The solution to the United States’ immigration troubles could be sitting inside Kansas’ borders, just waiting to put its products and services to work.

In Mexico.

“We need to create a stronger economy on both sides,” said Jose Jimenez, the Kansas Department of Commerce’s trade representative in Mexico City, during a visit Tuesday in Lawrence. “My primary concern, and our team’s concern, is to build stronger Kansas companies to be able to increase our markets. :

“If our economy becomes stronger, it becomes a motor – a generating motor – of labor so that more Mexicans can stay in the country.”

Kansas businesses last year exported $854 million in products to Mexico, up 32 percent from a year earlier. Mexico ranks second among Kansas’ exporting partners, behind Canada and ahead of China.

Jimenez was in Lawrence to meet with representatives from a handful of Kansas businesses who have linked up with customers in Mexico through his office. As a contract employee for the Department of Commerce, he travels to Kansas once a year.

Jimenez said he was aware of President Bush’s speech to Americans on Monday night, during which Bush outlined his plans for calling up National Guard troops to assist federal agents on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bolstering trade – especially through the North American Free Trade Agreement, plus a regional freight hub being set up in the Kansas City area – offers the best chance for success, he said.

“Then it’s moot,” Jimenez said.