Bush Calls For 6,000 National Guard Troops to Deploy to U.S.-Mexican Border

President Bush made a rare prime-time address Monday night to outline his administration’s plan for one of the country’s most contentious and impassioned political issues – immigration and border control. It was the President’s most detailed statement on the subject since a recent surge of record-breaking demonstrations brought the plight of the country’s estimated 12 million undocumented workers to increased national and international attention.

In his speech, the President outlined what he called a “middle ground approach.” Bush reiterated his call for a temporary guest worker program he promised would put undocumented workers on a path to citizenship if they agreed to meet certain requirements, including the payment of fines. But the President also outlined a series of enforcement measures including the deployment of 6,000 National Guard members to the border and the expansion of detention centers for those caught entering the country illegally. The President also called for the creation of an identification card system that would collect digitized fingerprints of undocumented workers.

* President Bush, speaking on May 15, 2006 from the White House.

Bush insisted his government is not going to militarize the southern border with Mexico. But critics say the President’s measures, including deployment of the National Guard, are just the latest in a militarization process that began years before Bush even took office.

* Fernando Garcia, Director of the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas.

* Timothy Dunn, Professor of Sociology at Salisbury University in Maryland. He is Author of "The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border: Low Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home."

* Joseph Nevins, a Professor of Geography at Vassar College. He is author of a number of books including “Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary”. He is currently working on a book about migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico boundary. He joins us on the line from Omaha, Nebraska.

* Joe Richey, investigative journalist who’s covered Homeland Security’s Border Protection programs for Alternet and FreeSpeech TV.

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