Mexicans reacted angrily to President George Bush's May 15 announcement that he would dispatch 6,000 National Guard troops to the southwest border, calling it an unfriendly gesture aimed more at shoring up the American leader's flagging popularity than at offering a real solution to the problem of illegal immigration ... In addition to aggravating anti-American sentiment in Mexico, a U.S. military presence along the 2,000-mile-long border could damage economic relations between the two countries and may affect the outcome of Mexico's July 2 presidential elections. "This will inflame a lot of anti-American feelings in Mexico," says Rafael Fernández de Castro, dean of the international affairs faculty at ITAM, a leading university in Mexico City.

The prospect of having thousands of armed troops stationed along the border is offensive to a country that has endured several U.S. invasions and the loss of half its territory over the past 150 years. Until now, Mexican government officials had been trying to stay out of the immigration debate in the U.S. Congress so that they would not be accused of interfering in American domestic policymaking. ...

Mexicans' ire over Bush's plan could play into the hands of presidential aspirant Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The left-leaning, populist former mayor of Mexico City has signaled that if elected president he will adopt a more defensive stance in relation to the so-called Northern Goliath. For instance, he believes that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) shortchanges Mexico and that the pact should be renegotiated.

That's in sharp contrast to the policy line pursued by Fox and his government, which have worked to set aside decades of nationalist rhetoric to forge close relations and an unprecedented level of cooperation with Washington. If the furor over the border deployment doesn't die down quickly, that accommodating attitude could end up hurting Felipe Calderón, the candidate for Fox’s National Action Party and the current front-runner in the race. Calderón has said the troop deployment is a mistake, nothing that "those who think the solution to [stopping] migration is more fences, more sensors, and more agents are wrong." (my emphasis)

But Mr. Bush was right to urge Congress to pass comprehensive reform that includes a guest-worker program for immigrants who have lined up jobs and provisions for illegal immigrants already here to earn a shot at citizenship.

Better border security alone isn't enough. As the president noted, funding for that purpose has increased 66 percent under his watch. Yet illegal immigration continues. Mr. Bush is right: Congress needs to create a broader legal channel for immigrants who want to work to "reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across."

And security at the border will do nothing to coax at least 11 million illegal immigrants out of the legal shadows. Trying to locate and deport all those immigrants would swamp law enforcement and decimate industries, such as agriculture, that depend on them. (my emphasis)

'Tough" and "effective" are not synonyms, and that's a fact that not even the president of the United States nor 5,000, or even 50,000, military troops can alter.

Yet in political life, "tough" is often used interchangeably with "effective." On Monday night, President Bush tried again to address the illegal immigration issue by forcefully calling for the deployment of National Guard troops along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border. ...

Stemming the tide of illegal immigration won't depend on the toughest strategy, but the most effective one — and a military solution to a domestic problem isn't the most effective way to go about it.

President Bush carved out a reasonable middle ground on illegal immigration Monday night. He addressed issues of security, fairness and practicality, and he hit only one false note - on deployment of National Guard troops to the southern border. That sounded more like a sop to his party's right wing than a real fix for a porous border.

So Bush finds himself at odds mainly with his own party. House Republicans have passed a draconian bill and Senate conservatives are holding up balanced legislation.

Everyone seems to agree on one point: The government needs to get better control of the border with Mexico. Of every 10 people trying to slip into the country illegally along that border, three succeed. But even 6,000 National Guard troops won't improve that statistic much, because the challenge is daunting. The overworked U.S. Border Patrol has sophisticated surveillance equipment along only 4 percent of the 1,200-mile border. As for the National Guard, it is already stretched too thin with the war in Iraq and national disasters.

"That border is way too dangerous for us to be sending troops that are training primarily for combat into a law enforcement situation," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who served 26 years as a Border Patrol agent.

Texans still remember the 1997 case of Ezequiel Hernandez, who was killed by a Marine patrolling near the Rio Grande. The Marines said Hernandez drew a gun on the troops, and the corporal who shot the 18-year goat-tender was never charged.

No matter what the polls told Karl Rove about mobilizing the troops, the sad truth for him and his boss is that the public now regards Mr. Bush with a cynical eye. Conservatives no longer trust him on the issue of immigration, while liberals, moderates and independents no longer trust him at all. It is sad, because he once had the opportunity - and the sincere motivation - to lead the nation to a more enlightened policy toward immigrant workers and their families. His welcoming attitude, dating back to his years in Texas, has long been his most admirable quality as a political leader.

If that attitude attracted Hispanic voters to his party, then at least it represented a refreshing change from the “Southern strategy” of racially coded messages and the polarizing anti-immigrant policies of the recent past. Compared with much of the dubious image-making that has suffused his campaigns and his presidency, Mr. Bush's friendliness toward the Latino community seemed authentic and rooted in his own experience.

Unfortunately, he has waited too long to lead on this issue, and he has proved so incompetent as president that he lacks credibility. At this late date, sending thousands of troops southward in an effort to appear tough only underscores his failure.

I hate to raise such an ugly possibility, but have you considered lunacy as an explanation? Craziness would make a certain amount of sense. I mean, you announce you are going to militarize the Mexican border, but you assure the president of Mexico you are not militarizing the border. You announce you are sending the National Guard, but then you assure everyone it’s not very many soldiers and just for a little while.

Militarizing the border is a totally terrible idea. Do we have a State Department? Are they sentient? How much do you want to infuriate Mexico when it's sitting on quite a bit of oil? ...

But right-wingers are very unhappy with Bush right now, and this is a strong, red-meat gesture that will make them happy, even if it does nothing to shut down the border. You want to shut down illegal immigration? You want to use the military as police? Make it illegal to hire undocumented workers and put the National Guard into enforcing that. Then rewrite NAFTA and invest in Mexico.

Enforcement in the workplace has declined, providing greater incentive for border jumpers. In 1999, 417 companies were fined for knowingly hiring illegal workers; in 2004, only three were. In the same period, the number of federal agents assigned to find illegal workers dropped from 240 to 90. In a suspiciously timed but long overdue move, federal agents last month arrested 1,187 people in the nation's largest-ever work-site enforcement action. (my emphasis)

President Bush's call for the United States to gain "complete control" over its southern border definitely sounded catchy.

The reality is that he is chasing a mirage that will always be out of reach as long as U.S. immigration policy is detached from reality. ...

Now President Bush says he wants to spend another $1.9 billion to expand what has essentially been a failed border control strategy by involving National Guard units already stretched to the limit by the war in Iraq. ...

Bush should similarly face the reality that the National Guard will never be able to "secure" the border. Asking them to do so is setting them up for failure.