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Recently, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff announced an ostensible policy that elated those Americans who have been increasingly concerned about the invasion of illegals across the nation’s southern border. According to Chertoff, all such people needed to be escorted out of the country, and within the amazing timetable of one year. Yet, as with all great deals that sound too good to be true, this one certainly was. Within days, Chertoff was backtracking and waffling, ultimately revealing the real goal of his outlandish pronouncement to be a grand scheme of smoke and mirrors, with a “guest worker” program residing far back within its dark recesses. Here, Chertoff tipped the hand of Washington insiders whose phony professions of alarm over the illegal problem belie an ominous agenda.

Yep!

This is actually a bit inaccurate. This was a classic example of the press either misinterpreting or deliberately misquoting Chertoff. I remember it because I commented about it here several times on the day it happened. He and the White House immediately attempted to correct the misreporting which is what prompted me to actually access the transcript of what he said. Our side was ecstatic because we were interpreting it as the Administration finally deciding to get tough on illegala.

When Chertoff spoke of escorting these people out of the country, he was speaking only of the "catch and release" program. As it is currently run, any illegal that is caught at the Mexican border has one of two things happen to him. If he is Mexican, he is immediately transported back to his county of origin since it's just a quick drive back over the border. If the illegal is not Mexican, then they are issued a citation to report for a deportation hearing at a later date and then released, ergo: catch and release. Chertoff's original comments were that they wanted to detain these people and return them to their country of citizenship rather then releasing them and hoping they'd come back for the hearing. It did not address people already here illegally.

So, tough talking aside, Chertoff (or the Administration, for that matter) has never been serious about dealing with illegals already here, presumably doing jobs Americans don't want to do. The motivation for amnesty, um, guest workers is simple....you don't have to deal with Social Security payments, pensions, healthcare, et al. with the added benefit of suppressing wages for Americans in similar industries. And if you threaten to end the program you get the horror stories about how your food prices will go up, etc, which the facts just don't support as was demonstrated in the tomato and grape farming industry at the end of the bracero program (the last legal amnesty program)in the 1960's.