Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill Authorizing a Highway Along the Rio Grande in the Chamizal Boundary Area.

THE Chamizal highway bill brings us one step further toward the goals we established concluding the treaty of 1963 with Mexico.

That historic agreement removed a 100-year-old source of contention between our two nations. The United States and Mexico transferred lands to one another, and agreed to a new boundary and relocation of the Rio Grande at El Paso.

By the act I shall sign today, a new highway is authorized parallel to the adjusted boundary and downstream along the Rio Grande. With the 40-acre Chamizal Memorial Park, it will symbolize the good faith that made the agreement possible.

The State of Texas or the city of El Paso will share with the United States in the costs of constructing the highway. This is right and proper--for both the State and the city have helped to create and sustain the human relationships that form the real tie between our peoples.

We have no closer, nor any more meaningful bonds with any nation, than we have with Mexico. Each of our peoples travels frequently and in great numbers to the other's country; and the culture of each has become part of the other. I believe that coming decades will find us growing even closer together--proud, independent, yet mutually enriching friends. Chamizal, long the subject of dispute between us, now becomes the emblem of that friendship.