Bush's speech last night was what anyone would call a diplomatic compromise solution to a political issue that had the bad luck to occur during a mine-sprinkled election year.


Bush stated that all measures taken in order to secure the US border with Mexico are going to be short-termed, especially as far as the 6,000 US National Guard troop deployments are concerned. In addition, their role there is allegedly a supporting one.

What seems to be one of the main problems with his 16 minute speech, delivered from the Oval office, is that he announced he is supporting a proposal that proved controversial, related to illegal immigrants who are already on US land, being given a way to attain citizenship.

"In Washington, the debate over immigration reform has reached a time of decision", he stated.

Bush has to face a growing and angry opposition stemming from his own Republican Party, which favors crackdown of illegal immigration, rather than entitle illegal immigrants to US citizenship.

For the time being though, the president admitted to the fact that US does not posses full control of the border and that he is appealing to the Congress to financially provide in terms of technology and human resources, for the border. He also asked for a 50 percent increase in Border Patrol agents (from 12,000 to 18,000 until 2008), security fences, barriers, state of the art surveillance devices, state and local police units in both states.