Bush Decries Border Project

[Note from AR: Most Americans are offended by Bush’s words.]

WACO, Texas — President Bush yesterday said he opposes a civilian project to monitor illegal aliens crossing the border, characterizing them as “vigilantes.”

He said he would pressure Congress to further loosen immigration law.

More than 1,000 people — including 30 pilots and their private planes — have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol.

Mr. Bush said after yesterday’s continental summit, with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at Baylor University, that he finds such actions unacceptable.

“I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America,” Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. “I’m for enforcing the law in a rational way.”

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