BUSH TOURS BRIDGE, LEADS RALLY TODAY

Ridge, Rice Are To Join President In El Paso

President Bush will make his first visit to El Paso as president today for
a rally and tour of high-tech facilities at the Bridge of the Americas.

Bush, who will be accompanied by his wife, Laura, National Homeland
Security Director Tom Ridge and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice,
is scheduled to arrive in El Paso on Air Force One a little before 11 a.m
and stay about three hours. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Henry
Bonilla, R-Texas, also will attend.

After his El Paso visit, Bush will head to a conference and a meeting with
Mexican President Vicente Fox in Monterrey, Mexico, as well as to stops in
Lima, Peru, and San Salvador, El Salvador.

In the days leading up to the visit, there have been national media reports
about how Bush might use the El Paso stop to announce his decision to
accept a proposal to combine the Immigration and Naturalization Service
with the U.S. Customs Service, but White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
indicated that will not happen.

"The president is going to El Paso to visit a border, to inspect some of
the new high-technology procedures that are on the border that allow people
and commerce into America while keeping drugs and people who are illegal
out of America," he said.

Tickets for a rally at El Paso International Airport's NASA hangar were
hard to come by Wednesday, and that proved to be a daylong headache for
Republican Party organizers.

"I want to see him. I like this guy," said Mike Holsteen, 51, a disabled
Vietnam veteran who waited three hours at GOP headquarters for a ticket. "I
think he's doing a good job. I'd vote for him again right now if I could."

Gallery owner Adair Margo, a close family friend of the Bushes as well as
manager of Bush's El Paso campaigns for governor in 1998 and for president
in 2000, organized the public reception for Bush. Margo said Bush wanted
his visit to be more than an all-business stop.

"I was told he wanted to spend more time here than was originally planned,"
Margo said. "He didn't just want it to be a border security visit, but he
wanted time to talk to his friends and the community in a public way."

As governor, Bush became one of a few Republicans ever to carry El Paso
County when he was elected to his second term in 1998.

Customs spokesman Barry Morrissey said he could not discuss the details of
Bush's visit to the Bridge of the Americas for security reasons but did say
the technology the president will see is already familiar to some El Pasoans.

"You've seen this stuff, but it's new technology to other ports on the
northern border," he said.

The equipment that customs apparently intends to show off is the $10
million Ancore Cargo Inspection device, which is designed to detect
contraband in trucks and trailers by scanning the chemical composition of
cargo without removing it. It was put into use at the Bridge of the
Americas last year.

Although the White House has said nothing about Bush's conducting any
official business during his stop, Northeast El Pasoan Connie Roberts
provided an antique desk for the rally, leading to speculation that the
president may use it to sign some piece of legislation.

El Paso County Democratic Party Chairwoman Enriqueta "Queta" G. Fierro said
her party also lent event organizers decorations for the visit, including a
large Texas flag and ribbons and bows.

"I was asked if we were going to have a protest, and I said no," Fierro
said. "This is a friendly visit, and we're not going to let politics
interfere."

However, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, on Tuesday issued a strongly
worded statement criticizing the Bush administration for neglecting the border.

He referred to the traffic-clogged Bridge of the Americas in saying, "I
hope he keeps that picture in mind when he goes on to hold talks about the
strangled border economy with Mexico's President Fox."

"It ought to be an embarrassment to talk about revitalizing the border
economy out of one side of his mouth while his administration's new budget
is designed to continue the historical negligence and delay in adequate
placement of customs and immigration personnel and new technology to unclog
our border."

Ridge will be making his second visit to El Paso in less than three weeks.
He toured the inspection facilities at the Bridge of the Americas on March 6.