Bush's words on immigration split US Hispanics

PHOENIX, Jan 24 (Reuters) US President George W Bush's pledge to push for an immigration overhaul in an address to Congress met a mixed response from Hispanics who said it was broadly positive but lacked details.

In his annual State of the Union address yesterday, Bush urged lawmakers to support ''comprehensive immigration reform'' that included a temporary guest-worker program and beefed up security on the porous Mexico border.

The issued has divided lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The last Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, backed divergent initiatives, with one chamber seeking broad legislation and the other tougher enforcement.

The National Council of La Raza said renewed interest on immigration from Bush, together with a shift to Democratic control of Congress, has created the conditions to move forward on the issue.

''I think that we have the best opportunity that we have had in some time ... to take this to the next step,'' said Michele Waslin, the NCLR's director of immigration policy research.

''The leadership of both the House and the Senate have talked about the need for reform this year, and now the president has put it on the table once again.'' Not all Hispanics were encouraged by the president's remarks, given in an address overshadowed by widespread concern about the war in Iraq.

The League of United Latin American Citizens said Bush's speech contained nothing new about immigration policy in general, and was unclear about the status of 10-12 million illegal immigrants living in the shadows in the United States.

''I am disappointed ... I really didn't hear anything new from the president,'' Rosa Rosales, the group's president, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

''We want to see more than just a guest-worker program, and it didn't go into any detail about the situation of immigrants already living here,'' she added.

Last year, the Republican-led House of Representatives derailed an immigration bill because it would have given a path to citizenship for many of the illegal immigrants who entered the country illegally.

REUTERS PB BST1308