Bush to call for National Guard on Mexico border

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to call for thousands of National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border to help curtail illegal immigration as debate over the divisive issue heats up.

Bush is to deliver an Oval Office address to the nation today evening at 0530 hrs IST to announce tougher border security measures in a speech devoted to immigration, a challenge faced by both Republicans and Democrats in the mid-term election year.

Bush backs a guest-worker program that would let immigrants work temporarily in the United States, which has cost him support among some conservatives who view the idea as a type of amnesty for illegal immigrants -- a characterisation Bush rejects.

The president is expected to outline immigration reform proposals, including deployment of several thousand National Guard troops in a support role along the 2,000-mile (3,219 km) border, but less than the 10,000 that had been talked about at the Pentagon, a U.S. official said yesterday.

Timed to coincide with the resumption of a Senate debate on immigration reform, the speech also comes as Bush's job approval ratings continue to slide to around 30 per cent in some recent polls.

The prime-time speech comes weeks after millions of immigrants and their supporters rallied across the United States in support of U.S. Senate legislation that would give illegal immigrants a chance to earn legal status.

White House National security adviser Stephen Hadley would not give a number yesterday, but said a deployment of the National Guard would be a stopgap measure to allow U.S. Border Patrol agents ''to build up their capacity to deal with this challenge.'' ''It's not about militarisation of the border. It's about assisting the civilian Border Patrol in doing their job, providing intelligence, providing support, logistics support and training and these sorts of things,'' Hadley told CNN's ''Late Edition.'' Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday he backed sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border.

''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, a Tennessee Republican, argued on CNN's ''Late Edition.'' The idea of sending Guard troops to the border has gotten reviews on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers have expressed concern that the National Guard is already stretched too thin to take on major additional duties.

'WE HAVE STRETCHED OUR MILITARY' But Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, who helped broker the compromise immigration legislation to be debated on the Senate floor this week, said he was skeptical.

''We have stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen it in modern times,'' Hagel said on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''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?'' In a telephone conversation with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush gave assurances that the plan would not be a militarisation of the region and that it would be temporary, White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri said.

The Border Patrol arrested nearly 1.2 million people last year trying to cross the Mexican border and estimates that 500,000 others evaded capture.

An immigration bill approved earlier by the U.S. House of Representatives would crack down on border security and make it a felony to be in the United States illegally. The House bill, which would need to be merged with the Senate measure, does not include a guest-worker program.

There are an estimated 11 million to 12 million people in the United States illegally.

REUTERS AK SND1214