Bush travels to US-Mexico border to press immigration reform
by Laurent Lozano
YUMA, United States (AFP) - President George W. Bush traveled Thursday to this desert town near the Mexican border -- one of the busiest entry points for illegal immigration into the United States -- to show his commitment to sealing America's porous borders.
Bush is seeking to drum up support for his immigration reform plan unveiled Monday, which has been met with skepticism by conservatives in Congress. The US president hopes to show disaffected members of his conservative base that he will be tough on border security.
Bush, who has proposed placing up to 6,000 National Guard troops along the southern US border to assist border patrol officers, visited a part of the border where they are already in place.
"I think it helps to have the president out here, seeing the part of the area of the country that one time was overrun by people coming in here, that's beginning to get settled down because of a strategy that's being employed," Bush said in a speech here.
"We're going to secure our borders. That is the duty of our country. It's a sovereign responsibility," the president said.
"We want the border to be open to trade and lawful immigration, and we want our borders shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals and drug dealers and terrorists."
The US leader spent about 10 minutes touring an open dirt field in San Luis, standing a few hundred feet away from a border fortified with a 20-foot-high corrugated metal fence, a 150-foot buffer zone, a second 8-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, and five watch towers.
Bush also met with border patrol agents to get a feel for the challenges they face in the Yuma sector, where more than 96,000 illegal immigrants have been caught since October.
Supervising Border Patrol Agent Richard Hays said that "active criminal smuggling enterprises" operate in the neighborhood directly on the other side of the fence in Mexico.
Hays said the area used to see mass incursions of 70-80 people at a time, but the new fencing, lighting, video cameras and other measures have cut those numbers significantly.
Units of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Air National Guard are also here, helping build roads and lay foundation for high-intensity lighting.
Bush on Monday outlined a plan to deploy up to 6,000 National Guard troops on the US-Mexico border and create a guest worker program providing a possible pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented migrants, among other proposals.
The visit took place as the US leader earlier Thursday made an emergency request to Congress for 1.9 billion dollars to start paying for the extra border security.
"As part of my first objective to secure our nation's borders, I ask the Congress to consider the enclosed requests for an additional 1.9 billion dollars for the departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security," Bush said in a letter to US lawmakers.
The president said the funding request was offset by a 1.9 billion dollar reduction in money requested earlier this year by the Defense Department.
Bush said the money would pay the initial costs of deploying troops to the southern US border, and help pay for additional Border Patrol agents, infrastructure, and technology outlined in his speech.
On the eve of his trip, Bush sent his top advisor Karl Rove to meet with members of Congress skeptical about the Republican administration's immigration reform plan.
Members of the House of Representatives, which last December passed a bill that emphasized tough border security, including the construction of a fence making it harder for would-be immigrants to enter the United States illegally, have been the most critical of Bush's plan.
The president's plan is more in keeping with one under discussion this week in the Senate, combining border security with a new guest worker program and a path to earned citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.
In an interview with Fox television Thursday, Bush urged the Mexican government to do more to prevent its nationals from illegally crossing the border into the United States.
"They've got to do their part in order to make sure both borders are secure," he said.
For its part, the Mexican government said Thursday it would send a letter of protest to the United States, after the US Senate voted for a 600-kilometer (370-mile) border barrier to stop illegal migrants.
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