US President George W. Bush will announce plans on Monday to deploy thousands of National Guard troops along the US-Mexico border to support efforts to catch more illegal immigrants, as he tries to placate conservatives demanding a tougher policy.
Bush is to address Americans later tonight to announce increased security along the US border with Mexico, and to insist a temporary guest-worker program loathed by many conservatives is needed as part of an overall reform of immigration law.
The US Senate renews debate this week on a sweeping immigration overhaul that would couple tougher border enforcement with a temporary guest-worker plan and create a mechanism for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country to legalise their status.
Mr Bush's support for the proposed law is costing him support among some conservatives who view it as a type of amnesty for illegal immigrants -- a characterization Bush rejects.
White House officials described the National Guard deployment as temporary and said the troops would not be involved in law enforcement.
Some members of the US Congress feared the National Guard, with 17,000 in Iraq, will be stretched too thin, and Mexico worried about militarizing the border with armed soldiers.
A senior US official said Mr Bush planned to announce the deployment of about 5,000 National Guard troops to the US-Mexican border.
White House officials said the troops will provide logistic support for US Border Patrol agents whose job is to arrest illegal immigrants crossing the border into the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
The Border Patrol arrested nearly 1.2 million people last year trying to cross the Mexican border and estimates that 500,000 others evaded capture.