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Bush to study border issues

Ariz. GOP split on Monday's visit

Jon Kamman
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 27, 2005 12:00 AM

In coming to Arizona on Monday to refine his overall strategy and long-awaited specifics on curbing illegal immigration, President Bush will be landing where even members of Congress can't agree on what should be done.

And while Bush will help raise funds for one Arizona politician, another has said he'd rather not have him around, at least for now.

Starting in Tucson, pausing for some politicking in Phoenix and moving on to El Paso on Tuesday, Bush is focusing on immigration in the context of securing the nation's borders, the White House says.

Members of Arizona's congressional delegation have introduced three competing bills designed to stop an influx that has allowed an estimated 11 million foreigners to take up unauthorized U.S. residence.

The plans differ markedly in stringency, and although the sponsors are for the most part respectful, they have described each other's proposals as unworkable, too onerous or too lax. Some provisions are so incompatible that Bush would be hard-pressed to find areas of compromise.

Illegal border crossers must be stopped whether they have evil intentions or are merely seeking a better life in jobs they know will require hard work at low pay, the president has said repeatedly since calling for a guest-worker program nearly two years ago.

The administration is now wrapping up details of what Bush would want in a bill. Whether he is ready to unveil any specifics isn't known, but the proposals are expected to be sent to Congress before its break for the holidays.


Brewing battle


A battle already is taking shape. In a draft of a letter to be sent to Bush on Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada credited the president with having advocated a "comprehensive approach to immigration reform, a view at odds with many members of your party."

Reid called for him to "stand up to the right wing of your party and stand up for what is right."

"As Arizona Republican Reps. Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe recently observed, we increased the number of Border Patrol agents on the Arizona border over the past decade by tenfold and quintupled the immigration enforcement budget, but during that same period, the probability of catching immigrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border fell from about 33 percent during the early 1980s to 5 percent in 2002," the draft letter said.

"Enforcement alone does not work," Reid wrote.

Even the second purpose of Bush's visit, a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Phoenix for Republican Sen. Jon Kyl's re-election, puts him on contentious turf.

GOP Rep. J.D. Hayworth has questioned whether Bush's personal support is a help or hindrance to a candidate.

Kyl is heading into what could be the most challenging race he has faced in winning two terms in the Senate after four in the U.S. House. The contest with Jim Pederson, a wealthy real estate developer who devoted millions of dollars to political causes as state Democratic chairman, promises to be the state's most expensive Senate race ever.

The senator says he is honored to have the backing of the president, both as the chief executive and as "a man for whom I have the highest regard."


Political risks?


Yet even Kyl, asked last week if he thinks there is any political risk in having a poll-battered president appear on his behalf, said, "I don't know."

"I would never be so disrespectful as to suggest that he's not welcome in my state," Kyl said.

Disrespectful or not, that's pretty much what Hayworth suggested earlier this month on national television and radio.

Asked on Imus in the Morning whether he would like Bush to campaign for him in the state, Hayworth conceded, "In a word, no. Not at this time."

"Any time a president's popularity falls below 65 percent, this is going to be an open question for any member of his party running for re-election," said Dan Schnur, a Republican analyst based in Sacramento.

Hayworth later characterized his comment as "just a realistic assessment of where the president is politically at this time."

He said he expects Bush to turn things around by next year's elections.

The political reality is this:


• Bush is burdened by a war in Iraq that shows few signs of abating after more than 2 1/2 years. The war is widely criticized as having been launched with faulty intelligence, inadequate planning and no exit strategy.


• He has been beset by national polls indicating that barely more than one-third of voters think he is doing a good job.


• His standing in Arizona has plummeted since he carried the state by a margin of 10.5 percentage points last November.

The president posted an approval rating of only 40 percent in a poll conducted last weekend for Channel 8, KAET-TV.

The poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points, also indicated that only 37 percent of registered voters believe the country is headed in the right direction.


• Bush and his administration bear the stigma of fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Floodwaters began to swamp New Orleans on Aug. 29, the very day of Bush's latest visit to the Valley. He conducted forums on Medicare in El Mirage and later in California, rather than focusing on the devastation.


• The president is being blamed for a litany of problems ranging from soaring gasoline prices to deficit spending to what Democrats are calling a "culture of corruption" among high-ranking Republicans, several of whom have been indicted.


13th trip to Arizona


On this trip, his 13th to Arizona since taking office, the president will fly into Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson in midafternoon for a 15-minute briefing by Customs and Border Protection personnel.

He is then expected to make public comments on border security.

The president is scheduled to address Kyl supporters about 5:30 p.m. at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix.

He will stay the night, then pick up the illegal immigration theme again on Tuesday morning in a meeting with Border Patrol officials in El Paso.

A Valley anti-war coalition has called for demonstrators to gather at 24th Street and Camelback Road at 4 p.m., deliver a letter to Kyl's office two blocks away, then march to the closest point allowed near the Biltmore property.

Nearly 400 protesters turned out for Bush's visit to El Mirage three months ago.

Pederson's campaign spokeswoman, Selena Shilad, said Bush is coming here "to pay back Jon Kyl for voting lockstep with his administration."

Kyl's adherence to the Bush agenda is a wedge issue for Pederson.

Shilad pointed to a Congressional Quarterly analysis showing that Kyl voted with the president 96 percent to 99 percent of the time in 2001-03, and 100 percent last year.

Kyl, however, maintains that he has opposed the president on several important issues, including this year's massive energy and transportation bills.

"What the president wants or doesn't want is only one factor in my decision-making process," Kyl said.


Campaign 'balance'


Analyst Schnur, who worked on the 2000 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain. R-Ariz., said Kyl's willingness to sometimes go against Bush or Senate colleagues provides "balance" in his campaign.

"Kyl is conservative and generally articulates the Republican position but is not afraid to go a separate way," Schnur said.

That separation also could extend to immigration re- form.

McCain, Kolbe and Flake want a guest-worker program and the opportunity for certain undocumented residents to attain legal status.

Kyl wants all undocumented residents to return to their native countries before being allowed to participate in a worker program. And Hayworth has weighed in with a bill emphasizing enforcement at the employer level and rejecting the idea of a guest-worker program.

If Bush leaned most favorably toward the McCain bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., he would find himself agreeing more with Pederson, who has endorsed that version, than backing the senator he has come to town to support.