Washington – President Bush tried to ease the worries of his Mexican counterpart Sunday as he prepared for a nationally televised address tonight unveiling a plan to send thousands of National Guard troops to help seal the nation’s southern border against illegal immigrants.
Mexican President Vicente Fox called to express concern over the prospect of militarization of the border, and Bush reassured him that it would be only a temporary measure to bolster overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, the White House said.
“The president made clear that the United States considers Mexico a friend and that what is being considered is not militarization of the border but support of Border Patrol capabilities on a temporary basis by National Guard personnel,” White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri said.
Yet the idea has further stirred an already volatile debate about immigration on both sides of the border even before the president makes his speech from the Oval Office at 6 p.m. MDT.
A number of Democrats and a few key Republicans voiced skepticism or outright opposition to the reported plan Sunday, calling it a politically motivated move that will only further strain units already stretched by duty in Iraq without solving the underlying problem of illegal immigration.
“We’ve got National Guard members on their second, third and fourth tours in Iraq,” Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen it in modern times. And what in the world are we talking about here, sending a National Guard that we may not have any capacity to send up to or down to protect borders? That’s not their role.”
Hagel said a bill under debate in the Senate that he helped write would double the 12,000- strong Border Patrol force over the next five years.
“That’s the way to fix it, not further stretching the National Guard,” he said.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said there may be a need for troops to fill in while the Border Patrol is bolstered. But he did not seem confident the National Guard could take on the extra duty.
“We have stretched these men and women so thin, so thin, because of the bad mistakes done by the civilians in the military here, that I wonder how they’re going to be able to do it,” Biden said, also on ABC.
The White House insisted that no decision has been made and that Bush was still considering options Sunday. But aides left little doubt that the president intends to call for an expanded guard deployment at the border involving several thousand troops, a significant increase from the 100 or so now there.
Officials suggested their mission would be to play a supporting role by providing intelligence, training, transportation, construction and other functions, while leaving the guarding of the 2,000-mile line separating the United States and Mexico to the Border Patrol.
The National Guard would be a stopgap force until the federal government could hire civilian contractors to take over administrative and support functions from the Border Patrol, freeing more agents to hunt for immigrants slipping into the country.
“This is not about militarizing the border,” National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The president is looking to do everything he can to secure the border. It’s what the American people want; it’s what he wants to do.”
About 100 National Guard troops are serving on the border to assist with counterdrug operations, heavy-equipment support and other functions.
“I think what it would be is simply expanding the kind of thing that has already been done in the past in order to provide a bit of a stopgap as the Border Patrol build up their capacity to deal with this challenge,” Hadley said.
The prospective plan won support from several powerful Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., dismissed the “whining and moaning” of critics and said the National Guard was the only option in the short term.
“We’ve got to secure our borders,” Frist said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “We hear from the American people. We’ve got millions of people coming across that border. First and foremost, secure the border, whatever it takes. Everything else we’ve done has failed; we’ve got to face that.”
Frist said the full Senate planned to begin debating the immigration bill today and that it could take two weeks to pass.
Senators would have to resolve any differences with the House version of the bill, which did not address the guest-worker issue but increases penalties for illegal immigration activities and funds a 700-mile border fence.
Some in the president’s conservative base called on him to be even more aggressive. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., said Bush should send 36,000 National Guard troops and eventually up to 48,000, drawn from around the nation.
“If President Bush signed that order Monday night, our border would be secure for the first time in decades by Memorial Day at the latest,” Norwood said in a statement.
Fox for years has pressured Bush to help the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States, many of them from Mexico, with little to show for it. In their 15-minute call Sunday, Bush “reiterated to President Fox his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform,” Tamburri said.
A statement from Fox’s office and another from the White House said the two presidents agreed that immigration reform should be comprehensive – that it should go beyond the tough punitive measures that some conservatives are promoting to stem the flow of immigrants.
Tonight’s speech is aimed at assuaging House Republicans who have insisted on tougher enforcement measures against workers illegally in the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
—————————————-
On the air
President Bush’s Oval Office address on immigration reform, expected to run less than 20 minutes, is scheduled for 6 p.m. MDT. Where to watch live on television:
KUSA-
Channel 9 (NBC)
Fox News Channel
CNN
C-SPAN
MSNBC
Also: CBS and ABC said they will decide today whether to interrupt scheduled lineups.
