Thread: Plan to deploy guards worry Mexico!

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May 15, 2006
Plan to Deploy Guard at Border Worries Mexico
By JIM RUTENBERG
WASHINGTON, May 14 — President Bush's plan to send National Guard troops to patrol the southern border of the United States has raised the concern of his longtime ally President Vicente Fox of Mexico, who called Mr. Bush on Sunday to express his worries.

White House officials said Mr. Bush assured Mr. Fox that a permanent National Guard presence on the border was not being considered.

"The president made clear that the United States considers Mexico a friend," said Maria Tamburri, a White House spokeswoman.

Ms. Tamburri said the president told Mr. Fox, "What is being considered is not a militarization of the border, but support of border patrol capabilities, on a temporary basis, by National Guard personnel."

In a televised address scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday, Mr. Bush is expected to call for a significantly increased National Guard presence at the border. Officials have indicated that Mr. Bush could call for a force of thousands but that it would not be as high as 10,000, a number that had been rumored late last week.

Reports of the plan over the weekend also caused concern among lawmakers, including some Republicans, who said they feared the National Guard was already overextended with military missions abroad and with its response to natural disasters at home.

On Monday, Mr. Bush is also expected to outline several other proposals aimed at sealing the border and cracking down on workers who are illegally in the United States, and the employers who hire them. Aides said he would renew his calls for an overhaul of the nation's immigration law that includes provisions to grant illegal immigrants the right to work here legally.

The president's speech, his first on domestic policy from the Oval Office, is to come as the Senate begins trying again to pass a bill that addresses competing demands to stem the flow of workers across the border from Mexico and the desire of American employers to have reliable access to a low-wage work force.

White House officials have made it clear that they hope that a plan to seal the border will help Mr. Bush in that effort to strike a compromise between any bill passed in the Senate and the one passed in December in the House, where many Republicans have opposed any steps to legalize illegal workers.

Lawmakers from both parties expressed concerns on Sunday about the idea of deploying the National Guard.

Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, who helped draft the Senate immigration bill, said he was skeptical about whether the plan would work.

"We have stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen it in modern times," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "And what in the world are we talking about here, sending a National Guard that we may not have any capacity to send, up to or down to protect borders?"

He said he did not believe border protection was "the role of our National Guard."

Speaking on "Late Edition" on CNN, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said expressed similar feelings, saying, , "We're stretching them pretty thin now. We're going to make a border patrol out of them?"

But White House officials said late last week that they believed the president's address on Monday would be welcomed by voters, who have told pollsters they would like to see tighter control of the borders.

"The president is looking to do everything he can to secure the border," said Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "It's what the American people want, it's what he wants to do."

Mr. Hadley said sending National Guard troops to the border — officials say there are about 200 there now — would supplement the Border Patrol as it adds agents whose training and deployment will take time.

White House officials said that was the message that the president conveyed to Mr. Fox, whose defense minister met on Friday with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Ms. Tamburri, the White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Fox and Mr. Bush also discussed "cooperative efforts under way" on the border.

A statement from Mr. Fox's office said that during the president's 30-minute conversation he reiterated to Mr. Bush his conviction that the best way to manage the problem of illegal migration was with comprehensive legislation.

Migration has been the centerpiece of Mr. Fox's foreign policy in the six years of his presidency. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his hopes faltered for swift passage of measures to legalize an estimated six million Mexicans working illegally in the United States.

The relationship between Mexico and the United States grew tense as the Bush administration began focusing more on ways to seal the border than to expand opportunities for the legal flow of migrant workers. Still, Mr. Fox publicly supported most of Mr. Bush's law enforcement efforts on the border. His cooperation with the United States has cost him significant political clout, however, among an increasing number of left-leaning leaders across Latin America.

And with presidential elections less than two months away, feelings that Mr. Fox has subordinated Mexico's sovereignty to American interests threaten to affect the chances of the candidate he hopes to succeed him, Felipe Calderón.

Mr. Fox's expression of concern to Mr. Bush, along with that of members of Congress and some governors, underscored the constituencies the president is juggling as heseeks a legislative victory on an issue of special interest to him at a time when much of his agenda is stalled.

His push for granting illegal immigrants legal status, and his veiled discussion of a path to citizenship — he often says those who want to become citizens would have to go to "the back of the line" — has been dismissed as "amnesty" by some conservatives. And, as his party faces a rough midterm election fight, Republicans have worried that his push on immigration has helped demoralize core conservative voters.

Ginger Thompson contributed reporting from Mexico City for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/washi ... nted=print

Talking points to your Senators: Tell them to put the guards on the border, while new Border Patrol are being trained!

He said he did not believe border protection was "the role of our National Guard."

If they're not for defending our borders, what are they for? National defense is a primary responsibility of our federal governement and armed forces. We can send the National Guard to defend Iraq and Afghanistan, but not our own borders???

This is just another ploy by this administration to appease the American People and disaffected conservatives while trying to avoid alienating his brother in Mexico City. As I mentioned in a previous post the troops will be playing tiddly winks and the Mexican government will setup advisory offices in command post tents and TOCs as they will be in charge of operations just as with the border patrol. His visit to the border is a sham as we know that area will be sanitized and you will see hundreds of Mexican Army units for the dog and pony show. Bush in his infinite idiocy will say i dont see a problem as Mexico is cooperating on border security. As soon as he leaves the drug and illegal alien smugglers hidden inside of the narco-empire and Mexican Mafia controlled military vehicles will continue operation s. If Bush really wants a true picture of how bad things are his visit should be unannouned with a beefed up personal security detail. Once again this shows this president is not serious about securing our borders.

You are so right. This president takes all of us for fools. He's going to be the destruction of this country. What a legacy. How could such an idiot have been elected?
In November, I hope we have the power to vote every one of them out of office.

Ergh !! He just BETTER NOT start in on his old rhetoric tonight.

He will be FOOL NUMERO UNO if he does !!!
He knows he's skating on THIN ICE with U.S., the American people.

As somebody said, "29% approval rating is BELOW FREEZING!!"

How about saying. "If you're in the U.S. ILLEGALLY, you NEED TO LEAVE."

How about it, JORGE?!?

Originally Posted by LegalUSCitizen

Ergh !! He just BETTER NOT start in on his old rhetoric tonight.

He will be FOOL NUMERO UNO if he does !!!
He knows he's skating on THIN ICE with U.S., the American people.

As somebody said, "29% approval rating is BELOW FREEZING!!"

How about saying. "If you're in the U.S. ILLEGALLY, you NEED TO LEAVE."

How about it, JORGE?!?

If he says "jobs Americans won't do" again tonight, he may as well pack up and move south of the border. I'm not going to watch, because I can't afford to replace the tv if I were to throw something through it during his speech.

If he then actually goes through with amnesty, his Republican party will become the permanent minority party until it simply disappears altogether. How these idiots have come to the conclusion that pandering to a group that votes 60/40 against them in the best of times while alienating their base is brilliant strategy eludes me, but they have.

CountFloyd, I predict he will say it. I truly do. THIS is a very predictable president. They are easy to predict when they're crazy. And this one is certainly crazy.

Poor man. He NEEDS help. We are obligated to get him the help he needs. The question is HOW.

There is ONE way. Impeachment.

Wouldn't it be the most "humane and compassionate" thing for US to do??

We MUST uphold our "compassion". It would be what he would want us to do if he was sane.

So, we will impeach him. We can start tomorrow, after his speech. Let him have one more time being on TV and being president. Then tomorrow we can start the process of impeachment.

We can tell him that we have a "guest worker" who is willing to do his job, since he doesn't want to do it. He will understand. In fact, it will make him happy. Why don't we tell him, we're going to let Vicente Fox have his job ? I think he would love that idea !!

(Once he is back in Crawford, we'll call him and tell him, we knew we had to try to find an American to do the job before we could give it to Vicente Fox, because we wanted to follow the rules of his guest worker program. We found an American, named Tom Tancredo who we believe to be a willing worker. )

PROBLEMS SOLVED

It is and always has been my understanding that the National Guard were created to serve and protect here in the USA. Any cival unrest, disaster, or attacks to ****ry or state. That is what they were created for and have always been used for.

On the contrary it has never been the purpose of the National Guard to act as a reserve to wars outside this country. Which is beng done at this moment and has been done without any objection or questioning.
Leaveing this country extremely vulnerable in all areas. Minnesota just sent over 2,500 National Guard to Iraq 3 months ago. The largest deployment ever.

This is yet another example of the incompetence, neglegence and unruly behavior of this administration. This will also show how the National Guard has been left to deteriorate over the years, with broken chains of command, and negligent recruiters and officers. Which I would imagine played a part in the delays of Katrina assistance.

My son is now an Ohio National Guard, after serving 4 years in the Navy and unable to find a job after 2 years he was forced out of desperation to join again for the income. He joined in December. To this day he still has not been sent threw his "warrior training" (bootcamp) and those who are in charge of this, regularly make themselves unavailable to his repeated calls and messages. He discribes this experience as dealing with people who are moron and have their heads up their ***'s. He has described this as the most unorganized, unproffessional orgainzation he has ever seen.

By no means is this meant to be nothing but National Guard bashing. I think they should be sent. But, what i am saying is our government and national military units (whats left of them) are mismanaged, currently deployed in countries they should not be in, and not at all what they use to be. His unit is one that builds infrastructure. Guess what they do when not at war in Iraq? They are sent to OTHER countries to build school houses or town meeting buildings and lay water lines for these villages!
They aren't sent to fix or build new bridges across the USA, even though we have many across the country ready to colapse at any minute. They are not sent to build boarder fences, or lay new pipe for New Orleans. This is how our National Guard has been used for several years now. And each and every one of our Govenors is responsible for that. They have the say over what is done with their states National Guard. Hell Arizonia, Texas, Cali could have deployed their own Guards to the boarders in their states years ago.

No need for Fox to worry, Bush has got his back, and the backs of 20,000,000, illegal aleins, while he knives the backs of 280,000,000 million Americans in theirs