Bush Wants Military Border Patrol

Lawmakers Fear Using National Guard To Stop Illegal Immigration Will Overtax Military

(CBS/AP) 
"We've got National Guard members on their second, third and fourth tours in Iraq," Hagel said. "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, sending a National Guard that we may not have any capacity to send up to or down to protect borders? That's not their role."

Hagel said the bill under debate in the Senate that he helped write would double the 12,000-strong Border Patrol force over the next five years. "That's the way to fix it, not further stretching the National Guard," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said there may be a need for troops to fill in while the Border Patrol is bolstered. But he did not seem confident that the National Guard could take on the extra duty.

"We have stretched these men and women so thin, so thin, because of the bad mistakes done by the civilians in the military here, that I wonder how they're going to be able to do it," Biden said, also on ABC.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he supported using the National Guard on the Mexican border. He said lawmakers who doubt that the National Guard, whose members have served for years in Iraq and went to the Gulf Coast after last summer's hurricanes, could take on border patrol duty are "whining" and "moaning."

"We've got to secure our borders," Frist said on CNN's "Late Edition." "We hear it from the American people. We've got millions of people coming across that border. First and foremost, secure the border, whatever it takes. Everything else we've done has failed. We've got to face that. And so we need to bring in, I believe, the National Guard."

Frist said the full Senate planned to begin debating the immigration bill Monday and that it would take up to two weeks to pass.

Senators would have to resolve any differences with the House version of the bill, which did not address the guest worker issue but increases penalties for illegal immigration activities and funds a 700-mile border fence.

The statement from Fox's office and another from the White House said the two presidents agreed that immigration reform be comprehensive — meaning that it go beyond the tough punitive measures that some conservatives are promoting to stem the flow of immigrants.

White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri said Mr. Bush made clear to Fox that "the United States considered Mexico a friend and that what is being considered is not militarization of the border, but support of border capabilities on a temporary basis by the National Guard."