Bush calls for Guard on border

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President Bush's remarks

President Bush yesterday called for sending 6,000 National Guard troops to U.S. borders to back up the Border Patrol and also said state and local police officers should be allowed to help enforce federal immigration law.

"The Guard will assist the Border Patrol by operating surveillance systems, analyzing intelligence, installing fences and vehicle barriers, building roads and providing training," he said. "Guard units will not be involved in direct law-enforcement activities."

But he also said new enforcement must be coupled with a guest-worker program and a way to deal with the estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens now in the country.

"All elements of this problem must be addressed together -- or none of them will be solved at all," the president said, speaking from the Oval Office in a nationally televised 17-minute address last night.

The immigration debate has been raging on Capitol Hill since December, when the House passed an enforcement-only bill. It has only intensified as millions of illegal-alien supporters marched in American cities, U.S. citizens stepped up their own patrols of the border, and the Senate began its debate on a broad strategy to legalize many illegal aliens.

Mr. Bush waded into that debate last night, following the House's lead in emphasizing border security but also backing the Senate's approach to current illegal aliens.

He said longtime illegal aliens should be awarded a right to citizenship while recently arrived illegal aliens should not. He did not say what the cutoff date should be, nor whether those who didn't qualify would be deported, but he said those awarded citizenship are not getting amnesty.

"What I have just described is not amnesty. It is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen," he said.