No amnesty, no deal, Mr. President

When the 17th Street levee broke and the floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain inundated New Orleans, the immediate imperative was: Fix the levee. Before the cleanup could begin, before the refugees could return, the levee had to be repaired so water stopped flooding into the city. Everybody understood this.

Why, then, has it taken five years for the White House to wake up to the first imperative in the immigration crisis: Fix the border, stop the flood? Why is President Bush still chattering on about a "guest worker" program that has nothing to do with the crisis?

Since he took office in 2001, Bush said in Tucson, Ariz., U.S. border agents have apprehended and sent home 4.5 million illegal aliens, "including more than 350,000 with criminal records."

Astonishing. That is 75,000 criminals a year, 200 felons a day, for the last five years, trying to break into our country to rape, rob and kill, and molest our children. Of the millions of illegals who succeeded in breaking in on Bush's watch, how many came to rape, rob and murder, like John Lee Malvo, the Beltway sniper?

This is a national crisis, an existential crisis. But after five years of ignoring it, and now finally addressing it, what did Bush say in Tucson? I can't defend the border if you won't give me a guest worker program. Said Bush, "[W]e will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary worker program."

But this is preposterous. Bush is saying he cannot do his constitutional duty to protect the nation from invasion – unless we let 12 million illegal aliens become guest workers and allow greedy U.S. businesses to go overseas and hire foreigners for jobs that U.S. workers won't take at the paltry wages they offer.

But not since the "bracero" program of decades ago have we had a national guest-worker program. And never in our history have we given business carte blanche to go abroad and hire foreigners to come and take American jobs. Yet Bush says if we don't, he can't control the border. What he means is, he won't control the border.

The president's speech in Tucson was a kind of extortion of those who have fought for tough border protections. Bush is saying: Unless you give me what I want, a guest-worker program, you're not getting what you want. But what a majority of Americans want is what they have a right to demand: That Bush do his sworn duty and enforce the immigration laws of the United States.

Conservatives should reject this "guest-worker" program, even if it is Bush's price tag for border protection. Far from solving the crisis, this Chamber of Commerce-LULAC scheme will mean final defeat, after decades of struggle to protect the borders. For though Bush may say, "I oppose amnesty," his guest-worker program is amnesty.

Amnesty means no punishment and a reward for law-breaking. And that is exactly what Bush is proposing. In his guest-worker program, those who broke our laws and broke into our country get to stay and work for six years, then go home on sabbatical, then return to work permanently. What is that, if not rewarding law-breaking?

Twenty years ago, Ronald Reagan was persuaded to grant a one-time amnesty to millions of illegal aliens who had been here for years. Result: Some 1.5 million illegal aliens were caught almost every year after. They had missed out on the amnesty, and they, too, wanted in. When Bush first broached his "guest-worker" program two years ago, there was a surge to the border from Mexico.

A recent Pew Hispanic Poll found 46 percent of all Mexicans say they would like to live in the United States and 20 percent, more than 20 million, are willing to break in. If Congress votes for Bush's guest-worker program, nothing will stop the flood – for the world will see it as admission that America is a weak nation that will not even order out of its home those who have broken in uninvited, sat down at the table and demanded to be treated like a member of the family.

As Reagan said, the country that can't control its borders isn't really a country anymore.

The battle to regain control of the borders is a cause that has won the support of a No-Longer-Silent Majority. The open-borders, Business Roundtable Republicans know it. On the run, they want to compromise. They will accept some border security, they say, if they can get in return an amnesty for their illegal workers and the legislated right of U.S. businesses to go overseas and hire foreigners to take American jobs.

Conservatives need to tell the White House: No deal, no amnesty, do your duty, defend the border, or we will find men and women to replace you who will enforce our laws and protect our country.

Buchanan's motives may be less than pure, but this is about the first thing he's written in the past four or five years that I fully agree with.

If there's a shortage of manual workers, we need to fix our whole system. Just to take California as an example, why do we need to bring in millions of illegal workers at the same time that we need to pay welfare to millions of idle men who can't find work, but lounge around the cities selling or taking drugs and getting into mischief?

As an article posted here the other day urged, these are not deadend jobs. These are jobs that people can do while finding their way to other careers and professions. These are jobs that can train people in the habit of working and the satisfactions of supporting yourself. By giving them to illegal aliens, we are actually depriving our own citizens of the bottom rungs of a ladder they might otherwise climb.

I do plenty of manual work around the place and don't find it beneath my dignity. My children have taken menial jobs to help support themselves.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

"Community" means integrating the United States with the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada. "Common perimeter" means wide-open U.S. borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

"Community" is sometimes called "space" but the CFR goal is clear: "a common economic space ... for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital, and people flow freely." The CFR's "integrated" strategy calls for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people."

The CFR document lays "the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America." The "common security perimeter" will require us to "harmonize visa and asylum regulations" with Mexico and Canada, "harmonize entry screening," and "fully share data about the exit and entry of foreign nationals."

This CFR document, called "Building a North American Community," asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal when they met at Bush's ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" and assigned "working groups" to fill in the details.

It was at this same meeting, grandly called the North American summit, that President Bush pinned the epithet "vigilantes" on the volunteers guarding our border in Arizona.

A follow-up meeting was held in Ottawa on June 27, where the U.S. representative, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, told a news conference that "we want to facilitate the flow of traffic across our borders." The White House issued a statement that the Ottawa report "represents an important first step in achieving the goals of the Security and Prosperity Partnership."

The CFR document calls for creating a "North American preference" so that employers can recruit low-paid workers from anywhere in North America. No longer will illegal aliens have to be smuggled across the border; employers can openly recruit foreigners willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages.

Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico."

The document's frequent references to "security" are just a cover for the real objectives. The document's "security cooperation" includes the registration of ballistics and explosives, while Canada specifically refused to cooperate with our Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

To no one's surprise, the CFR plan calls for massive U.S. foreign aid to the other countries. The burden on the U.S. taxpayers will include so-called "multilateral development" from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, "long-term loans in pesos," and a North American Investment Fund to send U.S. private capital to Mexico.

The experience of the European Union and the World Trade Organization makes it clear that a common market requires a court system, so the CFR document calls for "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution." Get ready for decisions from non-American judges who make up their rules ad hoc and probably hate the United States anyway.

The CFR document calls for allowing Mexican trucks "unlimited access" to the United States, including the hauling of local loads between U.S. cities. The CFR document calls for adopting a "tested once" principle for pharmaceuticals, by which a product tested in Mexico will automatically be considered to have met U.S. standards.

The CFR document demands that we implement "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico." That's code language for putting illegal aliens into the U.S. Social Security system, which is bound to bankrupt the system.

Here's another handout included in the plan. U.S. taxpayers are supposed to create a major fund to finance 60,000 Mexican students to study in U.S. colleges.

To ensure that the U.S. government carries out this plan so that it is "achievable" within five years, the CFR calls for supervision by a North American Advisory Council of "eminent persons from outside government . . . along the lines of the Bilderberg" conferences.

The best known Americans who participated in the CFR Task Force that wrote this document are former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and Bill Clinton's immigration chief Doris Meissner. Another participant, American University Professor Robert Pastor, presented the CFR plan at a friendly hearing of Senator Richard Lugar's Foreign Relations Committee on June 9.

Ask your Senators and Representatives which side they are on: the CFR's integrated North American Community or U.S. sovereignty guarded by our own borders.

GOP (Leadership) forms strategy to OK guest workers (Sneak In Amnesty???)

December 6, 2005 -- Republican leaders will try to pass President Bush's controversial guest-worker proposal without putting it to a direct vote in the House.

Observers say the new GOP strategy that begins today is for the House to deal only with the more politically palatable issue of increasing border security and clamping down on employers. Republican leaders then will let the Senate pass some form of a guest-worker plan.

After that vote, senators and House members will merge the House's border security bill with the Senate's legislation in closed-door meetings.

The House will then vote on the final package, which will include some guest-worker provision, according to a GOP aide familiar with the plan, a Colorado lawmaker and other observers.

Sensenbrenner's bill is expected to be voted on within the next two weeks. That allows House members to visit their districts for the Christmas break and say that they passed immigration reform, Tancredo and Jacoby said.

"The president's made it clear he wants both (border security and a guest-worker program)," Norquist said.

[snip]

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