Thread: McClellan: Illegals meet 'economic need'

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.a ... E_ID=49727

WND AT THE WHITE HOUSE
McClellan: Illegals meet 'economic need'
Spokesman touts Bush record on immigration, claims 6 million sent home
Posted: April 13, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern

By Les Kinsolving
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

While presidential press secretary Scott McClellan today failed to directly address a question about the Council on Foreign Relations' desire for establishing a coordinated border around North America, he defended President Bush's record on U.S.-Mexican border enforcement and admitted illegal aliens meet "an important economic need."

WND asked at the White House press briefing: "Last May, the Council on Foreign Relations, in its major report titled 'Building a North American Community,' urged the U.S. to de-emphasize its borders with Mexico and Canada, and to encourage an even easier cross-border migration between the three countries, saying rather than beef up the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders, we should instead concentrate on toughening up an outer security perimeter all – around all of North America. And my question: Does this match the president's thinking?"

"Well, I think the president has expressed what his thinking is when it comes to doing more to secure our borders," McClellan responded. "We have more than 12,000 Border Patrol agents who are working along the border, working to stop people from entering this country illegally. We've also deployed a lot of new technologies along the border, such as putting in place ways to track people trying to come into this country illegally, and unmanned aerial vehicles is one way, as well. We've talked about that before. We've continued to work to increase the number of Border Patrol agents."

Continued the spokesman: "There's more – we've made some good progress to better secure our borders. The president talked about how since he came into office, we've stopped some 6 – or returned some 6 million people from coming into this country illegally. And we need to continue to move forward. There's more that we need to do, and that's what the president is committed to doing."

McClellan also said a "temporary guest worker program" is a key element of a "rational" solution to the immigration problem.

"We … have to deal with reality," said McClellan. "The reality is, we have a number – a very high number of illegal immigrants in this country. They're meeting an important economic need. And we are a nation of laws, and we're a nation of immigrants. And if we're going to address the real threats, then we need to have a temporary worker program to allow our Border Patrol agents to focus on the criminals and the thugs and the terrorists and the traffickers and smugglers that are trying to come into this country illegally."

The U.S. Senate, after failing to reach agreement on an immigration-reform bill before its Easter recess, will take up the issue again when lawmakers return to Washington.

Yeah, they meet the need of the Chamber of Commerce and big business, but not the common American worker.