Mexico denounces US decision to extend border fence
The Mexican government denounced on Friday a decision by the U.S. Congress to build more fences along the U.S.-Mexican border.

"A migratory reform that only addresses security will not resolve the bilateral immigration problem," Ruben Aguilar, spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox, told reporters on Friday.

Aguilar said the United States should instead undertake comprehensive immigration reforms, including a guest worker program.

"It is indispensable for establishing legal, secure and ordered migration. Our countrymen make an enormous contribution to the U.S. economy," he said.

Late on Thursday, the U.S. Congress adopted a bill to build 1,120 km of additional fences along the 3,200-km U.S.-Mexican border.

The legislation gave priority to Laredo in Texas, a city across the border from Nuevo Laredo, where warring drug cartels have been blamed for more than 140 killings this year.

Mexican human rights groups say building the fence along heavily crossed sections of the border does not deter Mexicans from trying to cross illegally, but instead reroutes them to more dangerous areas.

In the 12 months ending on Sept. 30, a total of 415 people died crossing the mountains and deserts that separate the two countries, breaking the previous record of 383 deaths in the same period of 2000, the U.S. border patrol said. At least 1 million people try to cross the border every year.

Thursday's bill also requires employers to check on the legal status of their workers, and orders the Defense and Homeland Security Departments to plan the use of military technology to stop illegal migrants.

U.S. authorities estimate that there are 11 million undocumented workers in the country and about half of them are Mexican.