HOUSE OKS BILL TO LET U.S. SOLDIERS GUARD BORDER

WASHINGTON -- U.S. soldiers may be asked to keep undocumented
immigrants and potential terrorists out of the country.

The House on Thursday passed a defense authorization bill, which
includes a provision that would let U.S. troops join with U.S. Border
Patrol agents in guarding the nation's borders with Canada and Mexico.

The bill authorizes Defense Department programs for the coming fiscal
year, which will begin Oct. 1. The border troop amendment, championed
by Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., passed the House late Wednesday by a
40-vote margin, 231-191.

The provision stands little chance of surviving beyond the House
because it was not part of the Senate's version of the defense bill.

"If troops were needed, they could be of significant assistance to
prevent the infiltration of terrorists, drug traffickers, and illegal
aliens, and could prevent the entry of weapons of mass destruction
into our country," Goode said.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, who spent 26 years with the U.S.
Border Patrol and opposed the amendment, said it was "simply the wrong
solution to our current problems along the border."

"This amendment will send our military personnel to our borders at a
time when they are already stretched thin in places like Iraq,
Afghanistan, Korea, Kosovo, Bosnia and over 100 other countries around
the world," he said. "We cannot and we should not ask our military
personnel to patrol our borders."

Southern Arizona lawmakers whose districts run along the U.S.-Mexico
border echoed Reyes' argument.

"Border security is and continues to be a top priority for me and for
the Congress as a whole," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Tucson.

"But the Goode amendment would militarize our border and stretch the
resources of our Army."