Bush decries border project

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WACO, Texas -- President Bush yesterday said he opposes a civilian project to monitor illegal aliens crossing the border, characterizing them as "vigilantes."

He said he would pressure Congress to further loosen immigration law.

More than 1,000 people -- including 30 pilots and their private planes -- have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol.

Mr. Bush said after yesterday's continental summit, with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at Baylor University, that he finds such actions unacceptable.

"I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way."

The Minuteman Project was born out of a long-held perception among many residents that more Border Patrol agents are needed to handle the flow of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Bush was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats earlier this month for failing to add 2,000 agents to the Border Patrol, as set out in the intelligence overhaul legislation he signed in December.

The president's 2006 budget allows enough money to add only 210 agents for the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.

Mr. Bush said he will "continue to push for reasonable, common-sense immigration policy." He has proposed legislation to grant guest-worker status to millions of illegal aliens already in the United States.

The legislation has attracted scant support in Congress, where it is widely regarded as another amnesty that will encourage even more illegal immigration.