost his lead in opinion polls to Felipe Calderon of Fox's National Action Party in recent weeks and his attacks on the popular Fox are considered partly to blame.

The former Mexico City mayor also accuses Fox of illegally using government resources to help Calderon, an ex-energy minister who says Lopez Obrador is a populist.

Lopez Obrador said a proposal to fence parts of the US-Mexico border would increase violence in Mexico by increasing joblessness.

''If they put a plug on the border, I want to know what people are going to do. If there is no work in Mexico then street violence is going to increase and we are going have areas of strong social resistance in our country,'' he said at another rally, in the town of El Fuerte.

The US Senate backed the erection of fences on 370 miles of the border in a vote yesterday focusing on areas where there is a high volume of illegal crossings.

REUTERS SB RS1807