Bush pledges to deter illegal immigrants

updated 6:59 p.m. ET Oct. 18, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush sought support Tuesday for his guest worker plan for foreigners, hoping to win over skeptical conservatives with a pledge to clamp down on illegal immigration — one of a growing number of issues causing friction between the White House and fellow Republicans.

Bush and his advisers are caught between their business supporters, who believe the economy needs foreign workers, and conservatives whose priority is to get tough on illegal immigration. The right flank of the GOP also is upset about federal spending and Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“As we improve and expand our efforts to secure our borders, we must also recognize that that enforcement cannot work unless it is part of a larger comprehensive immigration reform program,” Bush said. “If an employer has a job that no American is willing to take, we need to find a way to fill that demand by matching willing employers with willing workers from foreign countries on a temporary and legal basis.”

Bush made the pitch for his immigration policy at the White House just before signing the $32 billion homeland security bill, which includes large increases for patrolling borders but fewer grants for local emergency first responders and a freeze in transit security funding.

Proposed improvements to border patrol
Bush said the bill includes $82 million to improve and expand Border Patrol stations and $70 million to install and improve fencing, lighting, vehicle barriers and roads. He said it provides $3.7 billion for immigration and customs enforcement so illegal immigrants can be found and returned home. It also will fund the hiring of 100 new immigration enforcement agents and 250 criminal investigators and add 2,000 new beds to detention facilities.

“This will allow us to hold more non-Mexican illegal immigrants while we process them through a program we call ‘expedited removal,”’ Bush said. “Putting more of these non-Mexican illegal immigrants through expedited removal is crucial to ending the problem of catch-and-release.”

The “catch and release” policy has allowed tens of thousands of non-Mexican illegal aliens to disappear within the United States.

Earlier in the day, administration officials appeared on Capitol Hill to promote Bush’s guest worker plan, saying action is needed beyond improving border patrols to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.

“We’re going to need more than just brute enforcement,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “We’re going to need a temporary worker program as well.”

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