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.
Go to East St. Louis, or Detroit. You can be sickened and know that it isn't just LA or "illegals" causing your perturbment.
You are so on point here. This issue asks all these wonderful questions. Why do some treat this like it isn't important? I don't get it?
Great post.
"Tonight I am calling on Congress to provide funding for dramatic improvements in manpower and technology at the border,"
Funding is the point. Anybody who wants something done needs to procure funding. The full solution will cost $250 billion first year, but Congress won't go for that. So, expect something less. Much less.
I support the content, if not the tone.
ILLEGAl invasion is important, but your post is spot on!
BTTT
"Mahmoud's nuke program is a MUCH more important issue than illegal immigration, along with conservative judges, to take two clear examples."
If Mahmouds nuke weapons are coming in thru...maybe our open borders with Mexico?
Why stop there? Some parts of Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey probably qualify as well. LOL
Al Rantel on KABC radio just played a radio spot Bush used in 2000 in texas. It was almost re-conquesta. Mexicans were here first, hard working people, the border moved on you when the USA got the land ect. Made me sick, he really
does not believe in a southern border.
LIke the quotes. Of course I just hope he delivers it well.
"What's the point of a speech if your going to spill in the press before hand?"
Rove and his Internet surveillance crew are probably busy reading this thread in
order to get a clue of how to adjust the speech in order to get back
"border trolls" such as myself.
This National Guard stunt shows how desparate Dubya and Rove are to
figure out how to pander their way to an amnesty/guest-voter program.
And not get creamed in the November elections.
BUT seriously...
I suspect Tom Osburne's primary loss in Nebraska last Tuesday was
a wake-up call for Dubya:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632158/posts
1.9 billion is nothing. Chump change to the feds. 6000 is not going to make much difference.
Just because Reagan did it, does not make it right.
Reagan did not have a 9/11. Secure the borders!!!
Nope, you are not mistaken, a lot of us feel the same way. It was better to have him then Kerry, but we truely didn't get what we voted for.
Nope but they picked up this thread. LOL Too Funny Freepers are attacking Bush BEFORE his speech.....
Really ... and your first clue was?? ...
I really don't want to hear this guy say the border isn't under control. It took him 6 years to figure this out?
Tonight President Bush will do what no President have done in recent history of the US, send troops to the border to secure it.
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