"We wanted to make as strong a statement as we could that our mutual agenda has not been lost in the aftermath of the disaster of Sept. 11," Mr. Daschle said. "Our agenda regarding our mutual relationship is every bit as important, and our commitment every bit as strong."

Mr. Gephardt and Mr. Daschle said they came to Puebla, which has a population of about six million, to get a first-hand lesson on immigration. Even though it is a state with a large number of foreign-owned assembly plants, close to one million people from Puebla, called Poblanos, have abandoned Mexico since the 1970's and settled in a stretch from New York to Virginia. About 300,000 Poblanos live in the New York metropolitan area. The immigrants, who typically earn more in an hour than workers in Mexico earn in a day, send an estimated $800 million a year back to the state.

"We are not trying to inadvertently encourage more people to migrate by talking about a regularization," Mr. Daschle said. "That is why we are also talking about ways to create jobs here. People want to stay home. They want to stay united with their families."

Although they were touring farming villages in Puebla, there were moments when the legislators could not have felt closer to home among families whose struggles after the terrorist assaults echo the turmoil and defiance felt north of the border.

The politicians were followed by crowds waving star-spangled banners. Men wearing Yankees caps and jerseys played baseball in dirt lots under brilliant skies. Mr. Daschle and Mr. Gephardt fielded questions about unemployment in the United States.

At the end of their visit, they met with four families whose relatives were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Mr. Daschle said he was unable to answer one mother who asked him whether "any piece of her son would ever be recovered."

Listening in, Mr. Gephardt said, "I was moved to tears."