Text of White House Press Conference .. ?'s re: vigilantes
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 329-1.html
Q Mexico's President Fox announced during his news conference that our border fence between San Diego and Tijuana, in his words, must be demolished. My first question: During their subsequent Waco summit, did President Bush in any way reply to this Fox demand, which Senator Kyl of Arizona called, downright insulting, other than Mr. Bush denouncing the American Minutemen as "vigilantes"?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, a couple things. First of all, this goes to a much larger issue, this question, and the larger issue is making sure that we have a safe, orderly and humane migration system. We have worked closely with Mexico on issues relating to our borders. There is more that we can do to control our borders, and the Department of Homeland Security is working to do that every day. We have an increase in the number of agents along the border, they're working to address the situation in some of the areas where you're referencing, as well.
And the President put forward an initiative, his temporary worker initiative, to address some of these issues, because we have a problem in this country where now I think it's some 10 million undocumented immigrants working in this country. And they oftentimes are coming here simply to support their families back home. And they're also filling jobs that otherwise are not being filled by American citizens. So there is an economic need that we can address.
And there is also -- by addressing this situation, the President believes we can do a better job of enforcing our borders and going after those who are coming here for the wrong reason -- whether it's terrorists or people intent on criminal activity. This will free up our border patrol and border agents to go after those who should not be coming into this country in the first place.
Q The Washington Times has listed nine countries who have either built or are building border fences. Has President Fox, to your knowledge, condemned any border fence, beside our border fence? And why is denouncing the Arizona Minutemen any better than denouncing neighborhood crime watchers?
MR. McCLELLAN: A couple of things. I mean, the President spoke to this issue last week and I think he addressed it very clearly for you all.
In terms of President Fox, I'm not going to try to comment for him -- you might want to direct those questions to his office. But I know that the Department of Homeland Security, regarding the question you're bringing up, tomorrow is going to be having an announcement in Tucson, Arizona, about an initiative they're undertaking along the Arizona border to better control the border there.
In terms of the issue of the Minutemen that you bring up, again, the President spoke to that issue last week. And it's one thing if people are working along the border, simply to report suspicious activity, and that activity should be reported to the proper authorities -- the Department of Homeland Security officials, who are there to enforce our borders. If people are operating outside of the law, that cannot be tolerated. That's a different --
Q Well, that's my point. That's what they're doing -- they're neighborhood crime watch.
MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on. Hang on. That's a different matter. People cannot take things into their own hands. But if they see suspicious activity, they should report that suspicious activity to the proper authorities and --
Q And that doesn't make them vigilantes, does it?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, if you're talking about a group of armed, untrained individuals roaming around the desert, that would be something that would concern us and it would increase the chance that someone could get hurt. And we don't want people operating outside the law -- the President made that very clear last week. So if you're talking about people reporting suspicious activity, that's one thing. If you're talking about people operating outside the law, that's another matter and it's one that cannot be allowed to happen
