Friday, May 19, 2006
The president is trying to answer to his conservative base but appeal to Hispanics.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
YUMA, Ariz. -- Warming up to new congressional plans for additional fencing along the Mexican border, President Bush made a personal inspection of one of the nation's most porous borders Thursday as part of his stepped-up appeal for a more sweeping approach to immigration reform.
"The need to enforce the border is urgent," Bush said in a speech at Border Patrol headquarters here.
"I understand that illegal immigration is a serious problem," said Bush, insisting that the solution must be "comprehensive," including a plan for temporary workers already in the U.S. and new guest workers. "One of our jobs in public office is to fix problems."
With a brief tour of the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector, a 120-mile stretch of desert along the southwestern Arizona border with Mexico where more than 70,000 illegal immigrants were turned back last year, Bush has come to the front line of a debate that has driven a deep wedge within his own party.
As the president presses Congress for reform of the nation's immigration laws, Bush has assumed a potentially perilous political role, with his own public approval ratings already at all-time lows.
Opposite factions
Bush is attempting to mediate between the conservative base of the GOP, which has no patience for the president's talk of enabling millions of undocumented immigrants already living in the United States to eventually seek citizenship, and a fast-growing and traditionally Democratic-voting Hispanic population. The president has worked hard to woo Hispanics since his days as Texas governor.
Among the early indicators of Bush's success or failure since carrying his immigration appeal to a national audience with a televised address on Monday: votes in the Senate this week where conservatives have found more approval for new fencing along the border and tougher sanctions against illegal immigrants than any new support that leaders have mustered for a temporary worker program for undocumented immigrants.
Another indicator: a series of focus groups that Hispanic pollster Sergio Bendixen conducted in Los Angeles this week. Bendixen says the voters he queried are "angry" about Bush's order for National Guard troops along the Mexican border.
"Unfortunately, sometimes when you try to get in the middle of a fight, you get both groups angry with you," Bendixen said. "When it comes to the major players in this debate -- the Hispanic voters on one side, and the native, anti-immigration people on the other side -- he may have hurt himself with both."
Support for fence
Bush is attempting to underscore his bid for conservative support, with the White House signaling Thursday that it supports a Senate amendment this week to construct about 350 miles of new triple-layer fencing along the border in addition to about 500 miles of vehicle barriers.
"I don't think anybody has seriously proposed building a wall across the entire border," White House press secretary Tony Snow said en route to Arizona. "What the president has said is he's going to try to have the right and appropriate types of security in the right places."
The House, which has approved a border protection-only bill with tough sanctions for illegal immigrants and no provision for the temporary or guest workers that Bush wants, has proposed about 700 miles of fences.
"Whatever works," Bush said in a shirtsleeves interview with Fox News at a border crossing. "It makes sense to use fencing here. It doesn't make sense to use fencing on other parts of the border."
The president, who conducts few interviews, sat for brief border-side talks with each of the television networks covering his trip here -- a sign of the White House's intentions of making a more direct appeal to Americans.
Related matters
In other developments:
The Senate voted Thursday to make English the national language of the United States. Sort of. Moments after the 63-34 vote, it decided to call the mother tongue a "common and unifying language." "You can't have it both ways," warned Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., a fan of "national" but not "common and unifying."
The vast majority of people caught smuggling immigrants across the border near San Diego are never prosecuted for the offense, demoralizing the agents making the arrests, according to an internal Border Patrol document obtained by The Associated Press. "It is very difficult to keep agents' morale up when the laws they were told to uphold are being watered-down or not prosecuted," the report says.