Free Republic

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.