Bush Speaks Out Of Both Sides of Mouth With Border Security - CNN

Note - I've done some selective emphasis.
-------------

Bush questions border I.D. rules

Friday, April 15, 2005 Posted: 12:57 PM EDT (1657 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/15/bush.passports.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Plans requiring passports from people entering the United States don't pass muster with President Bush, who has ordered a review of this border security effort amid fears it would impede legal travel from Canada, Mexico and other U.S. neighbors.

The president said Thursday he was surprised by the proposed rules announced last week by the State and Homeland Security departments.

"When I first read that in the newspaper about the need to have passports, particularly today's crossings that take place, about a million for instance in the state of Texas, I said, 'What's going on here?"' Bush said when asked about the rules at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

"I thought there was a better way to expedite the legal flow of traffic and people," he said.

Bush, a former Texas governor, said he has ordered a review of the rules. "If people have to have a passport, it's going to disrupt the honest flow of traffic. I think there's some flexibility in the law, and that's what we're checking out right now," the president said.

"On the larger scale, we've got a lot to do to enforce the border," he said.
In December, Bush signed into law an intelligence overhaul that requires tighter border security against terrorists and was the basis for the passport proposal. The White House did not say why the president was unaware of the plans his administration announced just a week earlier.

The proposed guidelines would require passports or a select number of other secure documents from anyone -- including Americans -- entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean and Panama. The rules were scheduled to become final this fall after a public comment period and to be phased in by 2008.

Currently, Americans generally need to show a driver's license or other government-issued photo identification to cross the border from Canada. Customs officials usually require more proof from Americans returning from the other countries -- a driver's license plus a birth certificate to prove citizenship, for example.

An estimated 60 million Americans -- about 20 percent of the national population -- have passports.

The plans have caused a stir in Canada, where the government announced it might follow suit and impose similar rules against the United States. Canada is the largest U.S. trading partner, with $1.2 billion worth of goods crossing the border daily. Nearly 16 million Canadians entered the United States last year.

Canada's public safety minister, Anne McLellan, told reporters in Ottawa that Bush's comments signal his support for negotiations between the two counties about "accepted forms of ID."

"While we want to keep our borders secure and our respective countries secure, we also want to ensure that we're facilitating trade and the movement of people between the two countries," McLellan said.

A spokesman at the Mexican Embassy had no immediate comment.

As proposed, the rules would allow the use of four other documents, geared to the Mexican and Canadian border, in place of a passport.

People entering the United States from Mexico could continue to use a border crossing card or SENTRI card, which can be obtained following background checks and other security measures. From the Canadian border, a NEXUS card for preapproved low-risk travelers and a FAST card for commercial workers would be accepted.

The plans also leave open the possibility for the use of unnamed "additional documents" that remain under consideration. But the passport "will be the document of choice for entering or re-entering the U.S.," according to a Homeland Security information sheet.

Bush said the rules must be more flexible, and could include electronic fingerprint imaging "to serve as a so-called passport for daily traffic" to help speed up the process.
Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that although passports were a requirement of the intelligence overhaul bill, "we are looking at alternative documents that will help us better secure the country, and at the same time facilitate travel."

At the State Department, spokesman Thomas Casey said officials will "look to find ways to implement this program ... in a way that's most efficient and that facilitates travel in the best ways possible."

Bush has proposed immigration liberalization legislation that would establish a guest-worker program. But it has run into difficulty in Congress, particularly among border-state Republicans.

An estimated 10 million immigrants live in the United States illegally; the vast majority are from Mexico, with an additional million arriving every year.


------

This is utter bullshit. Bush passed a bill that would require increased protection against terrorists entering the country. Congress responds, and Bush suddenly is worried that it would hurt his lobbyists' source of cheap labor. As a counter-measure he is proposing FINGERPRINT checking, which I believe is Bush trying to get the bill intentionally shot down because people are afraid of it.

This is the same Bush who allocated less than 10% of the proposed increases to Border Patrol staffing requested. (something like 1000 requested, and border patrol is about 10000 people)

I swear to God... is it going to take another 9/11 before we seal the border up to terrorists, drug-dealers, people carrying diseases, and illegal workers willing to work for dirty-cheap wages?

I am not an international traveller, and my passport has expired..

So, I ask others, especially Europeans, what are border crossing procedures in other countries? What are the restrictions and freedoms that people encounter in other parts of the world, and how might they be an example to the US and its border policy?

Personally, I am hesitant to support "isolationist" policies relating to our borders, but I can't deny a personal feeling that borders and the flow of legal and illegal people across our borders must be controlled and monitored more effectively.

Hiro, I am curious about your opinion on the Citizen border patrol (vigilantes?) in Arizona?

I grew up in Tucson, AZ, I lived many years in Phoenix, AZ and I currently reside in San Diego, CA, so I hear about the border issue nonstop on local radio talk shows, in the newspapers, and interact regularly with one person who crossed several times illegally, but who now is a Citizen. There is a culture of interdependence here in the Southwest, and I assume that Texas is no different from the area I live.

Then there is the debate about such things as National ID cards and human interst groups who want to help illegals who are threatened by sever conditions in isolated areas of the desert they cross.

Every 15 minutes I listen to the radio I hear a traffic report that includes the Border crossing wait for people to enter the country. I coached basketball(assistant) at a private school where a not insignificant number of faculty and students lived in Mexico and commuted each day to their jobs and schools.

Does anyone else have as much confusion about what is the sanest way (non-reactionary) to confront these border issues.

I don't consider bush as a bullshit double talker on this issue because I dont think there is an obviously apparent solution. This is a political, social, national security, economic and philosophical issue.

If you have all tha figured out, I'd like to hear it.

Champie

The "Minutemen"? They've been getting a lot of media attention, and from everything I've heard there's been nothing but them patrolling and reporting incidents; no apprehensions, no violence. I see no vigilanteism in that, and I think it's a shame that it's been labeled that way by the Bush administration. That's like calling a neighborhood watch being called vigilantes.


My concerns with the border:
1. We're fighting a "War on Terrorism" but terrorists are crossing the border.
2. Mexican police not only are failing to prevent this, but are AIDING illegal immegration - they have been busing folks around the Minutemen's territory.
3. We're fighting a "War on Drugs" but drug traffickers are crossing the border.
4. People who enter illegally aren't screened for diseases. In a world where bird flu and SARS in the news all the time, I think this is asking for pandemic.
5. Apathy to lawlessness. If we need more immegrants, we should raise the immegrants allowed. Allowing lawlessness to occur just promotes more lawlessness. I feel very bad for legal immegrants who spend lots of money and years of waiting trying to do the right thing.


If I walk into a desert, I should understand that I could die. Why are we treating this immegration like it's our fault there's a desert there, instead of treating these people as those with little regard for their own life?


I cannot believe taxpayers in Southwestern states stand for having their money pay for lawless people. I feel bad for the kids whose parents bring them across illegally, but the fault is on the parents, not on the USA.


Well, the fact that he says there's "another solution" as per the article is evidence of this double talk, because I agree: there's not just one easy solution. Even a wall and ID system would only be one part of a solution.

And regardless of whether we have a partial solution or a full one, we need to at least try doing more. That'd be like standing in the middle of traffic and sitting there debating which direction we should run.

lol, agreed. I have no solution myself, but I am very interested in others thoughts on the matter. I think it will help me sort through some of the issues.

on a side note, I want to make it clear that the families who crossed the border to attend the school at which I coached....I dont think they were illegal, but they did reside in Mexico. They lawfully crossed the border each day, as many do. I haven't quite figured out how it all works, but the availailty of visas is limited, but there are many (I guess affluent) Mexicans who have legal access to the US. Again, they were not crossing illegally. I only mentioned that in my previous post because I wanted to illustrate that there is a lot of legal border activity 24 hours a day at specified crossings.

As a frequent international traveller I find the procedures in other countries to be more strict than the US but also much more efficient.

I think they've considered this important for longer than the US. I'm sure it's not perfect, but everyone just seems to accept it better.