President Bush and the Illegal Alien Crisis

President Bush may be heading for a catastrophic political crash over illegal aliens, and if he doesn't start paying attention to the problem, he could go down in history as another president whose stewardship ended in disaster. The ghosts of Presidents Johnson (both Andrew and Lyndon) and Nixon may soon haunt this White House.

More to the point, thousands or hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of Americans may die because the bipartisan chattering class "fiddles while Rome burns," to cite the old metaphor.

At his April 28 news conference, not a single reporter – not one – asked the president about the issue of protecting our borders, even though it is a major concern for millions of Americans, right up there with gas prices. This is a classic example of the great divide between the elites and the general public.

Two different planets are at work here. On the one hand, journalists, academia, entertainment, many Washington politicians and a good slice of the business community ignore the problem as if it doesn't even exist. Meanwhile, on the real-world planet, the citizen-driven Minutemen (many with law enforcement or military backgrounds) monitored the border to help the woefully understaffed Border Patrol to do the job that most of us think the government should be doing.

For their patriotic volunteer service, President Bush called them "vigilantes" and liberal TV commentator Juan Williams compared them to the Ku Klux Klan.

That latter slur, of course, gets back to the disingenuous effort to blur the lines between legal and illegal immigration. We're not talking about legal immigrants. As is often said, we're "a nation of immigrants." In fact, it is the legal immigrants who play by the rules and get the shaft when law-breakers cut in line and participate in what columnist/author Michelle Malkin calls an "invasion."

It's not as if we have not been warned. Mr. Bush's own secretary of state has sounded the alarm. Secretary Condoleezza Rice on March 10 warned that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups are making every effort to get into the United States through Mexico and Canada. Similar warnings have recently come from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Hello? Anybody home? What does it take?

What's more, Secretary Rice visited Mexican President Vicente Fox and told him straight to his face that the Mexican border is a problem. Al-Qaida, she said, is trying "to get into this country and into other countries by any means they possibly can [the Mexican border included]. That's how they managed to do it [before 9/11] and they will do everything they can to cross the borders."

Propaganda has created widely repeated myths about the alleged advantages of illegal immigration. Here are some samples (space constraints prevent a full review).

Oh, really? I guess that's why West Coast author, columnist, NewsMax contributor and talk show host Kathleen Antrim told me that the porous Mexico-California border is "drowning our state's economy, to the tune of about $10.5 billion a year." Sixty-five emergency rooms in Southern California had to shut down, "hung out to dry on millions and millions of unpaid medical bills."

She adds that we should be caring for these people, but "we need to send the bill to Vicente Fox." (Antrim, by the way, was one of a group of talk show hosts and others who converged on Washington in late April to urge policy-makers to fix the broken immigration enforcement system.)

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates the entire nation's annual tab for illegal immigration at up to $70 billion. If that's good for the economy, God forbid we ever have to learn the hard way what's bad for it.

Myth #2: The old line that illegal aliens are needed because they're willing "to take the jobs that Americans don't want" is easily demolished.

First, Antrim says, "There are no jobs that Americans won't work for," adding, "There are jobs Americans won't do only when the wages are artificially suppressed." The idea that we need cheap labor from over the border is "an elitist attitude," she says. Further, "we are exploiting these people. A civilized society doesn't treat people this way. It makes me outraged when I hear these elitist statements, which I think border on racism."

Mark Krikorian, author and executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), adds that even if such treatment could be morally justified (which it can't), it is not at all good for the economy.

Speaking recently at a luncheon of Accuracy in Media (AIM) here in Washington, Krikorian said if employers hired Americans for those jobs, they would be paying more money, better benefits, better retirement plans.

Some of them would be able to cut their costs with machines that would take up much of the slack. More jobs, in turn, would go into the industries providing the mechanization. Funny thing about the free market: It may not always be neat and orderly, but in the end it pays for itself. In fact, such advances would have been implemented long ago but for the fact that cheap labor from Mexico is available, so why bother?

In Japan, where such cheap foreign labor is not readily available, according to Krikorian, "vending machines dispense everything from meat to panty-hose." U.S. employers, in many cases, are faced with the choice: "Mechanize or Mexicanize," he stated. "Employers [in this country] will regret going the low-tech route," he believes, because it will disadvantage us with our trading partners, resulting in failing businesses and, of course, the concurrent loss of jobs.

Myth #3 argues that we are an aging society, and we need the influx of illegals to pay into the Social Security system while we're lying around on the beach in our old age.

Krikorian has done the math on that, too. He says considering our (essentially flat) birthrate, even if we were to import 5 to 15 times as many illiterate illegal immigrants, it wouldn't beef up Social Security for anything more than perhaps "a couple of months."

Myth #4: Well, so what are we going to do? It's a Hobson's choice: Either try to deport 10 million people or get them out in the open through legalization.

Wrong again. Consistent enforcement of the immigration laws starting now could reduce the problem to a manageable nuisance within seven to eight years, according to CIS.

Not really. That assumes we have the bureaucratic capacity to do a background check on over 10 million people. There are hundreds of thousands of asylum applicants.

Even the slightest hint that our government is making more than a weak effort to enforce the immigration laws is worthy of the horse laugh.

As I write this, a rally is planned at a location about three or four miles from here in the Washington area. A coalition of pro-illegal alien groups (I refuse to call them "undocumented") is demanding that illegal aliens continue to be issued driver's licenses. About 5,000 immigrants, including some of questionable legal status, were expected to attend. One coalition leader claims that denying border crashers the "right" to gain driver's licenses "will make millions of people that live in our nation hide even more."

(Right. And I guess you can say that if we insist on enforcing those nasty laws against bank robbery, bank robbers will want to "hide even more." Give me a break.)

Michael Graham, a local radio talk show host (on Washington's WMAL) has spotlighted such "immigrant rights" rallies in the area and has challenged the authorities from law enforcement and immigration control to show up, make some arrests and (gasp!) actually enforce the law. As of this writing, he's had no takers.

In fact, Graham showed up at the rally at the taxpayer-subsidized high school and was told he could not enter because the event was "by invitation only." Despite his media ID, he was told he lacked "proper ID."

Talk about irony of ironies. A rally is held to uphold the right of law-breakers to enter this country without "proper ID" (i.e., a genuine passport), and an American citizen is barred from entering and in the process is roughed up by thugs who are later joined by the cops. The cops uphold the right of the thugs to prevent a citizen from entering a rally that advocates giving driver's licenses to people who do, in fact, lack "proper ID" to be here. I know that's crazy, but you have to live in the People's Republic of Montgomery County, Maryland (as I do) to understand it.

This is not trivial. Driver's licenses can lead to obtaining passes that will get you into some rather dicey security areas. That ID also makes it easier to open new bank accounts, which can facilitate money-laundering in support of terrorist activities. No one who has no right to be here in the first place has a "right" to a driver's license.

Now back to our original point. The lax security at our borders means we are playing Russian roulette with American lives. And President Bush should be worried about that. Here's why: Does anyone think that poor, illiterate Mexicans, escaping the economic consequences of the decades-old Marxism and corruption in their own country, are the only people crossing our borders without the authority of a legal passport?

At the Institute of World Politics' annual Pearl Harbor Day dinner last December 7, I asked the much-decorated hero General John Singlaub to address the argument made by some that virtually unfettered illegal immigration is a benefit to the economy.

"We have got to do something to defend ourselves against people who want to kill us," he responded. "The economy can go to hell as far as I'm concerned," the general declared, adding that if you're dead, a healthy economy can't do you much good.

Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado and a voice in the wilderness on the dangers of our lax immigration policy, cited the bottom line in a Fox News interview. Host Bill O'Reilly said to him, "And you know, if it comes down to the fact that a radiological device or a chemical or biological device is put in here by al-Qaida, and it's traced back to Monterrey, Mexico, or Mexico City, it will be impeachment.

TANCREDO: It should be, Bill. I absolutely agree with you. If something like that happens, I believe it is an impeachable offense. And believe me, I have no qualms about introducing such a measure. But who wants to win this thing?

I asked Krikorian what he thought would happen if another 9/11 occurred and it could be traced back to lack of adequate border enforcement.

"I think he [the president] would be in real danger of being impeached" was his response, though he, too, didn't think anyone at this point would be interested in seeing that happen. Many of us who like this president wish he would focus on this problem.

But alas, the Social Security Administration is getting paperwork from workplaces all over the country for new employees with numbers that don't match anyone on record – which likely means they are fake – and "they [the authorities] do nothing about it."

If you think Vicente Fox is an arrogant, tough cookie to deal with, wait until he steps down at the end of 2006. Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the current presidential font-runner, is of the "Yanks are oppressing us" strain of thought.

Krikorian fears President Bush doesn't even view Mexico as another country. He posits a time [perhaps decades hence] when the California governor will have to check with the Mexican consulate in Sacramento before signing legislation that has any impact on our relations with Mexico.

"Mexifornia" (or MexAmerica), here we come ... unless you let Congress and the White House know you're watching them. Most politicians think you don't care.

I voted twice for GW. There is a huge gap between his aggressiveness on Iraq and his non-defense of our borders. He is supine when it comes to Messico and it's ongoing invasion of the United States. America was once a proud nation full of people who were proud to live here. This birthright is being frittered away by our Washington DC permanent Federal gubbermint.

People are enraged here in NC, where it's estimated 20% of our population are illegals--not just Mexicans, but including lots from the former Soviet Union and other such "white" nations. The moderates are convinced that Saint W is just a puppethead for the suits making fortunes off this situation, and the liberals are afraid to say anything for fear of sounding "mean." Conservatives are living in dreamland, pretending that their hero in the White House has "a great plan."
What this adds up to is my tagline below.

I met my wife over twenty five years ago. She was die-hard and never die Republican. Guess what? Bush has changed that. Every morning she comes in and reviews Free Republic. She has had it up to here and wants to know what the f--- Bush thinks he is doing to the party. Enough said. The GOP either lines W up or the party loses. I am tired really tired and retired. Illegal immigration is the issue. Nothing trumps it. Get after it W!!!! I know you are watching.

I have never - in all my adult voting life - been a single-issue voter. Not on a municipal, county, state, or federal level. But Tom Tancredo is about to get my support - and money - in '08 if the limp-pizzles in The Party Of Lincoln don't come up with a 'national' candidate to make me change my mind.

Every time Bush and Rumsfeld complain about porous borders between Iraq&Syria, Iraq&Iran, and Afganistan&Pakistan you just have to laugh at them. The problem is they just don't care, and are lying about putting serious effort into it, just like they are doing here close to home with Mexico.

And every one of these borders has an issue with terrorism and the smuggling of nuclear weapons. Lovely. I'm sick of this crap.

Mrs. Warchild is a naturalized Cuban--a more solid Reagan Republican you'll never meet. When Saint W--or any Republican shows up on television--she switches channels in disgust.
I think even those most dazzled with Bush vapor are beginning to see the truth, and that my tagline is no longer a Cassandrian wail.
Oh, but I don't want to experience eight more years of a Clinton White House, particularly THIS dangerous one!

W don't care...he's not running for reelection. LOL

But the Gelding Old Party is.
And it they don't get their collective arses in gear they are going to find out what being the Minority Party is like again verrrrrry soon!

But Tom Tancredo is about to get my support

It's not as cut and dry as you think. The below is from a recent Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll.

Opinion is divided on eliminating public assistance, such as education and health benefits, to illegal immigrants and their children. Forty-three percent of Americans favor stopping public assistance for illegal immigrants, while 45 percent oppose it.

Even so, a 62 percent majority, including almost equal majorities of Democrats (65 percent) and Republicans (62 percent), favors allowing illegal immigrants who have jobs in the United States to apply for legal, temporary worker status

Also tancredo is a backstabber to Tom Delay, with his saying Delay should step aside, all for the glow of the liberal media cameras.

But the Gelding Old Party is. And it they don't get their collective arses in gear they are going to find out what being the Minority Party is like again verrrrrry soon!

Hillary thanks you for her support, and if you beleive she is going to do anything about immigration, read my tag line.

I've long claimed, tongue in cheek, that W's position or laxk of position on the wetback invasion is so irrational that it can only be explained by something like the fact that Fox has all the copies of the pictures of W dancing naked on the bar.

The dems profit so hugely from illegal immigration that you'd have thought it would have been a political issue long ago.

How do they profit? Unlimited illegal immigration articficially depresses wage rates and so long as rates are low, blacks are better off not working and do not voluntariy enter the work force. Without Mexicans, wage rates would rise under normal market conditions and wages get higher, blacks would move into the market. Once blacks become employed and pay taxes, the status quo will change. Blacks who are dependent on the dems will continue to vote for the dems. Blacks dependent on themselves will at least examine alternatives.

I know the frustration. In Texas, we enjoyed W as Governor, did wonders with state government after Ann Richards' almost single-handed destruction of the system.

We (Texans) are just as frustrated, but I certainly won't switch to the Democrap side just because my president seems to have a mental block on this issue, but I do expect these people to MOVE ON THE ISSUE, not talk, enough talk already!

Let's hang together and hold their feet to the fire. How? I dunno, I write letters too but things just keep ponderously moving to the Left...

Hillary thanks you for her support, and if you beleive she is going to do anything about immigration, read my tag line.

Dane, you are the one whose thinking is the most "progressive" and you have "liberal" immigration views. Also, you are always talking about Hillary.

We know you can't stop thinking about Hillary.

I heard an ad on the radio for Lonegan, who is running for governor of New Jersey. He stated illegal immigrants were a problem for NJ and that he wanted to stop it.

The issue is on the radar. Unless I hear similar noises from Forrester or Schundler, Lonegan gets my vote.

Don't let Dane fool you with one Fox poll. See what Americans really think.

91 percent of those polled believe that illegal immigration is a serious problem.
Opinion Dynamics Poll for Fox News, April 25-26, 2005

55 percent of Florida voters polled believe that immigration harms the United States.
Research 2000 Florida Poll, March, 2005

A majority of Americans (52 percent) want the level of immigration reduced. Only 7 percent want to see it increased.
Gallup Poll, January 3-5, 2005

Eighty percent of Carolinians said it should be harder for people to immigrate to the United States.
2003 Carolinas Poll, August 2004

Half of Americans (49 percent) want immigration reduced. Only 14 percent want to see it increased.
Gallup Poll, July 22, 2004

Eighty-five percent of Americans believe that "large number of immigrants entering the U.S." is an important threat to the vital interest of the United States in the next 10 years. Of those, 50 percent believe it is a "crticial threat."
Gallup Poll, February 2-12, 2004

The whole page of polls showing Americans are against unbridled immigration can be found at this link.

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