President Bush on Monday offered to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border if House Republicans grant legal status to Mexicans who have already immigrated illegally.
In a prime-time address from the Oval Office, Bush said 6,000 National Guard troops could be temporarily deployed in a supportive role to the Border Patrol, which would retain law enforcement authority over the 2,000-mile border.
The gesture was aimed at convincing House Republicans to drop their opposition to a guest-worker program that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants.
“We do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that,” Bush said. “Tonight I am calling on Congress to provide funding for dramatic improvements in manpower and technology at the border.”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Bush should have given a prime-time speech on immigration much sooner.
“It”s about time,” he said. “For 5 1/2 years, this is an issue President Bush has largely ignored.”
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said National Guard troops should be deployed along “the northern border as well.”
Earlier in the day, senior White House strategist Karl Rove warned that while many illegal immigrants are merely looking for employment, others are terrorists.
“We’ve got a border that is so porous and so insecure that who knows whether that is simply an illegal immigrant looking for a job or whether it’s somebody who wants to do something worse?” he said.
Rove said he has encountered illegal immigrants, both dead and alive, on property he leases in Texas near the Mexican border.
“I’ve seen a couple of corpses out there,” he said. “I don’t want to see them again.”
