2,000 new border agents aren't part of budget, [Bush] says

President Bush (news - web sites) will not ask Congress for enough money to add 2,000 agents to patrol the nation's borders in his 2006 budget, even though he signed a bill last month authorizing the increase.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Monday that Bush's new budget, to be released in early February, will propose a "good incremental increase" in the number of agents. But he made it clear the number would not approach 2,000. The new agents were to be the first hires toward doubling the size of the force over five years.

As part of a sweeping intelligence bill passed in December, Congress called for nearly doubling the size of the Border Patrol by adding 10,000 agents over five years. The agency has about 11,000 agents; 90% work along the southern border with Mexico.

But in an interview with USA TODAY, Ridge scoffed at the notion of adding so many agents and said it would be an inefficient use of precious homeland security dollars.

"The notion that you're going to have 10,000 is sort of a fool's gold," Ridge said. "It's nice to say you're going to have 10,000 more Border Patrol agents in five years, but what other part of Homeland Security do you want to take the money from?"

Why would a Mexican laborer prefer to remain illegal when he could just as easily become legal?

It not up to the laborer, it's up to the employer. Employers can hire legal workers now, they just don't want to. A laborer can not just go and get a visa, the employer must get it for the laborer.

Why would an employer risk the fines of hiring an illegal worker when he could hire a legal one instead?

They won't risk anything, because they know that there will be no enforcement. Bush proved it again today, but stating he won't fund the portion of the intelligence bill he signed. It's happened in the past, it happened today and it will happen in the future.

Employers know they are immune to enforcement and will continue to be. They won't hire a legal worker, because it cost more to do so and there will always be a whiling supply of illegals to work like slaves.

"Employers can hire legal workers now, they just don't want to."

Why do you make statements like that? You've obviously never owned a business or been an employer. Employers who hire illegals do so out of necessity or ignorance, not out of desire.

"they know that there will be no enforcement. "

There is enforcement today, even if not as much as you would want. The odds of getting caught selling marijuana is very small also, but that small risk is enough to keep the vast majority of people from doing it. Neither you nor anyone else "knows" that there wouldn't be any enforcement of President Bush's guest worker plan. He says there would be increased enforcement against employers and Bush does not lie!

"Bush proved it again today, but stating he won't fund the portion of the intelligence bill he signed."

Bush said he was not going to divert funds from areas of national security to add more border guards. He is right. It would be irresponsible to weaken anti-terrorism programs just to placate some unemployable racist wackos who are whining about Mexican gardeners taking all the good jobs.

Until a guest worker program is enacted, increasing the number of guards isn't going to appreciably decrease the number of laborers coming across the border.

Funny, the Bush-haters never complain about Congress not appropriating the money for more guards.

"They won't hire a legal worker, because it cost more to do so "

No it won't. The employees who are illegal today will be legal under Bush's plan. The supply/demand ratio won't change.

Maybe we should start it by sending this.

The Declaration of Independence of the Fifty States
In Denver, Co. July 4, 2005

The unanimous Declaration of the Fifty united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I'm sure with just a few name changes we can "reprint" the Declaration verbatim and none of the abuses listed in 1776 would be missing in 2005.

Companies with an bookkeeper/accountant/payroll office can't pay off the books.
If an employer gets audited by the IRS he could go to prison for tax evasion and failure to withhold.
It's easy to tell which posters have never had to make payroll.

Still laughing?

You assume too much - I've seen just that done. I've also seen the employees use fake ssn # and claim exempt. Or they work a small number of hours under a fake ssn, and the rest "off the books." No one ever gets prosecuted now, why do you think it will happen later?

It's worse, toohttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_1_55/ai_96403710>

'U.S. Social Security May Reach to Mexico," blared a Washington Post headline last month: A U.S.-Mexico agreement would send hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security benefits annually to roughly 37,000 Mexican workers. But this and other news reports actually dramatically underestimated the true scope of the accord. If top officials at the State Department and the Social Security Administration have their way, up to $345 billion could be siphoned from the Social Security "trust fund" over the next two decades -- mostly to people who worked in the U.S. illegally.

The media reports quoted a relatively low cost because the Mexico pact is supposedly modeled after deals the U.S. already has with 20 other countries, mostly in Europe, known as Totalization Agreements. "Totalization" is government-speak for combining the taxes paid into America's and a foreign country's respective social-security systems -- thus allowing people who split their careers between two countries to get a harmonized retirement benefit from the two governments. But the Mexico accord is different in one key respect: It makes illegals from Mexico eligible for Social Security benefits, which will make the cost skyrocket.

Today, people who worked in the U.S. illegally can receive Social Security benefits for that period only if they become citizens or permanent legal residents. The new agreement would lift this requirement for Mexican illegals. Though not denying that this is the case, an SSA press officer cautions that "discussions are still in the preliminary stages." But according to an internal SSA memo obtained by NR, illegal aliens who never become legalized would be covered under the pact: "Mexican nationals working illegally in the U.S. can currently become entitled to benefits . . . [The deal] would include this population." Government sources confirm that the pact will, in fact, allow illegal aliens to qualify for Social Security without first obtaining legal residence in the U.S.

You are ignoring that people get away with hiring illegals without documentation NOW - what incentive will there be to not hire them later, especially when they are easier to control and more exploitable than their legal brethren? The market for illegal labor will not dissapear - in fact it will grow.

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