BATTERED by the political storms that have engulfed the White House in recent months, President Bush headed west for some relief this week.

Just a year after his triumphant re-election, Washington these days feels like enemy territory for the President, as it seethes with scandal, legislative setbacks and internecine Republican backbiting.

Eager to recapture the happier spirit of the campaign trail from last year, Mr Bush made stops this week in the more hospitable terrain of Arizona, Colorado and Texas.

For a moment, he seemed in his element, joking with fellow Republicans at vast rallies and entertaining supporters at multimillion-dollar fundraisers. But his political trials are not easily escaped and there was a very specific objective to the trip.

In Tucson, Arizona, less than 80 miles from the Mexican border, the centrepiece of the President’s trip was a speech in which he outlined a tough new plan for dealing with illegal immigration.

With rising public anger about millions of undocumented aliens who live, work and even enjoy state benefits in America, Mr Bush gave a crowd-pleasing performance.

He promised to spend more to protect the notoriously porous border with Mexico. A key part of the proposals was the replacement of the much derided current “catch and release” programme.

Under this arrangement, most illegals caught anywhere in America are released into the local community, with a requirement to report for legal proceedings at some future date.

To nobody’s great surprise, the vast majority, about 75 per cent, never show up, disappearing into the vast illegal labour market. Mr Bush is proposing instead a “catch and return” approach, whereby immigrants caught would be detained and then returned to the border.

All this looked like, on the face of it, a classic move from a beleaguered President — find an issue of popular concern, in this case, illegal immigrants, and offer a good, old-fashioned, law and order solution.

But the truth was rather different. Indeed the Tucson speech did not represent some bold new offensive against immigrants. It was a defensive gesture, a concession designed to appease critics of his rather liberal immigration policy, which has enraged his Republican supporters and won cautious support from left-wing Democrat senators.

Mr Bush barely mentioned in Tucson the central component of his plans — the establishment of a guest worker programme that critics have called in effect an amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants already working in the US.

The President has argued that such a scheme would best serve the voracious demands of US companies for low-cost labour; the kind of jobs Americans are increasingly unwilling to do. It would also get around the practical and moral problem of deporting millions of foreigners, many of whom have lived in the US for years.

Opponents, mostly Republicans, see it as rewarding law-breaking while penalising those who wait patiently for US visas.

Mr Bush knows his only hope of getting the legislation passed is if he agrees to balance it with some tough enforcement measures.

While the Senate is moving forward with bipartisan support on a Bill that embraces the President’s proposals, the more right-wing House of Representatives has focused solely on the enforcement side of the issue. The White House is hoping for a compromise that will eventually involve both.

This latest of Mr Bush’s political problems offers an unusual insight into America’s political geography. Mr Bush hails from Texas, widely seen as one of the most conservative states in the country; yet when he was governor, a tolerant approach to immigration from neighbouring Mexico was widely popular.

Meanwhile in ultra-liberal California, rising public anger has led to some draconian measures to stop illegal immigration from south of the border.

The difference of approach is probably rooted in the role the state plays in the philosophies that underpin two political traditions. In conservative Texas, people have relied less on the generosity of the state for support and therefore see less of a threat and more of an opportunity from immigration. In liberal California, more generous state benefits have the perverse effect of making the population more hostile to sharing those benefits with outsiders.

As the US grapples with the challenges of globalisation, it is a debate that has familiar echoes in many parts of the world, not least, Europe.

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