Defend the border!

World Net Daily ^ | January 28, 2005 | Joseph Farah

[Mikey]

Did you ever get the feeling the border was better defended by the Alamo than it is today?

Yet, despite the fact that millions of foreigners invade our country, break our laws, rob us of billions in tax dollars and provide cover for terrorists, drug dealers and arms merchants hell-bent on destroying what is left of our civilization, the Bush administration is unconcerned.

Even though the president signed a bill authorizing 2,000 new border agents, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said President Bush will not ask Congress for enough money to fund them.

As part of the intelligence bill passed last month, Congress proposed nearly doubling the number of Border Patrol agents by adding 10,000 over five years. But Ridge scoffed at such an increase, saying it would be an inefficient use of homeland security funds.

"The notion that you're going to have 10,000 is sort of a fool's gold," Ridge told USA Today. "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?"

Ridge said it makes more sense to pay for a combination of more agents and better technology, such as ground sensors and cameras. But he didn't say he was going to do that. He just said it makes more sense.

I'll tell you what makes sense: Defending borders. Listening to the will of the people. Honoring the rule of law.

These are concepts not understood in Washington.

The same people who are telling us our nation is in a life-and-death struggle with evil terrorists determined to infiltrate and destroy the American way of life tell us there is no need to defend the borders.

I'm no military expert, but it seems obvious to me the first objective in any conflict is to "secure the perimeter." In national security parlance, that is the same as defending our borders. The Bush administration wants no part of this common-sense prescription – even though, according to polls, it would be the most popular political move he could make.

An Opinion Research Corp. survey released last week showed the No. 1 priority of registered voters across the country is border defense and homeland security. It was – far and away – the top military or foreign priority for 43 percent of the respondents. A distant second, at 19 percent, was intelligence gathering. Just 17 percent thought international aid and diplomacy should be the nation's most important objective.

When voters were asked to choose their highest, second and third priorities from the list of issues, and their top choices were combined, defense of U.S. borders was the clear winner at 77 percent.

But Washington doesn't care. The will of the people means nothing to the Bush administration or, apparently, to most members of Congress.

Neither do they care about the rule of law. If they did, they would see that the immigration laws on the books would be enforced. They would look at the U.S. Constitution and recognize that their powers are limited, but that among those powers authorized is the defense of the country.

Ultimately, we can't defend the American people by deploying our military to Iraq and Afghanistan and a hundred other countries around the world. We can project military force there, but we can't protect the lives of Americans. That work needs to be done here at home. And that work starts with the defense of the borders.

I know there is important work to be done in Iraq and Afghanistan – work that is essential to reducing the risk of future terrorist attacks.

But that risk will never be reduced solely through foreign engagement. The most important work needs to be done at home – in securing the perimeter, in defending our borders.

_________________________

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Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND and a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. He is also the founder of WND Books. In addition to his daily column in WND, he writes a nationally syndicated weekly column available to U.S. newspapers through Creators Syndicate.

[JustAnotherSavage]

A little background on "poor" Mexico:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/16/ldt.01.html

Aired 12/16/04 On CNN

DOBBS: Tonight, an estimated 15 million illegal aliens live in this country (20 million according to Bear Stearns report later that month), at least half of them from Mexico. Many are here because they chose to flee crushing poverty in Mexico.

But, in point of fact, Mexico is one of the richest countries in Latin America, amongst -- the millionaires, billionaires and its wealth concentrated in the hands of very few.


CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They sneak across the border seeking jobs they can't find in Mexico. The question isn't why they come, it's why can't Mexico's economy support its own people.

Nearly half of Mexico's population lives in poverty. Ten percent are indigent, existing on a dollar a day. Yet the nation has vast wealth. Mexico has more "Forbes" billionaires, 11, than all but eight other nations. It has more billionaires than Saudi Arabia, Switzerland or Taiwan. It also has more than 85,000 millionaires.

GEORGE W. GRAYSON, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY: There is a small economic elite who live like maharajas, and there's a political elite that protects them. Our border provides an escape valve which really lets the Mexican political and economic elite off the hook in terms of providing opportunities for their own people.

WIAN (on camera): About 10 percent of Mexico's 105 million people live here in the United States. They're called national heroes by President Vicente Fox because this year they'll send home about $16 billion, more than any Mexican industry except oil.

Mexico's outdated tax system is plagued by widespread tax evasion. It collects taxes at less than half the rate of the United States. As a result, Mexico's public-school and health-care systems suffer.

WIAN: Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor is growing. So Mexico continues to export one of its most valuable assets, people.

[Veritas et equitas ad Votum]

I've read on this very forum before the following:

Every year we take in money from illegals via taxes, but pay out even more, thus we are at a net loss.

The money we spend IN ONE YEAR in paying for all the health care, education, SSI, etc. for illegals is enough to build a wall (something like $10 billion).

[spectre]

Phyllis Schlafly writes, "While Americans without health insurance struggle with the problem of how to pay for medical care, Mexicans don't have that problem. They just ride in a Mexican ambulance across the border to a hospital in Arizona, New Mexico, California or Texas and get free medical treatment. The costs are currently paid by a combination of socking the taxpayers in those Border States plus inflating prices for patients who pay their own bills, insurance companies and Medicaid.

This ridiculous situation is caused by a combination of US officials allowing the Mexicans cars to cross our border and the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which mandates that US hospitals with emergency room services treat anyone who shows up for care, including illegal aliens. This unfounded mandate was legislated by a Congress that closed its eyes to the costs."

One writer says, "Look at it from their point of view. Wouldn't you really like it if a rich, prosperous nation, invited you and your entire family over for breakfast, lunch and dinner and to stay for the rest of your lives?"

sw

[You Dirty Rats]

I've read on this very forum before the following: Every year we take in money from illegals via taxes, but pay out even more, thus we are at a net loss. The money we spend IN ONE YEAR in paying for all the health care, education, SSI, etc. for illegals is enough to build a wall (something like $10 billion).

So we pay an additional $10 Billion to build a wall that prevents the illegals already here from going home. That's positively brilliant!

[Dante3]

It's easy to take care of the illegal aliens -- instead of having our troops dying in Iraq, have them protect our borders and round up the illegals. And if we cut off welfare and educational services to illegals and enforce employment laws, many will leave voluntarily. Above all, we must change the law that just because a person is born in this country, they are a citizen.

[JustAnotherSavage]

"An Opinion Research Corp. survey released last week showed the No. 1 priority of registered voters across the country is border defense and homeland security. It was – far and away – the top military or foreign priority for 43 percent of the respondents. A distant second, at 19 percent, was intelligence gathering. Just 17 percent thought international aid and diplomacy should be the nation's most important objective.


When voters were asked to choose their highest, second and third priorities from the list of issues, and their top choices were combined, defense of U.S. borders was the clear winner at 77 percent."
http://resultsforamerica.org/survey.html

[Mikey]

So I made a boo boo with Jacksonville. What's your solution, let'em all just run across the border? Now how would one make ILLEGAL aliens get this ID card? Lets see, how would we force those farmers to hire only legal immigrants? Um maybe we can have an immigration officer stationed at every farm house to make sure they comply?

Yep, these united States of America will America will soon be know as united communistic blocks of Amerika.

I'm not saying we must become isolationist's, but damn if we don't do something radical about the influx of illegals, we will be (are) in big trouble.

[Mikey]

"There is a solution here. How about reassigning the IRS agents to the borders? Their sheer numbers would overpower the illegals."

There you go. after HR 25 takes effect and those Immensely Rich Socialists are gone for good, take all those soon to be out of work IRS agents and put them to work defending these united States instead of terrorizing them.

[You Dirty Rats]

Yep, these united States of America will America will soon be know as united communistic blocks of Amerika.

So to prevent ourselves from going Communist, we have to build a wall around our country. I have to admit that you have a point. I mean, we built the Berlin Wall to keep the commies out of Berlin, so that should work on a larger scale also.

[untrained skeptic]

"There is a solution here. How about reassigning the IRS agents to the borders? Their sheer numbers would overpower the illegals."

I think this plan might backfire and build up a lot of sympathy for the plight of the illegal aliens. Deporting them is reasonable. Sending the IRS after them is inhumane.

[COEXERJ145]

so let me guess, the true conservatives are only those blessed by you?

In the mind of the Trancedoites, unless you agree with them, then you aren't a real conservative and want to "flood the U.S. with illegals". They accuse me and several others of this daily but cannot provide any proof to back up the claim.

[Mikey]

Again, what's your all knowing, all seeing solution?

[Joe Hadenuf]

Seeing that Fed gov won't do it. Americans are pretty close to rebelling . I can not believe that we have allowed our government representatives get away with this.

But but, the party before country hacks, and other elite, big government fat cats tell us millions invading our country illegally, at will, routinely is not a big deal or an issue.

And if anyone believes that, they need to have their freaking heads examined.

If the GOP and this administration don't wake up to this epic invasion, they may as well declare them all dead.

[untrained skeptic]

There is a problem with widespread corruption in Mexico that is holding the country back. Raising taxes on the rich, which appears to be what this article suggests, isn't going to solve that, or make the lives of the common people better. It will just funnel more money into the hands of the corrupt people in the government.

They need to have reform in their government.

The article also seems to assume that those with money are somehow responsible for the poverty in the country, which is doubtful. If those wealthy people are earning their money by exploiting the people, then they should be held accountable for that. However, the liberal assumption that anyone with money is evil and should be taxed at some obscene rate isn't usually based on hard facts.

They have 85,000 millionaires? Are those just counting Mexican citizens, or does it include retirees from the US and Europe that choose to spend their golden years in some of the more beautiful parts of that country, where their money goes even farther than it does here?

85,000 millionaires really isn't that many. If you have reasonable retirement saving and own your own home in an area with high housing costs, you likely have a million plus to retire on.

Mexico needs government reform.

They need their government to spend the money it does take in from taxes on building infrastructure so that the country can build a productive economy.

They have good amounts of natural resources. They apparently have people with the investment capitol. They have people who are willing to work hard for a fair wage.

However, in order to prosper, they need to stomp out the government corruption, or they won't be able to get people to invest capital for fears that their investment will have all it's profits stolen.

Higher taxes are a horrible solution because it will discourage investment, and restrict the ability of the economy to grow.

[Mikey]

Once easy, illegally entering the U.S. here now a risky passage

By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE

July 11, 2004

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune
Migrants waited near the San Ysidro crossing for a chance to slip over the border fence into the United States. Before Operation Gatekeeper, hundreds would gather here in what was "like a big party, with families saying good-bye to the migrants."

TIJUANA – From the rim of the Tijuana River canal, a small group of migrants waited at what was once one of the most popular illegal crossing areas along the U.S.-Mexico border.

They stood just a block from a San Ysidro shopping center, sizing up the obstacles: a 12-foot-high fence, a camera, stadium-style lighting and a Border Patrol truck nosed up against the fence.

The scene was eerily quiet, not at all like the raucous party atmosphere 10 years ago when as many as a thousand people gathered along the canal each night to storm across the border, overwhelming an understaffed Border Patrol.

During the early 1990s, images of the border under siege in San Diego County touched off a political maelstrom, making illegal immigration a top national security concern. The U.S. government responded in October 1994 with Operation Gatekeeper, which brought rows of fencing, more Border Patrol agents and surveillance technology to the county.

It started in the Imperial Beach area, a five-mile stretch – of the 2,000-mile border – that once logged about 13 percent of the nation's illegal immigrant crossings. Migrants now wait weeks or months to cross there.

The Operation Gatekeeper philosophy has thrived and spread along San Diego County's 66-mile border with Mexico and into adjacent Imperial County. It also has taken root along urban sections of the border in Texas and Arizona.

Critics and supporters agree the strategy has stemmed the flow of illegal immigration through San Diego County's urban areas. But human rights groups say it has come with a price: In the past decade, more people have crossed through desert and mountain areas where extreme temperatures have contributed to the deaths of several thousand migrants along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

In fact, some immigration experts say, though crossings are down in Imperial Beach and other urban areas, the number of people who enter the United States illegally each year has not declined.

Officer Jorge Pacheco of Grupo Beta, a Mexican federal agency that protects illegal immigrants, monitored the border just west of the San Ysidro crossing. [Emphasis mine]

Today, as people wait to slip across the border in the San Diego area, they face a different kind of challenge: boredom.

"Before Operation Gatekeeper, people would arrive in Tijuana and they could be in San Diego in a few hours," said Victor Clark, a Tijuana-based human rights activist. "As the fence started to go up, that became 48 hours. Then it became a week or two. Now we see people waiting months – up to five months in some cases – to cross."

The people who come here often don't have enough money to pay a smuggler to take them through more-open routes to the east. They sometimes do odd jobs during the day and camp out into Tijuana night. Then they wait for a chance to cross when the Border Patrol agents change shifts or become distracted by another crosser.

Others have become old hands at crossing here. Twenty-nine-year-old Gregorio Carrillo, who was returning to work in Lakeside after attending a cousin's funeral in Baja California this year, claimed to have attempted 20 crossings from the Tijuana River canal during Operation Gatekeeper, 10 of those successfully. After each unsuccessful attempts, U.S. officers returned him to Tijuana, he said.

"People who come here from the interior of Mexico don't know the area and they will pay a person to help them get across, but I got to know how to do this from others," he said. "That, and some luck."

Carrillo's recurring border incursions reflect the persistence of illegal immigration, which to many San Diego County residents seemed to disappear once the fence went up and the people stopped rushing U.S. freeways.

A drop in arrests

The number of arrests along the border in San Diego County dropped from 531,689 in 1993 – the year before Operation Gatekeeper – to 100,681 in 2002, although it rose last year to 111,515. The arrests are one tool for monitoring illegal immigration flows, though they can be influenced by factors such as increased enforcement.

Along the five-mile border overseen by the Imperial Beach Border Patrol station, the arrests plummeted from 165,287 in 1993 to 10,218 in 2003.

Some estimates say there's three or four escapes for every arrest, though it's hard to say for sure. Clark, the human rights activist, estimates that 1 in 10 makes it to San Diego County.

Despite the nationwide efforts, the permanent illegal immigrant population in the United States is growing steadily at half a million a year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

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.

To continue reading this article, go to Once easy, illegally entering the U.S. here now a risky passage

[Godebert]

"yep they fooled me the whole way to Iraq and back.... I love the accusations I get on these threads, priceless every one...."

Iraq......where you worked as a civilian for an IT contractor, right? How long do you plan on milking that screen name for? "Deployed to Iraq" .....that's a good one. What....did you IT guys rappel from helicopters with your pocket protectors and laptops?

[sasafras]

Thanks for the info

[television is just wrong]

www.minutemanproject.com

[Mikey]

The Minuteman Project

An excellent site and cause, but $1,200 - $3,500 is a lot of coin.

What's needed is more land owners that want to protect their own land and the borders against the constant influx of illegal's. These land owners should help defray the costs to the men and women who want to help spot the illegals for he border patrol by letting those who volunteer stay at their homes for free or share the housing expenses while they're there.

[Mikey]

Hey You Dirty Rats what's YOUR solution to protecting our extremely open borders as pictured below?

The "Naco Line". Mexico at right of road. U. S at left. Lieutenant D. W. in foreground. There is no border protection here, unless a decrepit single strand, bard wire fence counts.

The "Naco Line". Mexico on the left. Arizona on the right. Arizona and Mexican mountain range is background to the east. (Huachuca Mountains)

The US-Mexican border, separated by only a broken, rusty barb wire fence. This is the U.S. idea of border protection. (View is looking into Mexico)