01:00 AM EDT on Monday, June 26, 2006

BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly addressed an international gathering of students from 155 countries last night about two issues he called the most critical in the United States: immigration and the war in Iraq.

"The immigration system is totally out of control," O'Reilly told 1,900 students attending the World Scholar-Athlete games, sponsored by the University of Rhode Island's Institute for International Sport. "There are 12 million people in the U.S. and the government has no idea who they are or what they are doing. You cannot have that in this age of terror."

O'Reilly, famous for his outspokenness as host of the popular cable TV news program, The O'Reilly Factor, said that Republicans and Democrats have ignored immigration for decades and are reluctant to crack down on it during an election year.

"Business wants cheap labor, and on the other side the Democrats want the immigrants here to get the immigrant vote," he said. "For 20 years there has been no opposition to the flood of people coming from our southern border. Before 9/11, it wasn't a major thing Americans thought about."

Now the United States must secure its borders, O'Reilly said. President Bush's recent decision to beef up border patrols will not accomplish that, O'Reilly said. "We need 50,000 National Guard troops down there," he said.

But Mr. Bush is afraid of alienating Hispanic voters, O'Reilly said. After his 30-minute speech, O'Reilly took questions from the students, ages 15 through 19.

Sarah, from Connecticut, asked why O'Reilly wants to crack down on immigrants when his own relatives came to this country from Europe. "My relatives came over legally, 160 years ago, during the potato famine in Ireland," he said. "And I'm the first one to break out of the working class."

O'Reilly said he is not anti-immigrant. "I want people to succeed, to feed their families," he said. "I just want people to do it in an orderly, legal way."

O'Reilly criticized the lack of political will to pursue alternative forms of energy such as Brazil's decision to switch to ethanol to fuel cars. He criticized U.S. dependence on foreign oil from countries such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

"We need a minor revolution in this country," O'Reilly said. "We need to stop with this liberal-conservative stuff and elect officials who will fight for you."

Later in his speech however, he criticized groups he considers liberal, calling the International Red Cross a "left-wing" operation and the United Nations "a corrupt body."

When a student from South Korea asked him why he had become a political commentator after three decades in the news business, O'Reilly joked that covering the O.J. Simpson trial had soured him on news reporting. He developed the concept for his cable show while studying at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government about 10 years ago, and never thought it would be as successful as it has become, he said.

"A bloviator, an obnoxious guy like me, telling people what they don't want to hear," O'Reilly said. "I thought, 'We should have that.' "