Border fence to complicate US-Mexico ties-Calderon

MEXICO CITY, Oct 12 (Reuters) A US-Mexico border fence aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the United States will ''enormously complicate'' relations between the countries, Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon said.

US President George W Bush signed a law last week that will pay for hundreds of miles of new fences along the border, a move against illegal immigration that Republicans had sought before next month's congressional elections.

Mexicans are livid about the plan, which is seen as a slap in the face to efforts during President Vicente Fox's near-completed six-year term to come to an agreement with Washington on immigration.

''It is going to be a very difficult relationship,'' Calderon, who takes over from Fox on December one, said in a television interview of US-Mexico diplomacy during his upcoming administration said yesterday.

''This fence they are leaving me is going to enormously complicate relations with the United States.'' Conservative ruling party candidate Calderon's victory over leftist firebrand Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the July 2 election was seen as a foreign relations boost for Washington in Latin America, where anti-US sentiment is high in some countries.

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