HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at a briefing book today before touring the Mexican border. By July 31, California will deploy up to 1,200 Guard troops to the border.
Posted on 06/22/2006 9:27:09 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
After a helicopter tour of the U.S.-Mexico border here, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched a broadside yesterday against House Republican leaders for threatening to scuttle a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws.
“It would be totally inexcusable for them to say, 'This year we couldn't do it,'” Schwarzenegger said at a news conference minutes after landing near the border fence, yards away from Tijuana, on a National Guard Blackhawk helicopter.
The Republican governor had just completed a 23-minute aerial tour that took him from Brown Field east nearly to Otay Mountain and then west to seaside Border Field State Park.
After landing in a swirl of dust, he greeted about 100 California National Guard troops, nearly half the number already posted to the border region.
By the end of July, up to 1,200 Guard troops are to be deployed along California's stretch of the border at the request of President Bush, a Guard spokesman said. The governor said he felt comfortable ordering them to the border after initial reluctance.
But he told reporters he was disappointed in the recent news from Washington.
On Tuesday, House Republicans announced they would hold summer hearings into the politically explosive issue of immigration. The unusual move is seen as a roadblock to reconciling differences between Senate and House immigration legislation.
The broader bipartisan Senate bill calls for a guest-worker program, a path to citizenship for some currently illegal immigrants and tougher border enforcement. The House bill, passed on a party-line vote, focuses solely on enforcement, cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and making it a felony to be in the country illegally or assist anyone who is.
Bush favors a comprehensive approach along the lines of the Senate bill. This is a rare instance where Schwarzenegger – running for re-election against Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides – is in general agreement with Bush on an important policy matter.
In a prepared statement, Angelides blasted Schwarzenegger's remarks.
“Today, Gov. Schwarzenegger said he was 'happy' to have ordered National Guard troops to the border,” the statement said.
“The members of the California National Guard – and their families – have endured extended tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is wrong for Schwarzenegger to send them to the border as political cover for the failed policies of the Bush administration.
“President Bush has failed for six years to secure the border . . . Gov. Schwarzenegger should have been working on getting his friend President Bush to fund increased border security called for in the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act.”
Schwarzenegger has walked a fine line on immigration.
Last year he drew criticism for lauding the efforts of the Minuteman movement of private citizens patrolling the border, yet he backs immigration changes they oppose. Also, he was initially critical of Bush's call to put the National Guard on the border. “Originally, when the federal government had asked us to send troops down here, I was hesitant about it, because it was a half-baked idea, a lot of questions that were unanswered,” Schwarzenegger said at the news conference.
Differences have been ironed out, the governor said, and a legal agreement with the federal government calls for the troops to stop assisting the U.S. Border Patrol by Dec. 30, 2008.
The governor said he was confident the extra duty would not unduly strain troops who have been tapped to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Underscoring the heavy burden on the National Guard: The Los Alamitos-based flight crew who ferried the governor on his low-altitude tour yesterday served in Tikrit, Iraq, last year, said Sgt. Cliff Rodgers, crew chief aboard Schwarzenegger's Blackhawk.
The governor arrived midmorning at Brown Field on a private jet and was briefed on border issues, such as the rugged terrain of the San Diego sector, by top Border Patrol and National Guard officials.
Aboard the helicopter, Schwarzenegger gazed quietly at the landscape below, from dirt trails on U.S. soil traversed by untold numbers of illegal immigrants to the congested border crossing at San Ysidro.
After landing and greeting troops, Schwarzenegger told reporters that his flight “reinforced my belief that the federal government has to do much more to secure our borders.”
“It's extremely important for them to take this seriously, that we need more manpower, we need more infrastructure in order to secure our borders, because we have to do everything that we can to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants, stop the flow of the human trafficking, drug smuggling and also the potential of terrorism,” he said.
Later, Schwarzenegger returned to Sacramento where he met with visiting San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders.
This week's action by House leaders is widely seen as threatening to scuttle the prospects of an immigration overhaul this year. Congressional negotiations would be pushed back until September – when congressional campaigns enter their final weeks. House Republican whip Roy Blount of Missouri cast doubt Tuesday on reaching agreement before the November elections.
Schwarzenegger said the prospect of no action was unacceptable.
“We know what the facts are,” he said. “We know that we need to secure the border. We know that we have to provide workers from the other side for our businesses in California. We have to deal with it in a legal way, so I think there's a lot of reform that needs to be done, and I think it's important to put pressure on the federal government.”
Given the magnitude of these problems, Schwarzenegger said: “It would be ludicrous for them to say, 'Well, we can't work it out.' That's their job. That's their job, to work it out, you know, and to do something for the people of California.
“Each one of those (House) members has been sent to Washington to work out the problems that the United States has, and that are confronting us, and this is a federal issue and it's their responsibility, so I hope they work it out.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the National Guard to assist in border enforcement. A look at the troop deployment along the California border.
Today: 230
Weekly increase: 200
By July 31: 1,000-1,200
Estimates from Col. Kevin Ellsworth, Joint Task Force Vista, California National Guard.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at a briefing book today before touring the Mexican border. By July 31, California will deploy up to 1,200 Guard troops to the border.
CA: Governor chides Congress over border legislation delays
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1653283/posts
Schwarzenegger blasts House Republicans on immigration stance
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1653408/posts
This is a freakin' lie. We don't know we need workers from the other side of the border, and if we do need them we have no idea how many. It is a since we don't need 12 million of the parasitic criminals to work here. I don't think we need any and no one has ever proved that we do.
Just our good old RINO gov siding with the dimwits.
This guy is really starting to piss me off. The largest cities in his miserable state are packed to the gills with illegals. Whole industries (horse-racing, for example) are built on illegal labor, and you have city commissioners in California vowing not to enforce existing immigration law. But it's the fault of congress, right Arnie?
Tend to the beam in thine own, you hypocritical RINO ass.
"Each one of those (House) members has been sent to Washington to work out the problems that the United States has, and that are confronting us, and this is a federal issue and it's their responsibility, so I hope they work it out.”
WRONG answer assh*le.
Those House members were sent to Washington to represent the people in their congressional districts and the U.S. citizens who reside therein. And right now those citizens, aka US, want the border c-l-o-s-e-d, the illegals deported, AND the crooked employers who employee the dam illegals sent to GITMO (or equal).
Which FYI you BONEHEAD, is EXACTLY what H.R.4437 did and does. It was the U.S. Senate that screwed the pooch and turned it into the current cluster-fluck of amnesty for 28 million criminals and every stinking, breathing, relative they have world wide.
ps: Go back to Austria, you make me sick.
pps: terminate 'this'
It would help if Arnie would support Repubicans like Senate candidate Mountjoy, who is strict on illegal immigration, rather then shilling for "no illegal left behind" Feinstein.
“We know what the facts are,”
Is he using one of Al Gore's writers these days?
The same rhetoric was uttered by Al Gore and the Gub recently Re: Global Warming as well.
B U M P
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