Free Republic

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Tuesday that Escondido would get one of several temporary "one-stop" assistance centers aimed at helping agricultural workers who may have lost their jobs because of freezing temperatures that have hit the state. Schwarzenegger's office said the state would open assistance centers in the seven counties that have been hit hardest by the freeze, including one at the North County Inland Career Center in Escondido. Local officials said they did not think the Escondido center would be very busy because the county has had a shortage of agricultural workers for some time. Officials said the shortage probably...

LOS ANGELES - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that some Mexican immigrants "try to stay Mexican" when they come to the United States, and he urged them to assimilate into the fabric of American society. Recalling his own experience emigrating from his native Austria, the Republican governor said Thursdya that immigrants should learn English and U.S. history and "make an effort to become part of America." "That is very difficult for some people to do especially, I think, for Mexicans because they are so close to their country here so they try to stay Mexican but try to be in...

To those who believe illegal immigration is reaching a crisis level in this country I say: Tone down the rhetoric. I myself have said things that caused division even when that was not my intent. Words can be weapons. We must be careful to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration, between those who break our laws to do us harm and those who break our laws to find freedom and prosperity in the greatest nation on Earth. It is hypocritical for Congress to condemn people for coming here illegally when the federal government has been unwilling to do what it...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seeking to shore up support among conservatives, told the state GOP convention Saturday that he would be tougher on illegal immigration than Democratic opponent Phil Angelides. "My opponent wants to pull the National Guard off the border. He wants to give undocumented workers California drivers licenses," Schwarzenegger said, as a few in the lunchtime crowd at the Century Plaza Hotel hissed. "His policies are disastrous." Angelides, in a conference call with reporters, accused Schwarzenegger of using the issue to divide Californians and said the governor was "stirring up his anti-immigrant right wing base." But the state treasurer...

This site translates this La Opinion article about an (English-language) interview with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: It was an error to support Proposal 187, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted yesterday during a meeting with the editorial board of La Opinion. The state’s chief executive expressed his positions on immigration, public education, the healthcare crisis, and his vision for California, within the context of his campaign and its engagement of the state's Latin community with a view to his re-election in November. There's audio at the second link, with more to follow tomorrow. I have three statements to make: 1. As before,...

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger scolded Congress on Friday for failing to enact immigration reforms, saying lawmakers should put aside election-year politics and get to work on a plan that would strengthen the border and allow temporary workers to come here legally. The Republican governor showed growing impatience with Washington and his own party, saying illegal crossings and drug-running will persist at the border as long as the House and Senate remain deadlocked. He also criticized lawmakers for holding hearings on the issue in cities across the nation. "Don't run around the country now ... and have all...

ANGELES (Reuters) - Karl Rove, U.S. President George W. Bush's senior political advisor, on Tuesday took the administration's message on immigration reform to Latino leaders, saying the country was approaching a "critical moment" in the debate. >br> Speaking at the annual convention of leading Latino civic group the National Council of La Raza, Rove said Bush would work with Republicans and Democrats in coming weeks to push through reform legislation that has bitterly divided Congress, the Republican Party and the nation. "We face a critical moment in our immigration debate, a moment when our nation will make an important decision...

White House adviser Karl Rove is scheduled to speak tomorrow at the annual conference of the federally funded, left-wing, open-borders-advocacy group, the National Council of La Raza. If he does not want his speech to look like an act of appeasement, he should confront La Raza on its opposition to commonsense policies designed to secure both U.S. borders and U.S. pocketbooks. La Raza, which means “The Race” in Spanish, has denounced as “horrendous” and “appalling” the House immigration bill passed in December, which was sponsored by Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) and supported by the overwhelming majority of House Republicans....

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is moving to shore up an area of vulnerability in his re-election campaign against his trailing Democratic opponent, Phil Angelides. On Tuesday at an event in L.A., he will announce the formation of Hispanic Families for Arnold. When he was elected in the 2003 recall election, Schwarzenegger garnered 34 percent of the Latino vote, a good total given that the replacement Democratic nominee, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, is Mexican-American. But in some recent polls matched up against Angelides, Schwarzenegger is running under 20 percent. Forty to fifty community leaders and their families will join Schwarzenegger at the...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has denied the federal government's request to place 1,500 additional national guard troops on the Mexico border according to a breaking news alert just issued on ABC Channel 7 news in Los Angeles.</p>

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week rejected a request from the Bush administration to send an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, the governor's office confirmed Friday. The National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, asked for the troops to help with the border-patrol mission in New Mexico and Arizona, but Schwarzenegger said the request would stretch the California Guard too thin in case of an emergency or natural disaster. Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn confirmed the governor's decision Friday after two California National Guard officials revealed it to The Associated Press. Mendelsohn said...

After a helicopter tour of the U.S.-Mexico border here, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched a broadside yesterday against House Republican leaders for threatening to scuttle a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws. “It would be totally inexcusable for them to say, 'This year we couldn't do it,'” Schwarzenegger said at a news conference minutes after landing near the border fence, yards away from Tijuana, on a National Guard Blackhawk helicopter. The Republican governor had just completed a 23-minute aerial tour that took him from Brown Field east nearly to Otay Mountain and then west to seaside Border Field State Park. After landing...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sharply criticized House Republican leaders Wednesday for calling summer hearings on a proposed immigration overhaul before trying to compromise with the Senate. The Republican governor said public forums across the country were unnecessary because "we know what the facts are." "It would be inexcusable, it would be ludicrous for them to say, 'Well, we can't work it out,'" Schwarzenegger said after a helicopter ride along the Mexican border to see where National Guard troops will soon be deployed. "That's their job - to work it out." His remarks highlighted divisions among Republicans on how to tackle the...

SAN DIEGO – While taking a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chided Congress on Wednesday for stalling federal legislation to curb illegal immigration. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives announced Tuesday their plans for more hearings next month on immigration, a move that could doom any hope of passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year. “It would be totally inexcusable,” Schwarzenegger told reporters during a whirlwind tour of the border, during which he met with National Guard troops assigned to the international boundary as part of the Bush Administration's Operation Jump Start. National Guard soldiers...

With California’s state budget hung up, at least for the moment, on the politics of illegal immigration and children’s health care, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is right in the middle between legislative Democrats and Republicans. It’s consistent with his evolution from supporter of the anti-illegal immigrant Proposition 187 in 1994 to his dramatic declaration in 2002 that he opposed any Prop 187-like measure. Schwarzenegger wants to add money for existing children’s health care programs at the county level, which service children who are here illegally. But he doesn’t want to start up a new program, which would begin the process of...

THE bickering has begun among California's politicians over President George W. Bush's proposal to use the National Guard to secure the Mexican border. Last week, state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, threw a fit over deployment: "As a matter of moral principle and constitutional precedent, we will not be party to budgeting one dime to enable any role for the California National Guard in border monitoring until the Senate immediately and thoroughly reviews the implications of this use of state funds and personnel," he wrote to the budget committee chairman. In other words, stonewall — a game the...

As congressional Republicans wrangled over deportations, detentions and other get-tough measures on illegal immigration, another Republican spent this week hugging newly naturalized immigrants and enthusiastically hosting Mexican President Vicente Fox. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is charting a different political course from conservatives in Washington this election year, emphasizing tolerance and pragmatism over a hard-line border lockdown. "He is trying to deal with immigration not just from the loud voices on the left and the loud voices on the right, but to find a place where you can deal with the whole breadth of the issue," said Matthew Dowd, Schwarzenegger's chief campaign...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday said he will tell Mexican President Vicente Fox that his government needs to do more to stop illegal immigration into the U.S. when the two meet Thursday. "I will reiterate my positions that immigration and border security is a federal issue and the federal governments of both sides, the United States and Mexico, can and must do more," Schwarzenegger said. But he said he would not be confrontational and suggest that Mexico pay for health care, education, incarceration and other immigration-related costs incurred by the state. "Mexico is our friend," Schwarzenegger said at a Capitol...

When Mexican President Vicente Fox stars at an official state dinner in Sacramento on Thursday night -- during a trip that includes a visit with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a speech to the Legislature -- his famous "enchilada completa" still won't be on the menu. That was the recipe for immigration reform that the Mexican president promised to lobby hard to achieve in his six-year administration: a guest worker program; a path to legalization for millions of Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, in the United States; and agreements from both sides of the border to protect Mexican workers from human...

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Vicente Fox will be taking his five-year battle for immigration reform to the front lines this week with a visit to the western United States. But analysts say Fox's trip this week to the states of California, Utah and Washington may do more harm than good. The president wants Congress to approve a guest-worker program and a path for citizenship for some of the 6 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States. But some say Fox's visit could be seen as meddling in U.S. politics and strengthen support for hard-liners who want to tighten immigration...

Mexican President Vicente Fox will address a joint session of the California Legislature and meet with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday. It will be Schwarzenegger's first meeting with Fox since he became governor in 2003, although the two have met before. Fox and members of his cabinet also will meet in private with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, and attend a reception and dinner hosted by Schwarzenegger, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Mexican president is visiting California to promote trade with Mexico, as part of a four-day trip that starts Tuesday in Utah and includes Washington state....

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is finding out just how hard it is to take a centrist view on the polarizing issue of sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. The left wants him to refuse President Bush's request this week to do so. The right wants him to do whatever it takes to secure the border. But the governor continues to refuse embracing either side's all-or-nothing approach. He has said he doesn't like the idea of sending Guard troops to the border, but he's also said he would consider doing so, if it was a temporary solution. And therein lies...

SAN DIEGO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sounded more conciliatory Thursday toward President Bush's plan to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, but the governor's advisers said he still has not decided whether to participate. "If that will help to prevent people from coming across the border for right now, then we are more than happy to join in and to help temporarily," Schwarzenegger said. "But it definitely should not be a permanent solution." Schwarzenegger is concerned that California Guardsmen will be caught up in an open-ended mission on the border that could drag beyond the two years...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has urged Washington to toughen border security, said Friday he had misgivings about mobilizing state National Guard troops to help secure the nation's southern boundary. "Going the direction of the National Guard, I think, is maybe not the right way to go," Schwarzenegger told reporters after a news conference on the state budget. Schwarzenegger suggested that Guard troops returning from service in Iraq should be able to go back to their jobs, not head to the border. "We should let them go to work," he said.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out against putting National Guard troops on the border, as President Bush will suggest on Monday night in a nationally televised speech. "There is all kinds of talk about now that should we use the National Guard," Schwarzenegger explains. "I think that the key thing is that we secure our borders. Going the direction of the National Guard, I think is maybe not the right way to go because I think that the Bush administration and the federal government should put up the money to create the kind of protection that the federal government...

SACRAMENTO - Stressing his love of the country to the south, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger emphasized his goal of stronger ties with Mexico in his weekly radio address Saturday. Looking to boost his image with Hispanics at home, Schwarzenegger visited Mexico on Friday, meeting with his Baja California counterpart in talks on security and immigration. "Mexico is our Number One trading partner, and I am proud that we have increased trade with Mexico by 16 percent last year alone," Schwarzenegger said Saturday. "Our trade relationship supports as many as 200,000 California jobs and generates nearly $160 billion for our economy." Schwarzenegger...

Last week Governor Schwarzenegger complained that the Federal government was not doing its job in keeping our border secure. He noted how porous the borders are, drug dealers, terrorists and illegal aliens get into our nation with only minor difficulties. Arnold is right, the purpose of the Federal government is to protect the borders, not create amnesty programs when you fail to do the job. But, local, county and state government agencies can also take a hand in this issue. Just as an open border is a magnet to those wanting to leave their home country, but not follow the...

Schwarzenegger takes Congress and White House to task for failing to enact immigration strategy and says they are to blame for protests. ROSEVILLE, Calif. — In some of the harshest terms he has used to date, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday said the federal government has left the nation's borders dangerously vulnerable while failing to come up with a sensible approach to immigration. Schwarzenegger, taking questions at a news conference on a multibillion-dollar public works package passed by the Legislature early Friday, blamed the Bush administration and Congress for the massive street protests and widespread public unhappiness over federal immigration...

(AP) LOS ANGELES Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday said that building a 700-mile wall along the border with Mexico to deter illegal immigration would amount to "going back to the Stone ages," and urged the federal government to use high-tech gear and more patrols to secure the nation's southern boundary. "We are landing men on the moon and in outer space using all these great things. I think that other technology really can secure the borders," the Republican governor said in an interview on ABC's "This Week." "If I say now, 'Yes, let's build the wall,' what would prevent you...

First, immigration is about our security. The first order of business for the federal government is to secure our borders. Washington must do a better job of it. We learned on 9/11 that not all who cross our borders want to share in the American dream. A few want to replace it with a nightmare. If we don't know who is coming over our borders, we won't know whatthey might do. And in a post-Sept. 11 world, that is a risk we cannot take. Congress must strengthen our borders. That's why as governor, I have supported legislation to end human...

AS BOTH an immigrant and governor of a state with by far the biggest number of illegal immigrants, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should be working hard to resolve the immigration impasse. He could follow the example of Sen. (and former governor) Mel Martinez, R-Fla., another immigrant who has been one of the strongest supporters of providing "earned legalization" to immigrants that includes a path to permanent residence. So far, Schwarzenegger appears to have been hard at work writing opinion pieces for newspapers, in which he insists that solving the immigration problem is really quite simple. All Congress needs to do is...

(snip) Already we hear so much talk about so many false choices. We are told that in a free society it's not possible to have border security. We are advised that in order to secure the borders, we must deport 12 million people. Never mind that we don't know who they are or where they are, and that it could cost up to $230 billion to do it. I reject these false choices, and Congress should too. I salute the members of both parties in Congress who are conducting a civil, serious discussion on this issue. I urge them to...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday took his special election campaign before a hand-picked Hispanic audience that was more interested in asking him about amnesty and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants than his "year of reform" ballot measures. Schwarzenegger's appearance in the capital studio of Spanish-language television network Univision was another step in his attempt to connect with voters two weeks before they decide his proposals to change state government. He answered questions during a voter forum Monday night in Walnut Creek and has additional forums scheduled in Fresno and Los Angeles. Critics immediately assailed the Univision session...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's praise for the anti-illegal-immigration Minuteman Project in Arizona is encouraging copycat civilian patrols along the border, some immigrant rights advocates and political leaders fear. And the response to a budding California operation affirms their concern. Since Thursday, when Schwarzenegger said on a Los Angeles radio talk show that the volunteers of the Minuteman Project had done "a terrific job" patrolling the southern Arizona desert for illegal border crossers, the leader of a similar patrol planning to come to San Diego in August said he has been flooded with inquiries. "I don't know if it's a direct result...

Straight talk can often inspire public confidence and cool off the debate over emotional issues. But when the issue is illegal immigration, and the straight talk is a pithy directive, it can have the opposite effect. Case in point: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's remarks to newspaper publishers about how he would tackle the vexing issue of illegal immigration. "It's a federal issue," Schwarzenegger said. "And the only thing that I can say and add to this is really, close the borders. Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and in the United States." Close the borders. Thanks for the...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday the nation's policy on preventing illegal immigration is too lax, telling a group of newspaper publishers the United States needs to "close the borders." "Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and in the United States," Schwarzenegger said at the annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America (search). "Because I think it is just unfair to have all those people coming across, have the borders open the way it is, and have this kind of lax situation." Schwarzenegger's remarks were later clarified by his spokeswoman, who said the governor supports greater security...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was quite clear on Tuesday when he told a group of newspaper publishers that the United States needs to "close the borders." He was referring of course to the United States-Mexican border, and was quoted as saying, "Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and in the United States. Because I think it is just unfair to have all those people coming across, have the borders open the way it is, and have this kind of lax situation." He had more to say on Wednesday and it went something like, "I'm sorry, I didn't...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved quickly Wednesday to apologize for suggesting that California's border with Mexico should be closed in an effort to solve the nation's illegal immigration problem. Schwarzenegger said he misspoke in comments to newspaper editors and publishers Tuesday, intending to say the border should be secured. The governor blamed the error on his sometimes flawed use of English - his second language. "Yesterday was a total screw-up in the words I used," the governor said at a press conference. "Because instead of closing, I meant securing. I think maybe my English, I need to go back...

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told a group of newspaper publishers on Tuesday that the United States needs to "close the borders." He was referring of course to the United States-Mexican border and the flood of illegal immigrants that flow into California and other border states each day. The Associated Press notes that Governor Schwarzenegger told the annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America, "Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and in the United States. Because I think it is just unfair to have all those people coming across, have the borders open the way it is,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is stirring up an angry debate with his suggestion to close the border between California and Mexico.He spoke at a newspaper publisher's convention in San Francisco Tuesday."Close the borders between California and all across Mexico. I think it's unfair to have all those people coming across," he said.Some are calling Scharzenegger's stand a 180-degree turn from more positive comments he has made in the past.