President Will Announce Plan for the Border

May 15, 2006 — -- The president will lay out plans tonight that would give millions of illegal immigrants a path toward citizenship and put as many 5,000 troops on the border.

The president's proposal would have National Guard troops working surveillance cameras and flying unmanned drones to spot illegal crossings.

Each year, the Border Patrol arrests 1.2 million people who try to illegally cross into the United States.

The details are still being worked out, but National Guard troops would not be standing on hilltops pointing guns at immigrants. Instead, they would take over administrative duties, freeing up Border Patrol agents for enforcement.

White House Counselor Dan Bartlett said that the president would "talk about increased presence along our Southern border. Mainly what he'll talk about is increased border agents."

"This is not about militarizing the border," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"The president is looking to do everything to secure the border. It's what the American people want. It's what he wants to do."

Border War?

People like Carmen Mercer of Arizona welcome the president's new plan.

Mercer is the vice president of the Minutemen, a small army of volunteers devoted to stemming the immigrant tide by watching and tipping beleaguered Border Patrol agents.

Mercer is a grandmother who spent Mother's Day gazing into Mexico with a Colt .45 on her hip. She said she loved the idea of stationing National Guard troops on the border.

"That's what we've wanted all along," she said. "Guard or military or building a wall or a fence. We're fighting a war that I feel is senseless. We should be securing our own borders."

It is such a hot-button issue here, that the populist sheriff of Maricopa County formed a civilian posse and is now locking up illegal immigrants as felons. He doesn't believe the military should be enforcing domestic law, though, and immigrant advocates agree.

The president's get-tough approach is meant to appease conservative Republicans who are unhappy with the rest of the president's immigration reform plan.

His plan is already meeting resistance, as expressed by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., on "This Week."

"We have stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen it in modern times. And what in the world are we talking about here?" he said. "That's not the role of our military. That's not the role of our National Guard."

"We are not militarizing the border. Any National Guard presence at the border will have a supporting role," Bartlett said.

On the Southern border, the impact of immigration cannot be denied. The signs of illegal entry are everywhere: shoes, tire tracks, even a Mexican voter ID card dropped in haste. Every few yards, there is another hole in rusted barbed wire, strung to contain cattle, but worthless against motivated people.

"They just walk on through very nonchalantly, and they got a smile on their face and they just keep on walking," said Al Garza, the national executive director of the Minutemen.

"This is not a war zone. Immigrants are not enemy combatants, and our communities are no places that need soldiers patrolling," said Jennifer Allen of Border Action Network.

The Minutemen disagree. The group refers to the inflow as an "invasion."

"We've been watching this for a long time," Mercer said. "We know their trails."

At that moment, she spotted someone she called a visitor.

The men across the fence said they were ranchers looking for cattle. Mercer didn't buy it.

"No," she said. "I believe they have a group sitting right behind those railroad tracks."

Overstretched Military?

Despite some of their constituents' enthusiasm for the new plan to secure the border, only two of the four border-state governors think stationing troops there is a good idea.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says it's not fair to ask soldiers returning from Iraq to provide border security.

New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, says the president is using the National Guard to play politics.

"My worry is that this is basically a political PR move so that the White House can appease conservative Republicans that want a repressive immigration bill," he said.

Bartlett said that there were more than 400,000 National Guardsmen and that "the type of numbers we are looking at is less than 2 percent of the total force."

Sources say that the governors of the border states won't know exactly what the president plans to propose until just before the speech tonight.

This story was originally reported by "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" anchors Kate Snow in Washington D.C. and Bill Weir in Arizona.