Tuesday, May 16 2006 13:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Coupled with measures to secure the US border with Mexico and stem the flow of illegal aliens, President George W Bush has pitched for a guest worker programme allowing legal migrants to be employed in jobs shunned by Americans.

Bush, however, did not comment on the issue of raising the cap on H1B visas for skilled workers, which forms part of the Immigration Reform bill being debated in the US Senate and would ultimately benefit thousands of Indians.

In his address to the nation last night, Bush pledged his support for a temporary worker programme that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter (the US) in an orderly way, for a limited period of time.

"This programme would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing," Bush said adding that such workers would have to return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay in the US.

In a rare speech that bypassed references to terrorism or the economy, Bush admitted that the country's borders with Mexico are permeable and said up to 6000 National Guards are being deployed as a stop gap measure to stem the flow of illegal migrants.

Despite criticism from conservatives demanding a tough enforcement mechanism to curtail the menace, Bush announced his backing for the guest worker programme but stopped short of giving citizenship to illegal migrants.

"We must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty and I oppose it," he said.

"Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration. There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a programme of mass deportation," Bush said.

However, the US president asserted that employers who hire illegal migrants would be held accountable.

"We need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally.

Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees because of the widespread problem of document fraud," he said.

To deal with the problem, Bush advocated the setting up of a new identification system to verify the work eligibility of legal foreign workers.

"A key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card should use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints, to make it tamper proof," he said.

Bush also sought to allay concerns that the US-Mexico border was being militarised.

"The US is not going to militarise the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor and our friend (but) to secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across," he said.

"We do not yet have full control of the border and I am determined to change that. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across," he said.

Bush reiterated the concept of America being a 'melting pot stressing that its success depended on helping newcomers assimilating into society and embracing a common identity.