Tuesday, November 29, 2005

President's talk fails to specify border solution

CLAUDINE LoMONACO, BLAKE MORLOCK, and OSCAR ABEYTA

Tucson Citizen

President Bush was praised yesterday for sincerely wanting to address the problem of illegal immigration, but the lack of details concerns many involved.

Bush put immigration reform on the country's political map when he proposed a guest-worker program in a major White House address nearly two years ago.

It's Congress, though, that has taken the lead as it prepares to consider a host of immigration and border security measures in coming weeks, said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum.

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"He's trying to play catch-up," she said. "After coming out forcefully with a forward-thinking perspective on this, and an outline of a proposal, just too much time slipped by where he never put pen to paper and developed a proposal."

Gov. Janet Napolitano, who greeted the president as he climbed down from Air Force One, said Washington needs to forge a compromise.

"At some point, all of these concepts need to come together and they need to act now," Napolitano said. "Time's a-wasting."

The governor, who recently declared a state of emergency along the border, said she was glad the issue had the president's attention, because "only Washington, D.C., can fix the border."

The president's speech presented no new details or strategies. He cited efforts to make the border secure and called again for a guest-worker program, but did not address the issue of what to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States.

"Americans should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and a law-abiding society," the president said. "We can do both."

He did not say how that would be accomplished.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva. D-Ariz., called Bush's speech a disappointment for its lack of hard details on a temporary worker program and workplace enforcement.

"We had hoped that he was going to expend some political capital today and show some leadership," he said.

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