Tonight all the major TV networks will carry live a speech by President George Bush on immigration…a speech that will be highly significant and could put Bush in a political pincer.
Why? Because he’ll be proposing getting the National Guard more involved in border security — and the degree of that involvement may displease many, no matter what course he chooses.
On one side: Republican conservatives and other Americans who want the border security to be beefed up to prevent illegal immigrants from coming over. Many who seek this also want mass deportations and oppose any kind of residential adjustment (Bush & Co don’t want to use the word “amnesty,” but many of these proposals do qualify as such).
On the other, business interests, immigrants rights organizations, many Hispanic voters, Democrats and others who may balk at moving towards militarization of the U.S. Border.
And, in yet another realm, there’s the impact of a hard-line on Mexico. It was no accident that Bush moved swiftly to reassure the U.S. neighbor (and population supplier) to the South:
President Bush assured Mexican President Vicente Fox on Sunday he did not intend to militarize their countries’ mutual border, but was considering sending National Guard troops there to temporarily support border control efforts.
“The president made clear that the United States considers Mexico a friend and that what is being considered is not militarization of the border, but support of border patrol capabilities on a temporary basis by National Guard personnel,” White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri said, describing a telephone conversation between Bush and his Mexican counterpart.
Fox “reached out” to Bush on Sunday to relay his concerns about the plan that is under consideration, Tamburri said.
Bush will deliver a televised address to the nation on immigration on Monday evening. The White House said last week he may propose deploying more National Guard troops along the 2,000-mile border to stop illegal immigration.
Fox’s office said during the call Bush said the United States and Mexico were partners and friends, but a thorough immigration reform was needed to solve the problem between both countries.
The idea has also gotten a mixed reception on Capitol Hill, where some senators are worried that the National Guard is already stretched too thin to take on major additional duties.
White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley went on television Sunday to emphasize that no final decision on sending the troops had been made. He said the idea was to “provide a bit of a stopgap as the Border Patrol build up their capacity to deal with this challenge.
But will a “stop-gap” be enough? If it’s not big — and comprehensive — the glass will likely be seen as half-full for immigration hard-liners and some may decide to stay home in November.
The sentiment on talk shows and the implications of National Guard near the border have become evident in the past few days. Some of the buzz:
–A liberal talk show host warns that the National Guard on the border represent turning over more control of the Guard to the executive branch and taking away some of the power from the states. His fear: the Guard will eventually be used to suppress demonstrations.
–A conservative talk show host suggests that the numbers leaking out (5,000 to 10,000 National Guard) would actually be useless (he contends roughly 7 times more would be needed) and such a limited presence would be throwing some election year crumbs to the GOP base to say the government is doing something about it. He predicts immigrants’ residential adjustment will be a prime part of any Bush plan.
–Matt Drudge, on his Sunday night talk show carried live on KFI 640 in LA, last night started out applauding what he thought aloud might be a Bush hard line on border enforcement. When he got word about Bush’s assurances to Fox he sounded clearly disappointed and predicted that Bush’s actions announced tonight would merely be a prelude to some kind of amnesty.
–Concerns expressed in some quarters about the Guard’s marching orders. In particular, some worry that if a young Guardsman shoots someone coming across the border to look for work it would provoke massive perhaps violent demonstrations (and the Guard would then be needed to put them down).
So there are all kinds of scenarios on Bush’s speech tonight. Even so, polls have shown that Americans want (a) tougher border security coupled with (b) some kind of residential status adjustment for those who are already here.
Ironically, it was the GOP and the White House that pressed this issue as a good potential “wedge issue” for 2006. It now appears as if it could pose some tough problems for Bush — who needs to retain all of his existing supporters and somehow expand his base if he wants to get out of the poll ratings basement and stabilize his party’s eroding mid-term election support.
NEWS STORY UPDATES:
—Bloomberg notes the delicacy of Bush’s speech tonight:
President George W. Bush will seek to satisfy Republicans who want to curb illegal immigration without alienating those who support his plan to create a guest-worker program when he addresses the nation tonight.
Bush faces a breach in his own party over what to do about the 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally, an issue that he has made a focal point of his agenda for the year. To close that divide, he is considering deploying National Guard troops to the 3,000-mile southern U.S. border to reassure one segment of his core supporters that he won’t allow unfettered immigration.
“He’s trying to convince skeptical Republicans that the administration is really serious about immigration enforcement,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the Washington-based National Immigration Forum, a group that backs a guest-worker plan. Increased border enforcement may “provide some political cover and comfort to reluctant Republicans in the House and Senate,” he said.
—USA Today also notes the political context:
Bush’s approval rating has hit a new low — 31% in a USA Today/Gallup Poll taken May 5-7. The low number may be driven by members of Bush’s party. In recent polls, Republicans have given Bush low marks for his stand on illegal immigration.
The president says he backs comprehensive change, including better border enforcement and temporary guest-worker provisions.
The Republican-led House of Representatives passed an enforcement-only bill last year. Senate debate broke down in April because of GOP disagreement over whether to include guest-worker provisions in the bill. Senate Democrats raised procedural objections.
“This is a difficult debate,” Mel Martinez, the Senate’s only immigrant member, said Friday at the National Press Club. “It’s tearing the country into different directions.”
WEBLOGS ARE COMMENTING EXTENSIVELY ON THE ISSUE AS THE SPEECH APPROACHES. A CROSS SECTION:
I predict that his speechwriters will insult our intelligence and present unsustainable and bad argumentation supporting amnesty for border jumpers, including the strawman “We are a nation of immigrants!� and the claim that deporting millions of illegal criminals is impractical. He’ll toss us a half-chewed border enforcement bone to throw us off the trail. I’m not that hungry. Are you?
During hurricane Katrina, didn’t we already see cases where state Governors were complaining that so much of their equipment and so many of their troops were in Iraq that we couldn’t respond nimbly enough to the disaster? And we’re going to send more troops away to guard that border? Also, doesn’t this further “nationalize” the guard which, as I understand it, is supposed to be controlled by the individual states for just such emergencies as Katrina? And where will these troops come from? Aren’t we already running dangerously low on Guard forces and having trouble meeting quotas to replace the ones we’re blowing up in Iraq?
I do not expect honest proposals from Jorge W. Bush. It isn’t in his character to mean what he says. He wants to pursue policies that will turn the United States of America into Latin America. His goal at this point is pursue his policies in a way that allows him to placate Americans across the political spectrum who want immigration reduction. I hope the American people are not gullible enough to be fooled by his next attempt at deception. They do not agree with him: Majority Of American Public Are Immigration Restrictionists….Maybe Bush hates Americans because they aren’t as subservient toward him as Mexicans are.
—Josh Marshall sees Bush’s upcoming speech as a sign of political crisis: “But am I wrong to think that the president simply couldn’t square the circle between the corporate cheap-labor forces who fund his campaigns and the cultural conservatives who supply his voters? Growing out of that failure, this ‘militarize the border’ hokum is the policy announcement equalivent of crawling under his desk and screaming “Help!””
—James Joyner is unimpressed, too:
I’m not sure if “irony� is the right word but I find the parallels between this and Iraq somewhat amusing. Still, how long can it possibly take to train effective Border Patrol agents? The initial training course is 19 weeks. It’s not like arresting unarmed migrants is as difficult as counterinsurgency, so one would think we could pair newly trained officers with veteran officers and put them to work. So, why take the ridiculous step of militarizing the border as a stop-gap?
—Americablog: “How long until a US National Guardsman shoots a poor Mexican man, woman or child trying to cross the border seeking a better life? Then what happens? Answer: Riots in most American cities. DC had its own riots, like a lot of cities, a few decades back and some neighborhoods are still paying the price. This plan is insane. But again, Bush is opting for a knee-jerk publicity stunt without thinking through what’s going to happen next. The National Guard’s job is to shoot people, and when they do, and they surely will, all hell is going to break loose.”
Some Bush supporters are admonishing immigration enforcement activists to “tone it down” because the criticism will hurt Bush. Maybe he should of thought of that all the years when he could have been raiding worksites and strengthening border protection for their own sake. Instead, he has chosen to offer a too little, too late, and all-too-expedient gesture of immigration enforcement as a phony bargaining chip to bribe his base into supporting a historically doomed, dangerous, and utterly unmanageable amnesty proposal.
The Moose observes that the President may be dispatching the Guard not so much to defend the borders but rather to protect the Republican majority. Desperate times demand desperate action. No, the Moose is not referring to the illegal immigration problem at our nation’s borders. The Moose is talking about resolving the civil war within the Republican Party.
The Political Office in the White House is receiving reports that potentially millions of conservative refugees are streaming across the border from the President’s popularity. They are fleeing a party that has betrayed them with high taxes and gross incompetence. These immigrants who are threatening to stay home in November and Mr. Rove must call on all of the nation’s resources to send them home.
It just seemed to good to be true, being that I am a conservative and I assert that issue is a “no-brainer,� that our borders should be protected. Is that not a cornerstone of our sovereignty? Nevertheless, it seems that this “bold� move by President Bush is nothing short of Clintonesque in its effort. This assumption, that President Bush will, call for the national guard to be placed on the southern border seems to be nothing more than a mere facade used to pander to his constituency that is giving him so much grief about the issue. In other words, it is a way to attempt taking the wind out of our sails while still moving forward with the agenda we do not desire at all.
—Captain Ed predicts immigration activists will overreact and hurt their own cause: “Personally, I look forward to their response tonight and tomorrow. Not only will it prove entertaining, but it will undoubtedly remind the White House that the immigration activists do not support his administration or his party and never will, no matter how much he supports their agenda. That might wake up a few Republican leaders in the Senate as well.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.