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 News from Around the Americas | May 2006 
Bush Sees US National Guard as Stopgap on Mexico Border
 Susan Cornwell - Reuters
| | An anti immigration rights supporter is seen through a U.S. flag during a rally in Washington, May 12, 2006. U.S. President George W. Bush and many members of the Republican-led U.S. Congress are divided over how to address the issue of up to 12 million illegal immigrants working in the United States, with conservatives pressing for tougher border security. (Jim Young/Reuters) |
The White House said on Sunday it was considering sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border only in a supportive role as a stopgap measure, but the idea got a mixed reception on Capitol Hill.
President George W. Bush will deliver a prime time address to the nation on immigration on Monday evening, and the White House said last week he may propose deploying more National Guard troops to the 2,000 mile border to stop illegal immigration.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said no final decision on sending the troops had been made, but that the idea was to "provide a bit of a stopgap as the Border Patrol build up their capacity to deal with this challenge."
"This is something that's actually already being done. It's not about militarization of the border," Hadley said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"It's about assisting the civilian border patrol in doing their job, providing intelligence, providing support, logistics support and training and these sorts of things," he said.
The Border Patrol arrested nearly 1.2 million people last year trying to cross the Mexican border and estimates that 500,000 others evaded capture.
In his Monday address timed to coincide with the resumption of a U.S. Senate debate on immigration reform, Bush is expected to express support for a temporary worker program as well as a plan to give millions of illegal immigrants a path to eventual U.S. citizenship.
The president's speech comes as his job approval ratings continue to slide, to around 30 percent in some recent polls.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Sunday he backed sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Everything else we've done has failed, we've got to face that. And so, we need to bring in, I believe, the National Guard," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, argued on CNN's "Late Edition."
But Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), who helped broker the compromise immigration legislation to be debated on the Senate floor this week, said he was "skeptical."
"I think we have to be very careful here. That's not the role of our military. That's not the role of our National Guard," Hagel said on ABC's "This Week."
Hagel said 75 percent of the equipment of National Guard forces was in Iraq, and noted that some National Guard members had done as many as four tours of duty there.
"We have stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen it in modern times," Hagel said. "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?" |
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