President Bush on Tuesday ruled out any border security legislation that does not contain a guest-worker program, even though House Republicans want the borders secured first.
“In order to secure the border, it’s important for people up here in Washington to understand that there’s got to be a temporary worker program,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “The temporary worker program goes hand in hand with border security.”
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., disagreed.
“If the president thinks by taking one step forward with enforcement the House will follow him two steps backward with amnesty, he’s confusing us with the Senate,” he said. “The American people understand that blanket amnesty is not a prerequisite for border security.”
In a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Bush also ruled out deportation of theestimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in America.
“There are some in our country who say, ‘Let’s just deport everybody’ — it’s unrealistic,” he said. “You can’t deport people who have been in this country for a long period of time — millions of people that have been here.”
The remarks came a day after Bush gave a rare, prime-time address to the nation, announcing that up to 6,000 National Guard troops would be temporarily deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border to support the Border Patrol.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted that the increase in border security, coupled with a guest-worker program, would significantly reduce illegal immigration.
“What the president did last night is put on the turbochargers in dealing with this,” he said. “If we move comprehensively in Congress to build the entirety of the program, we can have a transformative effect on an immigration problem and an illegal migration problem that has plagued this country for over 20 years.”
