Pubdate: Sat, 26 Jan 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: Politics
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Elisabeth Bumiller

The President

BUSH CALLS FOR MORE MONEY FOR BORDER PATROLS

PORTLAND, Me. -- President Bush said today that he would propose spending 
$11 billion next year to protect the United States' land, sea and air 
borders from terrorist attacks.

The president's proposal, an increase of more than $2 billion from the 
current budget for border security, is to pay for more customs inspectors, 
more border patrol agents, technology that will more quickly inspect 
shipments into the United States and a new system that will track the 
arrival and departure of people who are not American citizens.

"None of us ever dreamt that we'd have a two-front war to fight, one 
overseas and one at home, but we do," he said in a speech at Southern Maine 
Technical College here.

Mr. Bush added that every morning he looked at a threat assessment, an 
overview of the present dangers facing the United States. "The enemy still 
wants to hit us," he said. "And therefore this nation must do everything in 
our power to prevent it."

Although Mr. Bush did not mention it in his remarks, the Portland airport 
was the departure point for Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, two of the 
hijackers in the World Trade Center attacks. On the morning of Sept. 11, 
Mr. Atta and Mr. Alomari flew from Portland to Logan Airport in Boston and 
then boarded an American Airlines jet that the authorities believe Mr. Atta 
later flew into the north tower of the trade center.

"The biggest chore I have, my biggest job, is to make sure our homeland is 
secure," Mr. Bush told the crowd.

He added that his goal was to create seamless borders with Canada and 
Mexico that would keep out terrorists, drugs and disease but more easily 
let legitimate goods in.

Mr. Bush also said the Immigration and Naturalization Service would crack 
down on visitors who had overstayed their visas.

"The I.N.S. estimates that 40 percent of the people who are here illegally 
came because of the generosity of America, were given a period of time in 
which they could stay, and then they didn't leave," he said. "And one of 
the things we want to make sure of is we find the 40 percent to make sure 
they're not part of some Al Qaeda network that wants to hit the United 
States. And so we're looking, we're listening, we're following every single 
lead."

Such a crackdown might not have affected the Sept. 11 hijackers, most of 
whom were in the country legally.

Mr. Bush's speech was the fourth this week leading up to his State of the 
Union address next Tuesday night, and like the others it served as both 
preview and practice session for his themes of reviving the economy, 
winning the war against terrorism and protecting the United States from attack.

He spoke on Tuesday in West Virginia about creating jobs and on Wednesday 
and Thursday in Washington about increasing the Pentagon and domestic 
security budgets.

The president spent part of his trip here touring the Coast Guard cutter 
Tahoma, which was the command vessel in New York Harbor on Sept. 11. "They 
stayed there for 40 days, on alert 24 hours a day, making sure that not 
only the traffic flowed smoothly, but people were safe," he said of the 
cutter's crew.

The president also appealed to a hometown crowd throughout his remarks, 
recalling his summers spent at his parents' vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me.

"It's nice to be back in -- I guess my second home," said Mr. Bush, who 
calls his real home his Crawford, Tex., ranch.

Mr. Bush also joked about his father, the 41st president, as "41," and the 
kind of coastal security he has as president.

"Now, you probably think I've had a sweet spot in my heart for the Coast 
Guard because when I spend the night at 41's house down the coast, I wake 
up and see the cutter sitting out there," Mr. Bush said to laughter.

This morning, Mr. Bush left the White House carrying a copy of "Bias," a 
book by Bernard Goldberg that describes a liberal bias by the news media. 
Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, said that he did not know 
who had given the book to Mr. Bush, but that many staff members at the 
White House were reading it.

Mr. Fleischer said that Mr. Bush had just begun the book and that he did 
not know his reaction.
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MAP posted-by: Beth