Except, of course, that Bush built that 12 foot steel fence along our border with Mexico starting in 2001...
Posted on 10/06/2004 3:41:49 AM PDT by MikeJ75
You know what makes me nervous about President Bush? It's not his facial expressions. Nor his verbal clumsiness. I don't care about his alleged weakness at the podium. What concerns me more than anything else is his demonstrated weakness at our borders.
Immigration enforcement is the six-ton elephant in the room. Barely two sentences were devoted to border control in the first presidential debate, despite the fact that the major issue of the showdown was leadership on national security. Both President Bush and Sen. Kerry bloviated about throwing more money at the Department of Homeland Security, while ignoring the fundamental problem: Our immigration laws are being broken en masse because America is unwilling to enforce them – clearly, consistently and unapologetically – until it is too late.
The vice presidential candidates are no better. Dick Cheney, alas, has dutifully defended the administration's abominable amnesty plan, which amounts to a mass government pardon of illegal visa overstayers and border crossers and deportation fugitives at a time of war. (We are at war, aren't we, gentlemen?) For his part, Sen. John Edwards supports the just-as-awful Democratic version of this illegal alien incentive policy.
On the same day of the presidential debate last week, alarming news broke in McAllen, Texas, which underscores the illegal immigration-terrorism nexus. The feds have been investigating evidence from a high-level al-Qaida operative that the terrorists were planning to poison our military's supply of MREs (meals ready-to-eat). In the course of the investigation, law enforcement officers initiated a sweep of a McAllen-area defense subcontractor, the Wornick Company, which produced MREs and had been an alleged target of al-Qaida.
Luckily, no signs of sabotage or terrorist infiltration were uncovered. But the place was crawling with illegals (mostly, but not all Mexican) who used falsified ID and employment forms. In an all-too-rare occurrence, an executive from an employment agency that provided workers for Wornick was indicted last week for flouting immigration rules and faking documents. Last year, a measly four employers faced criminal prosecution for immigration employment violations.
There are countless Pollyannas in the political, media and intellectual elite who continue to downplay the dangers of open borders. "Better intelligence" will solve the problem, they argue naively. "We are a nation of immigrants," they preach cluelessly. "Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande," they babble pointlessly.
Meanwhile, the patient and undeterred minions of Osama bin Laden dispatched from abroad are here. Others are cooperating with other immigration outlaws to wreak havoc on our security. Not far from Bush's Crawford ranch, there are ominous signs that al-Qaida has teamed up with illegal alien smugglers from Mexico to bring new operatives through the southern border. The feds recently disclosed that suspected al-Qaida operative Adnan Shukrijumah – a young Saudi pilot on the run since Sept. 11 – met with the notorious El Salvador-based gang/ alien-smuggling operation, Mara Salvatrucha.
And in southern Arizona, site of the final presidential debate, the illegal Arab alien smuggling route known as "Terrorist Alley" is as unprotected as ever. Unknown numbers of al-Qaida in America have fraudulent identification, which enables them (like their Sept. 11 predecessors) to blend into the vast sea of 13 million other immigration outlaws, who have little fear of getting caught. It doesn't help matters when Bush's own border security undersecretary, Asa Hutchinson, states publicly that it's "not realistic" for his own officers to try to do their jobs and deport law-breakers.
In an even more shameful betrayal, the White House is now reportedly pressuring stalwart House Republicans into scrapping important immigration enforcement provisions of the House Intelligence bill that speed up the deportation process and bar illegal aliens from obtaining valuable driver's licenses or using easy-to-fake foreign consular ID cards. Why? Because they are politically unpopular with ethnic constituencies.
This race is not just about who is better able to hunt down and destroy our enemies abroad. It's about who is more willing to hunt them down right here, jail them, kick them out and keep them out of our home. President Bush has shown he can stand up to the international Axis of Weasels. He must show the same resolve against La Raza, the immigration lawyers and Teddy Kennedy.
Oct. 5, 2004, Lou Dobbs Tonight (partial transcript)
-snip-
DOBBS: The White House is demanding that the House Republican leadership strip the intelligence reform bill of tough new restrictions on illegal aliens and border security.
Republican Congressman Roy Blunt is the majority whip. He is the second most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives and says the immigration reforms will remain in the legislation, despite what the White House is demanding.
We thank you both for being with us. Before we begin, let me show you, point out to you, as you well know, and to our viewers who may not be as familiar the provisions that we're discussing here tonight in the intelligence reform legislation.
The first element, of course, is what is the crackdown on driver's licenses on illegal aliens. The White House wants that stripped out, wants to be able to make it easier to deport illegal aliens, those who cross our borders illegally, and to limit the use of foreign consular I.D. cards. That is, such cards as the matricula consular of Mexico, other consular I.D. cards for identification within this country.
Again, thank you both for being here.
Let me begin with you, Congressman Blunt. You are prepared to resist the White House on their demands to weaken the border security provisions of the immigration -- of the intelligence reform legislation?
REP. ROY BLUNT (R), MAJORITY WHIP: Well, we think the border security provisions are important provisions. They're the one thing that the 9/11 commission called for that didn't make it in the Senate bill in any way. I think they make total sense. They're absolutely defensible. For every one of those provisions, there is some egregious case in recent years where someone who really has done great damage to our society could have been stopped if these provisions would have been in place and would have been enforced.
We are working with White House to see if they've got some suggested changes that we might add to this legislation to make them more comfortable in a couple areas. But we intend to go forward with these provisions that, again, the 9/11 commission created the basis for in their report.
BLUNT: I might also point out, we were with -- we had some of the 9/11 families here this morning, and they were all to a person supportive of these provisions.
In fact, they said that -- the 9/11 families that they couldn't find any individual in the families who oppose these provisions, but they were being told just what my good friend Jane just said, that somehow they're poison pills designed to kill this legislation.
These are in this legislation designed to stop terrorists and terrorism. We -- we think they're totally reasonable, the idea that we would have greater border security. We're not requiring visas from Canada and Mexico, but we are requiring specific documents that have to be approved. And, other than that, you have to have a passport to get in and out of the country.
That's totally appropriate, I think.
BLUNT: Oh, I think this is not anti-immigrant. In fact, legal immigrants more than any other group want to be sure the law's enforced. They have gone through the process of the law to get here. They want to be protected from people who have come into the country without going through that same legal process. That's all really these are designed to do, and, Lou, you know how important that is.
-snip-
full transcript at: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/05/ldt.01.html
see post 21
Thanks! The provisions are basically common sense stuff that only a blithering idiot would have a problem with.
This is why, had there been a viable third party candidate, I would not be voting for Bush. His want for open borders along the US and Mexico is undermining our economy and security.
I don't know who started the "five dollars for a head of lettuce (cabbage)" bit, but if you think about it logically, it really doesn't make any sense at all. Labor accounts for about 10% of the cost of agriculture, so even if the person picking the lettuce has his/her salary doubled, it would only increase the cost of a $1 head of lettuce to $1.10. Where does that extra four dollars enter into it that raises the price to $5? As I mentioned in another thread, paying laborers less money doesn't necessarily translate to the savings being passed on to the consumer. After all, employers don't exactly have OUR best interests at heart.
You gonna mine the beaches too?
With enough votes for that viable third-party candidate, John Kerry would win the election.
Hey, I live in California and it is a huge problem.
I voted for 187 and others... That were later trashed by the courts...
Illegals should not be able to use our public resources. No school, no medical care, no anything. If they're found they should be thrown out.
My primary point is those who think we should somehow seal the borders to keep out terrorists. It is doomed to failure at a huge cost.
Malkin doesn't realize that Bush has increased funding for border security. I guess she and other narrow-minded people think they can easily "round up" illegals without knowing where they are first. They must have a sophisticated homing device or something.
Desperate election-year band-aid measure designed to retain skeptical conservatives. And I thought Democrats excelled at election-year gimmicks.
Except, of course, that Bush built that 12 foot steel fence along our border with Mexico starting in 2001...
from your article about the fence built only at San Diego:
As Operation Gatekeeper closed off traditional routes, Arizona became the center of illegal immigration. In the early 1990s, 40 percent of illegal immigrants went through the San Diego sector. Now, Arizona has the most used crossing points, and the San Diego sector accounts for about 10 percent of arrests.
"What we in the United States have developed is essentially a finger-in-the-dike approach to immigration control, and we are quickly running out of fingers," said Wayne Cornelius director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at University of California San Diego.
"What Gatekeeper has demonstrated was that in order for it to work, we would need to do it across the entire border," said Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego and immigration expert. "You also have to address the root causes of illegal immigration."
The fence stretches from some 50 feet into the Pacific (I spent two days at this point last month) all the way into Arizona.
Similar fences have also been erected by Bush around or near several populated areas in Texas.
What the fence does is take away the easy routes through urban, sub-urban, or what we might call "civilized" areas, leaving the more dangerous desert crossing in low-populated areas.
Crossing the border in the desert leaves far fewer places for invaders to hide than what they had in the urban areas that are now fenced off.
Thus, the current 12 foot tall steel fence(s) is/are a start. It's "something" positive for immigration control rather than "done nothing" at all.
The added Border Agents and additional patrols and raids also help.
"the current 12 foot tall steel fence(s) is/are a start."
I agree.
Ping........
just the ones within 50 meters of our borders.
Once we get rid of the illegal alien 'noise' it will be far easier to detect and destroy the rest of the hardcore smugglers/terrorists/democrat voters
I am in favor of coast guard interdiction of foreign vessels in our territorial waters however. I figure if someone can swim in from 200 miles out then we wouldn't be able to stop him anyway.
Bush marginalizes himself with his huge, deadly, blind spot; indifference to the weakest part of so-called homeland security, which, without border control, is just a big joke.
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