- WACO, Texas -- President
Bush yesterday said he opposes a civilian project to monitor illegal aliens
crossing the border, characterizing them as "vigilantes."
-
- He said he would pressure Congress to further loosen
immigration law.
-
- More than 1,000 people - including 30 pilots and their
private planes ó have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning
next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the
movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the
Border Patrol.
-
- Mr. Bush said after yesterday's continental summit, with
Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at
Baylor University, that he finds such actions unacceptable.
-
- "I'm against vigilantes in the United States of
America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for
enforcing the law in a rational way."
-
- The Minuteman Project was born out of a long-held perception
among many residents that more Border Patrol agents are needed to handle
the flow of illegal immigrants.
-
- Mr. Bush was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats
earlier this month for failing to add 2,000 agents to the Border Patrol,
as set out in the intelligence overhaul legislation he signed in December.
-
- The president's 2006 budget allows enough money to add
only 210 agents for the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.
-
- Mr. Bush said he will "continue to push for reasonable,
common-sense immigration policy." He has proposed legislation to grant
guest-worker status to millions of illegal aliens already in the United
States.
-
- The legislation has attracted scant support in Congress,
where it is widely regarded as another amnesty that will encourage even
more illegal immigration.
-
- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, says Democrats
have been willing to work with Mr. Bush, but that first the president must
persuade congressmen of his own party to embrace his plan.
-
- "Unfortunately, the right wing of the president's
party continues to put forward proposals that neither help make progress
towards comprehensive immigration reform, nor help truly protect our borders,"
Mr. Reid said.
-
- Mr. Fox, who has said he seeks an open border, has applied
constant pressure on Mr. Bush to get the guest-worker program through Congress.
Mr. Bush has pledged that he will do all he can.
-
- Mr. Fox said yesterday that his country is dedicated
to making sure border crossings are legal and orderly. "We discussed
the issue of border crossings and how we can protect our borders and be
efficient along the border."
-
- The official agenda of the one-day summit was centered
on economic matters and the three leaders reached agreement on what they
called the establishment of the "Security and Prosperity Partnership
of North America," designed to build upon the North American Free
Trade Agreement.
-
- Mr. Martin said he pressed Mr. Bush to get the United
States to drop its ban on the importation of Canadian beef - imposed because
of fears of spreading mad cow disease - and to reduce tariffs on softwood
lumber, but no commitments were made.
-
- Canada earlier this year said it would not participate
in the U.S. missile-defense program, and Mr. Martin said there is little
chance he would change his mind. "On [missile defense], the file is
closed," Mr. Martin said.
-
- "But our cooperation in terms of defense, in terms
of our borders, in terms of defense of our common - our frontiers is very
- is not only very clear, but it is being accentuated."
-
- Mr. Bush said he had not imposed a June deadline on North
Korea to rejoin talks with the United States, Russia, South Korea, Japan
and China with the intention of North Korea giving up its nuclear-weapons
program.
-
- "I'm a patient person," Mr. Bush said. "But
the leader of North Korea must understand that when we five nations speak,
we mean what we say."
-
- - Stephen Dinan contributed to this report from Washington.
-
- All site contents copyright © 2005 News World Communications,
Inc.
-
- http://www.washingtontimes.com/
|