Bush Admits Broken Border, to Send Guard Troops

[cal04]

President Bush admitted the U.S.-Mexico border was broken on Monday and said he will deploy up to 6,000 National Guard troops there as he responded to mounting pressure from conservative allies to take tougher steps against illegal immigration. ``We do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that,'' Bush said in a prime-time Oval Office address timed to get out in front of a U.S. Senate debate on a sweeping immigration overhaul.

Bush was trying to shore up support from conservatives demanding a tougher border enforcement policy. But to their chagrin, he also insisted on a temporary guest-worker program for illegal immigrants that would let them fill jobs Americans refuse. ``To secure the border effectively we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across,'' he said in defense of the guest-worker plan that his critics call amnesty. With Mexico worried about a militarized border, White House officials said the up to 6,000 National Guard troops would be used to support U.S. Border Patrol agents in such duties as surveillance and logistics and would not conduct
patrols.

``The United States is not going to militarize the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor and our friend,'' Bush said.
The deployments are likely to begin in early June and up to 6,000 would be used for a year. They will be reduced as U.S. Border Patrol agents increase their numbers by 6,000 by the end of 2008 -- to 18,000 from the current
12,000. The whole two-year package will cost about $1.9 billion, and White House officials said they would pay for it by redirecting money for the U.S. military included in an emergency spending plan being negotiated on Capitol Hill.

(snip)
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told CNN that Bush was late to the border enforcement debate, ``so now, coming forward at this time, we're a little suspect.''

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-immigration.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[robbedvoter]

1. The president is Rocky and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.

Yup. Go get them all, cowboy!

[redirish28]

2. My wife can't help but wonder if this will be the first step to sliding

into martial law... In a sense "protecting" us into that state.

[fooj]

3. Five fricking years AFTER 9-11 he admits he has done NOTHING!

Not a thing. So much for him "protecting" our homeland, right?

[6000eliot]

4. He apparently can say 911 every five seconds

but he doesn't do dick about it.

[fooj]

8. It's absolutely criminal.

:grr:

[Acadia Blue]

5. The pig makes a show for his stupid base who will believe him,

because he is a good religious man. lol Its all show. After the elections, he lets billions in so labor costs for his corporate greed pig buddies can get lower.

[Milspec]

6. Depends...

If his "base" is represented by antipode site of DU, their not buying it either.

[havocmom]

7. That and it works against the DEM governors of AZ & NM

Think about this: The pResident pulls guards off the war on terra and outta Iraq. GOP can campaign that they have decreased the number of people in Iraq. Score for them.

The GOP can go to rallies with yahoos and keep them hot and bothered about the threat of millions of brown people invading from the south. Nothing gets their mindless base out to vote like hot button, low intellect, emotional gibberish instead of real debate on issues.

Down the road, after the hamstrung guard (disarmed, no authority to arrest, and then put under the Governors' command) has not put a dent in the flow of illegal aliens, those governors are scape goats for the failure of policies they didn't have any hand in.

I can hear the GOP now: We gave pulled troops off the war on terror! We pulled troops from the hunt for Osama! And what did the DEM governors do? Nothing! We gave them an army and they could not stop a few million poor people with it!

DEM Govs in the increasingly blue Southwest will be an endangered species if we don't holler about what a farce it all is.

[lumpy]

9. I didn't the border was ever fixed

x

[cliss]

10. A cost of $1.9 billion dollars...

Do we even have $1.9 billion dollars? I don't think we do.:smoke: