Replies

And you must also remember that the President's budget is a proposal, not a mandate, and Congress has the ultimate authority for funding. IOW, you may not have liked what he proposed to fund or not fund, but that does not absolve Congress of their ultimate responsibility on the issue of funding new border agents.

Very true. And Congress has done their job over the President's objections.

But your Post 42 was in response to my Post 16 to your Post 11 and if you trace this conversation backwards you will see that we have now come full circle and you are now making my original point for me.

It is not the President's job to propose legislation to fix the immigration problem. The only role in the legislative process that the Constitution gives the President is either signing it or vetoing it. There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the President from making legislative proposals but it is not one of his primary or even defined Constitutional duties.

But the Constitution does give the President a mandated duty to secure the borders and to enforce laws enacted by Congress. And to paraphrase (and twist) your words above: the President may not have liked the laws passed by Congress, but that does not absolve him of the ultimate responsibility to enforce them.

The President has recently argued that the Constitution gives him the inherent authority to do the NSA wiretaps and that he did not need legislative authorization from Congress to take those steps to protect the American people. I agree with him on that point. The Constitution also gives the President responsibility for securing the borders and he has the inherent authority (and indeed a duty) under the Constitution to accomplish that task with or without authorizations from Congress. He could deploy the National Guard to the Border for that purpose tomorrow on his own Constitutional authority.

Let me make it simpler...Bush can't enforce the border mandates made by Congress without the required Congressional funding for more manpower, equipment and fencing. Therefore,it is up to Congress to provide this funding irregardless of what Bush proposes.

You are right about the NG, that is his only option outside of Congress. However, any NG deployment would first have to be requested by the state (we ran into that problem with Katrina). Then there is also concern by some about the military performing what are normally civilian law enforcement duties. It is my understanding that the NG does not have arrest authority and could only assist in building fences and such. A private contractor could probably do a better job for less money and the liability would fall on the contractor for making sure the fence is installed correctly and completed on time, something you would lack with the NG. Personally, as our NG forces are stretched due to Iraq, I think a private contractor to install fences would probably be the best alternative.