Obama to boost security along Mexican border

President Obama has unveiled plans to send 1,200 extra troops to help secure the border separating America's south-western states from Mexico; he is hoping this will dampen rumbling opposition to his attempt to enact immigration reform.

The soldiers, who are part-time troops from the National Guard, will join border agents fighting the trafficking of people, drugs, money, people and weapons. An extra $500m (£345m) will be added to the annual budget for law enforcement along the border between the two countries.

Obama's policy borrows from tactics enacted by his predecessor, George W Bush, who sent 6,000 National Guardsmen to the border between 2006 and 2008. In the past two years, their number had dwindled to just over 300.

Despite the similarities, Obama's deployment immediately attracted criticism from Republicans, who have attempted to turn immigration into a key issue in the run-up to the mid-term elections in November. They complained that, like Bush, Obama will deploy the new troops in a surveillance and support role, and will not give them power to make arrests.

Right-wingers added that 1,200 troops is not enough to secure the 2,000-mile border, which winds through remote parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. "Though this initial deployment is an important first step, the president is not sending enough troops," said Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate who is facing a tough re-election battle in Arizona, which recently enacted a highly-controversial immigration law. "We need 6,000. The situation on the border [has] greatly deteriorated during the last 18 months."

The sluggish US economy means that illegal immigration rates are at their lowest level in a decade. The Border Patrol arrested 556,000 people last year, down from a high of 1.6 million in 2000. Crime attributed to illegal immigrants has also declined since Obama took office.