Thread: Bush to Address Nation Monday Night on Immigration

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195244,00.html

WASHINGTON — President Bush will address the nation on immigration reform Monday night from the Oval Office.

The White House said Friday that this is the first time it has requested network time for a presidential address on a specific domestic issue.

"This is crunch time," Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary said Friday at his first off-camera, or informal, briefing.

The address will begin at 8 p.m. EDT and is expected to last about 20 minutes.

Bush will lay out an immigration proposal on how to deal with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. The president has been a strong advocate of some type of guest-worker program, where immigrants would come to the United States to work for a few years — with the proper paperwork — then would have to return to their respective home countries at some point.

Legislation to address the controversial issue has suffered many setbacks in Congress, but lawmakers hope to reach a deal by Memorial Day.

An immigration reform bill will head back to the Senate Monday after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid reached an agreement over how to proceed on amendments to the bill and which senators will work to negotiate a compromise with House lawmakers.

Frist and Reid announced on Thursday their deal after about a month stalemate when negotiations failed in the Senate.

The bill would strengthen border security, create a guest worker program and give eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

But the Senate bill will have to be reconciled with the one passed by the House last December, which was an enforcement-only bill that would bring felony charges against those illegal immigrants in the United States, as well as deportation.

Frist said the Senate will send 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats to negotiate with the House, with seven of the Republicans and five Democrats coming from the Judiciary Committee. The remaining seven Republicans will be chosen by Frist and remaining seven Democrats chosen by Reid.

The movement in Capitol Hill comes at a time when the debate over illegal immigration has reached a near-boiling point.

Local police along border states are grappling with overflowing jails as they try to arrest illegal immigrants, and some authorities — such as those in Maricopa County, Ariz. — are now using federal human smuggling laws to round up illegal immigrants and turn them over to federal authorities.

Congress is considering putting more border fences along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, which already has 83 miles of such barriers. The approved House bill would put fences at immigrant- and drug-smuggling corridors in all four southern border states. At an estimated cost of $2.5 billion, the fences would cover 850 miles of border — roughly one-fifth the length of the Great Wall of China — though it would not be one continuous wall.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is looking at ways the military can help secure the nation's southern border. The House voted 252-171 to allow Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to assign military personnel under certain circumstances to help the Homeland Security Department perform border security.

Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, asked officials this week to come up with options for the use of military resources and troops — particularly the National Guard — along the border with Mexico, according to defense officials familiar with the discussions.

Wanna bet it's just more of the same. We already know he wants to give amnesty to the illegals already here. Mr. President, don't waste your time and ours with more of your big business pandering. You'll get our response in November.

Hello all Newbie here for posting, but been a lurker for a few months now, anyhow ,now to get down to business. I just called the White House and left a message for President Bush. You can do the same.
call 1-202-456-1414 and tell them you want to leave a message and a women will take down your message for the president. Mine was on NO Amnesty,protect our borders ect.

I think that this is the beginning of the Big Immigration Crackdown Show of 2006.

He's going to talk tough about enforcement and border security, while once again telling us how we need "guest workers" to keep the economy humming.

Expect to see some high profile immigration raids over the next few months, along with lots of success stories about capturing terrorists along the border.

Of course, it's all show for the 2006 elections, but I suspect that a lot of people are going to get fooled again.

After the election, it will be back to business as usual.