Bush: National Guard Improving Border Security

American Forces Press Service ^ | Sgt. Sara Wood, USA

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, August 6, 2006 – The deployment of more than 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S. southwest border met a key objective in the government’s efforts to secure the border, President Bush said here yesterday.

Bush visited the Rio Grand Valley Border Patrol sector Aug. 3, and saw firsthand how the National Guard troops are working with Border Patrol agents. “National Guard troops are helping with surveillance, construction and logistics,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “They're building and repairing fences, maintaining vehicles and manning detection equipment on the border and in command centers.”

The arrival of National Guard units has allowed the Border Patrol to move more agents into front-line positions, and this additional manpower is delivering results, Bush said. With the support of the National Guard, Border Patrol agents have seized more than 17,000 pounds of illegal drugs and caught more than 2,500 illegal immigrants since June 15, he said.

Border security is the beginning of rational and comprehensive immigration reform, Bush said, noting that he has asked Congress to fund dramatic increases in manpower and technology for the Border Patrol. The government will add 6,000 new Border Patrol agents, build high-tech fences in urban corridors and new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas, and employ motion sensors, infrared cameras, and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings, he said.

“By deploying 21st-century technologies, we will make our Border Patrol agents even more effective and our border more secure,” he said.

To achieve comprehensive immigration reform, the government also must work in four other areas, Bush said. A temporary worker program that will create a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter the country needs to be established; immigration laws need to be enforced at the nation's work sites; the government needs to resolve the status of illegal immigrants already in the country; and the U.S. needs comprehensive immigration reform that honors the American tradition of the “melting pot” by helping newcomers assimilate, he said.

[SandRat]

Full Transcript of President Bush’s Comments

[SandRat]

and your observations from along the border??????

[John Jorsett]

“National Guard troops are helping with surveillance, construction and logistics,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.

If civilian volunteers do this, they're vigilantes. If the National Guard does it, they're heros.

To achieve comprehensive immigration reform, the government also must work in four other areas, Bush said. A temporary worker program that will create a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter the country needs to be established; immigration laws need to be enforced at the nation's work sites;

There already are work site laws. How about enforcing them before you pass some new laws to ignore?

[DumpsterDiver]

and your observations from along the border??????

Reporting in from California:

As Border Patrol shifts resources, migrants return to California
     The number of immigrants illegally jumping the California-Mexico border appears to be increasing as enforcement gets tougher in Arizona, Border Patrol arrest statistics suggest.
     It's known as the water-balloon effect: Squeeze one spot and illegal immigration will bulge elsewhere along the 1,952-mile frontier.

[seasoned traditionalist]

Bush Talks Immigration at the Border

Breitbart AP

August 3, 2006

NEDRA PICKLER

President Bush got a firsthand look Thursday at ways the government fights illegal immigration and said that securing the border with Mexico will require more people and modern technology.

For Bush's arrival at the airport in nearby McAllen, Texas, the Border Patrol had set up several tools it uses on patrol _ helicopters, a boat and a small plane. ‘We're going to help build a virtual border,’ he said. ‘This border is changing and it needs to change so the Border Patrol can do its job.’

Guard officials said 6,199 troops were somewhere in the four Southwestern border states.

Bureau, said the guard never intended to have 6,000 troops on the border

President Bush: "Now here is the first section of our new 'Virtual Border Fence' which has just been erected. Impressive isn't it?;

REPORTER: “But Mr. President, we can’t really see anything.”

President Bush: ”Well, Nedra, what y’all need to do is put on these special “Rose-Colored Glasses” developed especially for Chertoff’s boys in Homeland Security by Development Under Polliana Ersazt, Inc (DUPE) or these special VR Stereoscopic Displays and shazaam, there is your fence.”

virtual reality>/b> n : a hypothetical three-dimensional visual world created by a computer; user wears special goggles and fiber optic gloves etc., and can enter and move about in this world and interact with objects as if inside it

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

REPORTER: ”But, but, Mr. President, look over there. How come all those ‘Undocumented Immigrants’ are just walking across the border and right thru our new “Virtual Border Fence.”

President Bush: ”Heh, heh. Well, Nedra, why do you think I named it Virtual for? VIRTUALLY ANYBODY CAN GET THRU IT!!!

”Then the president's motorcade took him past waving residents lined up along the streets of Mission to a point about a half-mile from the border. He looked at a "skybox" _ a small box equipped with infrared technology that can be raised in the air so that agents can get a view of busy crossing points. He also petted some of the horses used by agents on the ground.

Yep, that just about sums it up nicely. JUST ANOTHER:

[layman]

A temporary worker program needs to be established; immigration laws need to be enforced at the nation's work sites; the government needs to resolve the status of illegal immigrants already in the country; and the U.S. needs comprehensive immigration reform

And the citizens need to fire the corrupt and incompetent politicians who have allowed this problem to fester for over twenty years.

[Paperdoll]

I think the Minutemen also deserve a vote of confidence for where they have been effective.

[Paperdoll]

Rather than being called "vigilantes."

[mthom]

His angle is to have a guest worker program for mexico that is so generous that no employer would have to hire an illegal for their cheap labor. Then work site enforcement would barely be necessary.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Nice speech..................I'll take strawberry. : )

[Marine Inspector]

No doubt they are helping, but to what extent.

The 6,000 Guard soldiers only freed up approximately 450 BP agents.

And while apprehensions are down in the area the Guard are working in Arizona, all that really happened, was a shift in the crossing areas, as both California and New Mexico have shown increases in border traffic and apprehensions.

[RodgerD]

Hopefully more patriotic men and women in the House will continue to defeat George Bush and Ted Kennedy's amnesty betrayal schemes, and we'll make it to January 2009, without our children's homeland given away to the third world.

[TLI]

and we'll make it to January 2009, without our children's homeland given away to the third world.

Say a prayer everybody, cause we will need it.

[AppleButter]

If civilian volunteers do this, they're vigilantes. If the National Guard does it, they're heros.

Exactly. "Good Citizens" sit back and let the government do everything for them. Don't try to defend yourself or save for your retirement or raise your kids on your own. Let the government do it. It's better that way -- the government is made up of trained professionals who know what they're doing and only have our best interests mind.

[TLI]

hey... barf alert plz!

< /sar >