Posted on 05/15/2006 2:59:55 PM PDT by notes2005
WASHINGTON - President Bush is to order as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to increase enforcement at the Mexican border, part of a $1.9 billion drive to tighten security and win conservative backing in Congress for a broad election-year overhaul of the nation's tattered immigration laws.
"We do not yet have full control of the border and I am determined to change that," Bush is expected to say in remarks prepared for a prime-time speech from the Oval Office.
The speech will come as the Senate begins work on legislation to strengthen border security, authorize new guest worker programs and give an eventual chance at citizenship to most of the estimated 12 million people already living illegally in the United States.
"Tonight I am calling on Congress to provide funding for dramatic improvements in manpower and technology at the border," Bush is expected to say.
Congressional officials who were briefed in advance of the speech said the president would ask Congress to increase the number of Border Patrol agents and to support construction of additional facilities to detain illegal immigrants. They said the National Guard troops would not be involved in law enforcement, but would take support jobs currently held by federal agents, freeing them for front-line duty.
On citizenship, the White House told congressional officials the president planned to say that illegal immigrants, required to stand in line behind legal immigrants applying to become citizens, are not being granted amnesty.
Bush's plan to use National Guard troops at the border ran into criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.
"The National Guard already is stretched to the limit by repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as from providing disaster assistance in their own states," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., though he commended Bush for "courage and leadership" in weighing in on the immigration debate.
Bush was to say the nation has expanded the Border Patrol from about 9,000 to 12,000 agents during his presidency and has sent home about 6 million people entering the United States illegally. Still, he would add, that has not been enough.
"We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly and fair," the president was to say.
He would also call for enactment of a guest worker program to allow immigrants to take low-paying jobs, and he was to say employers must be held to account for hiring illegal immigrants. He was to say also that a tamper-proof identification card for workers would "leave employers with no excuse" for violating the law.
There's nothing wrong with our immigration laws... it's the ENFORCEMENT POLICIES that are in tatters.
I hope that was just a journalistic turn of phrase - but I doubt it.
Your ilks that hate the President so much.
Inexcusable, I agree.
And it's a ready made excuse for those to weak to just say, "Illegal immigration is flat wrong"...
He could just say, "After September 11th, we absolutely cannot allow our borders to be porous...America's future depends on it."
Who can argue that?
"The word "automatic" hits an off note with me."
Eeeggggggaaaccctttlllyyyyyyy.....
Bend ova......................
Here comes "Earned citizenship"....rammed in where the sun don't shine.
:)
The president has done everything in his power to give amnesty to illegals. The only reason he is giving this speech, is because of the immense pressure that is being put on him by his own base.
His administration is falling apart, and he must show he has done something, hence the proposal for troops on the border. The only thing is, that before he even made the speech and the proposal, he was telling Vicente Fox that it was temporary.
It is just more of the same. The illegals, especially from Mexico, have been shoved down our throats, and will continue to be shoved down our throats. Aren't you tired of paying for it? Aren't you tired of being told that nothing can be done about it?
BOHICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not going to be offensive or vulgar, but I do find myself these days, asking... Why did I like this guy in the first place?
I fear...truly fear...that I have been so terribly stupid with my support. Tonight's speech will reveal if I have been so mistaken of Dubya. Am I alone in this perspective? I no longer feel like he can help, in the battles that matter for this country.
I don't hate the president. I hate what has happened to Southern California. I also hate being lied to. Bush alone isn't responsable, but unfortunately, when I had to look at a parade of hundreds of thousands of illegals carrying Mexican flags having a rally a mile away from where I live, it makes me a "little" upset.
Bush's plan to use National Guard troops at the border ran into criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.
"The National Guard already is stretched to the limit by repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as from providing disaster assistance in their own states," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., though he commended Bush for "courage and leadership" in weighing in on the immigration debate.
Duh, funny there doesn't seem to be a Republican quote,
wonder why???
Now, that post was articulate and reasonable.
I do not object to your opinion, only how you were expressing it.
This isn't DU.
Exactly.
You have lowered the level of discussion here to the lowest loevels I've seen in a while. The question is, why?
Nothing would satisfy the folks here. Immigration wasn't even a burning issue on this site or any other conservative blog two years ago. Now it is the issue du jour, and the only issue that anyone is allowed to discuss.
None of this is meant to discount the importance of the issue. But this is a significant step forward, and you folks can't grant that. You criticize the president at every juncture, and yet there is no one, I repeat no one, on the horizon who would be more conservative. Giuliani? McCain? Romney? Who?????? You all let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Way to go, Mr. President! Thank you! Don't listen to these guys.
Your mind and mouth are in the toilet. You belong on DU.
Thank God he didn't say..."doing the jobs that Americans won't do"... I'm thinking Tony Snow had a sit down with him regarding that offensive statement.
I guess that when I think of Los Angeles school system, hospitals, prisons, freeways, crime scene, language and culture turning into the toilet that it has, it makes me little "perturbed".
I don't want to hear what he says...I want to SEE WHAT HE DOES in a serious way to control the open wide borders.
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