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WASHINGTON, May 16: President George Bush on Monday declared the US-Mexico border was broken and he would deploy up to 6,000 National Guard troops there, but he said millions of illegal immigrants should be given a chance to become citizens.
Mr Bush, stepping into the emotionally charged issue in a rare prime time Oval Office address, spoke under pressure from conservative allies to take tougher steps against illegal immigration and after big protests demanding immigrant rights.
Despite recent progress, ‘we do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that’, Mr Bush said in a speech timed to get out in front of a US Senate debate on a sweeping immigration overhaul.
White House officials said the National Guard troops would support US Border Patrol agents in duties like surveillance, analysing intelligence and building patrol roads.
While they will be armed, they will not conduct patrols.
“The United States is not going to militarise the southern border. Mexico is our neighbour and our friend,” Mr Bush said.
But in Mexico, Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez, foreign ministry undersecretary for North America, said in a statement: “Even though the Mexican government has been assured the announced measures do not imply the militarisation of the border, we must express our concern that these actions are still not accompanied by sufficient advances in the legislative process.”
The US Senate is set to debate this week a sweeping immigration overhaul that would couple tougher border enforcement with a guest-worker plan. The House of Representatives earlier passed a tough bill that would make illegal immigrants felons and erect a big border fence.
Democrats said Mr Bush had come late to the debate and said he must persuade many in his own party to back a plan that many Democrats already support.
“The president has the power to call up the National Guard to patrol our border, but now he must summon the power to lead his own Republican forces in Congress to support a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform,” said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.
CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION: Mr Bush’s main challenge was to sway his conservative Republican allies in the House. The bill passed by the House has drawn sharp protests from thousands of pro-immigration demonstrators in recent weeks.
Mr Bush did not appear to have won any immediate converts.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said he had ‘real concerns about moving forward with a guest worker program or a plan to address those currently in the United States illegally until we have adequately addressed our serious border security problems’.
Colorado Republican Rep Tom Tancredo said he welcomed increased enforcement, ‘but if the president thinks by taking one step forward with enforcement the House will follow him two steps backwards with amnesty, he’s confusing us with the Senate’.
Mr Bush’s speech was the first time he has addressed a domestic issue in the forum of an Oval Office speech. He took on the divisive issue despite a drop in his approval in opinion polls in advance of congressional elections in November.
The Guard deployments are likely to begin early next month and up to 6,000 would be used for a year.
The whole two-year package will cost about $1.9 billion. White House officials said they would pay for it by redirecting money for the US military included in an emergency spending plan being negotiated on Capitol Hill.—Reuters
