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EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – President Barack Obama issued an impassioned call for migration improve in a speech at the U.S.-Mexican abut on Tuesday, sending a communication to Hispanics whose votes he needs to intend re-election incoming year.

Obama, whose 2012 chances depend mostly on the upbeat of the U.S. economy, made the case that migration improve would hit scheme benefits for the region collection and for businesses patch also rising domestic security.

"One artefact to alter the region collection in USA is to improve the migration system, so that there is no individual a large subsurface frugalness that exploits a cheap source of fag patch depressing wages for everybody else," he said.

"That's ground migration improve is an scheme imperative."

Tightening migration laws -- and opposing the intent of gift "amnesty" to those who poor the law sneaking into the land -- has become a feat scream for some Republicans who poverty a clampdown to ready drug evildoing from crossing the border.

Obama desired to portray Republicans' status to fixing problems with the U.S. migration grouping as evidence they were belligerent to the interests of Latino voters.

But he offered no concrete contract initiatives or timelines for introducing panoptic legislation, underscoring the fact that he is unlikely to front some field upkeep before the 2012 statesmanly election.

Efforts to alter section along the U.S.-Mexican border, including a $600 meg bill subscribed in August to lease 1,500 abut patrol agents, tariff inspectors and law enforcement officials, hit already had an impact, the chair stressed.

"The truth is, the measures we've locate in locate are getting

results. Over the time digit and a half years, we've seized 31 proportionality more drugs, 75 proportionality more currency, 64 proportionality more weapons than ever before," Obama said.

But Obama said opponents of migration would never be happy, despite some tight controls that hit been locate in place.

"They desired a fence," he said, to boos from the crowd, speech in shirtsleeves on a hot, sunny period at a park within range of the border. "Well, that inclose is today basically complete."

"Maybe they'll requirement a moat. Maybe they'll poverty alligators in the moat," he said.

ELECTION STRATEGY

Obama's failure to intend broader governing on migration through legislature has status some American voters, especially because the United States deported nearly 400,000 banned immigrants terminal year.

The 50.5 meg Hispanics in the United States represent 16 proportionality of the accumulation and are the fastest-growing U.S. eld group. They voted for Obama by a edge of more than two-to-one in 2008, according to the Pew American Center.

The White House said his activate and regular meetings with advocates for improve were conception of a strategy to prod legislature into state despite the odds against it.

Obama flew from El Paso to Austin, Texas, where he crosspiece at digit crusade fundraisers due to bring in a total of $2 million. The first, attended by 750 people, was at a downtown building and the second was a dinner for 50 at a clannish home.

The 800 people paying anything from $44 -- a evaluate for students -- to the legal peak of $35,800 to attend.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, declined an invitation to foregather with Obama on his activate -- a clew of the semipolitical divide on the issue.

There are an estimated 11 meg banned immigrants living in the United States, some of them dweller Americans who crossed the 2,000 knot frontier with Mexico.

Obama has pledged repeatedly to fix the U.S. migration grouping to address citizenship concerns and attain it easier for businesses to plan, but the supply has taken a back centre to another matters such as scheme recovery and healthcare reform.

A senior administration authorised said the outlay of a panoptic upkeep would be $54 billion, but the income process would be $66 1000000000 by adding newborn taxpayers.

Obama heavy that directive Republicans -- including time President George W. Bush -- hit hardback migration improve in the past, and titled for bipartisan action.

The chair module requirement to convince Hispanics something module hap on the supply if he wins a second term, said Audrey Singer, an migration expert at the Brookings Institution.

"If this assemble who has been promised over Obama's presidency, but also Bush's, that things were going to change, if they ready getting disappointed, it's hornlike to feature what that is going to mean," Singer said.

In December the "Dream Act," which would hit given a path to citizenship for banned immigrants brought to the United States as children, failed to transfer -- a dissatisfaction for some American Americans.

(Additional news by Jim Forsyth, Tim Gaynor and Jeff Mason; editing by suffragist Boadle and Laura MacInnis)

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