Buchanan Demands Voice in GOP Convention Debate : Republicans: The candidate says that if the Bush camp denies him the podium, he will stage a demonstration to oppose the President’s policies.

Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan vowed Tuesday to take his “deep disagreements” with President Bush’s domestic and foreign policies to the party’s convention and warned it would be “a terrible mistake” for the Bush camp to deny him the podium.

Declaring he represents a “tremendous slice” of the Republican Party, the conservative news commentator said that if the Bush campaign wants to unify the party for the President’s reelection bid, it had better include him in the convention debate. Otherwise, he said, he will stage a counter-convention nearby to stress his opposition to Bush’s policies.

He said a convention snub would “cause an uproar and antagonize” his followers, many of whom already have told him they will not vote for Bush. And he emphasized that he expects to address the convention in the evening during prime time for television, “not at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning.”

Several Bush supporters have said, however, he will have no role at the convention.

Although Buchanan recently had toned down his attacks on the President, he criticized Bush on a range of issues at a breakfast session with reporters here Tuesday and said domestic problems were “a hellish distraction” for a President more interested in foreign issues.

Buchanan, who has advocated sending Army troops to the Mexican border to curb the crossing of illegal immigrants, said he plans to go to the California border to express his opposition to Bush’s immigration policies. The President, he said, “should and could easily enforce” immigration laws, but is allowing millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country.

Declaring his campaign already has influenced Bush’s policies on several issues, he predicted his emphasis on the immigration issue will prod Bush into taking action before the June 2 California primary to stem the flow of immigrants.

By strengthening the border guard and enforcing immigration laws, Buchanan said, the President could reduce the flow by 90% to 95%, a figure most immigration officials say is unrealistic. With only 3,000 officers patrolling 1,960 miles of the Mexican border, they have been intercepting a little more than 1 million illegal immigrants a year.

Administration officials insist enforcement already has been tightened. Commissioner Gene McNary of the Immigration and Naturalization Service said “it’s hard to believe that Buchanan isn’t aware” of a recent announcement that 300 new border officers and 200 additional criminal investigators will be added to combat illegal immigration and violent crime by criminal immigrants. The additional personnel will be added at the end of the fiscal year in September--two months before the general election.

Buchanan complained that the flow of immigrants is putting a strain on government services, swelling school enrollments and welfare rolls and increasing the prison population. He said it was “a contributing factor to driving taxpayers” out of California and stressed he would make it a major issue in his California campaign.

Although he offered no estimates on the cost of servicing illegal immigrants, the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit policy analysis group, estimated that the total cost of 13 major federal and state programs for illegal immigrants in 1990 was $5.4 billion. For the purpose of the center’s study, the illegal immigrant population in the United States, based on INS estimates, was put at 4.2 million.

Earlier in the campaign, Buchanan said he would erect a “Buchanan Fence” and dig a trench along the entire Mexican border to combat illegal immigration. And he proposed relocating American military bases to the border and assigning National Guard troops on summer duty to patrol the border.

Buchanan also told reporters that former President Richard M. Nixon, during a chat with him last month, was so impressed with the “toughness” of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, that he suggested Buchanan stop attacking Bush and start focusing on Clinton, the Democratic front-runner who is heavily favored to win his party’s nomination.

Nixon advised him to stay out of the California GOP primary race, Buchanan said, out of concern that “Bush would lose California in the general election and I would be blamed for it.”