The LA Times version of the Bush fairy tale of border enforcement.

www.latimes.com


Bush Pledges Border Control
The president, in a rare Southland visit, treads the middle ground in immigration furor.
By Peter Wallsten and Mark Z. Barabak
Times Staff Writers

August 30, 2005

With increasingly fierce debates over border security exposing divisions in the Republican Party, President Bush on Monday endorsed a policy of strict border enforcement.

His comments during appearances in California and Arizona were an apparent response to some state officials and conservatives in his own party who say the administration has failed to adequately address human trafficking from Mexico into the United States.

Officials in the two states have struggled to balance the need to guard against waves of illegal immigration with the demands of agriculture and other industries that rely on migrant labor. They also have been mindful of the growing importance of Latino voters, many of whom are sympathetic to looser enforcement.

The president did not mention the emergency declarations, signed two weeks ago by Democratic Govs. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Bill Richardson of New Mexico, that require the federal government to spend millions more combating human trafficking and, at the same time, paint the Bush administration as weak on immigration. Nor did he mention his own proposal for addressing the immigration crisis, one that is strongly opposed by many conservatives within his party: a guest worker program that would allow millions of undocumented immigrants to work and live in the United States legally.

Instead, Bush offered language apparently designed to appease the growing chorus of critics â€â€