Members of MSU activist groups and area residents are paying close attention to who has their eyes on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a speech Monday night, President Bush said up to an additional 6,000 members of the National Guard will be stationed at the border by 2008.
Bush also spoke about immigration reform within the United States.
Manuel Chavez, associate director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and an assistant professor of journalism, said both liberals and conservatives agree that policing the nation's border is a problem.
"Where the disagreement exists is how you're going to be able to control it," he said. "Whether you use military means or not."
Kyle Bristow, chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative, nonpartisan student group, said the decision to increase militarization on the border is long overdue.
"President Bush has done a lousy job of inhibiting immigration," Bristow said. "Our borders are not secure.
"Anybody that wants to come here — they can do it. And we don't know who these people are."
Jose Villagran, an executive board member of Movimiento Estudiantil Xicano de Aztlan, or MEXA, said people will cross the border from Mexico to U.S. soil, no matter who patrols the area.
"Sending the National Guard to the border is a joke," he said. "When people are starving, no national guard in the world would be able to stop them from feeding their families."
Chavez said the only way to make headway with immigration is to reprimand those who take advantage of the problem — U.S. employers.
"If the country is generally interested in stopping illegal immigration and controlling immigration, we need to start doing law enforcement on employers who hire these illegal aliens," Chavez said. "If they don't have jobs to come to, they won't come."
Bristow said illegal immigrants should not be allowed to work in the United States, and businesses who employ them are contributing to the problem and exploiting people with few rights.
"It's really scary. American companies are able to hire people with no respect to the law," he said. "It's almost like we're heading toward the path of slavery again."
He added that naturalizing illegal immigrants who are already in the United States would not help.
"This is a bigger issue than abortion or gay marriage," he said. "Our country, Western civilization is at stake here. If we allow them to become citizens, we would be selling the American dream cheap."
Villagran said the U.S. monopolization of the agricultural market has contributed to poor economic conditions in Mexico and Latin America, which cause people to look for work elsewhere.
"Why aren't Canadians crossing the border the same way Latinos are?" he said.
