Obama Heads to Border for Immigration Speech

Reuters reports:

President Barack Obama will make his case for immigration reform on Tuesday on a visit to the U.S. border with Mexico, reaching out to Hispanic voters whose support he is counting on to win re-election next year.

Top aides said Obama would contend in a speech in El Paso, Texas, that tightening border controls while providing a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants will improve U.S. security as well as the economy.

"Comprehensive immigration reform would be a plus, not a drag, on the federal budget," a senior administration official told reporters, requesting anonymity as he spoke before the president's speech.

The official said the cost of such overhaul would be $54 billion, but the revenue increase would be $66 billion, adding: "Bringing people to a path where they can be taxpayers is obviously going to be more of a plus than allowing the status quo to continue."

The White House will also seek to extend the stay of 1,200 National Guard troops posted at the border who are due to leave in June, another official said, though the administration is still determining how to pay for them.

There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, many of them Latin Americans who crossed the porous 2,000 mile frontier with Mexico.

Obama has pledged repeatedly to fix the U.S. immigration system to address citizenship concerns and make it easier for businesses to plan, but the issue has taken a back seat to other matters such as economic recovery and healthcare reform.

In December the "Dream Act," which would have given a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children, failed to pass -- a disappointment for many Hispanic Americans.

Immigration is a politically explosive issue in the United States and Obama is not expected to be able to push through a broad overhaul before the November 2012 presidential vote.

In Texas, Obama is expected to stress the point that leading Republicans -- including former President George W. Bush -- have backed immigration reform in the past, and call for bipartisan action.