NOGALES, Mexico — New President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday shook hands with migrants coming home for the holidays and promised to defend their rights in the United States.

But unlike his predecessor Vicente Fox, Calderon has made clear his administration will focus more on creating jobs to keep Mexicans home rather than concentrating solely on a U.S. migration accord to create a legal path for millions of Mexican migrants to work in the U.S.

“The generation of well-paid jobs is the only long lasting solution to the migration problem,” Calderon said before greeting migrants in cars packed with Christmas gifts.

Calderon pledged to fight corruption to make Mexico more attractive to foreign investors.

“We need to ensure that more investment crosses the border into Mexico rather than Mexican labor heading to the U.S.,” Calderon said.

Calderon said his government sent 1,100 volunteers to checkpoints along the 2,000-mile Mexican border with the U.S. and at airports to keep an eye out for Customs officials who ask for bribes from returning migrants or who try to confiscate their belongings.

The effort is part of the Paisano Program, which first started in 1989, to clamp down on corrupt government officials who prey on returning migrants.

About 1.2 million Mexicans are expected to come home for the holidays.

Calderon said he also has ordered all fees collected from migrants in the U.S. at Mexican consulates be used for defending their rights in that country. Migrants groups have complained that much of the money now goes toward administrative costs.

Migrants and migrant rights groups applaud Calderon’s commitment to job creation but say he should take a stronger stance against the recent U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration and push more for a guest worker program.

Fox failed to get Washington’s support for a guest worker program after the Sept. 11 attacks turned U.S. President George W. Bush’s attention toward border security. In October, Bush signed a bill to erect a 700-mile fence.

Calderon has called the border fence plan “deplorable” and compared it to the construction of the Berlin Wall but so far has not given a lot of lip service to a migration accord.