Posted on 02/01/2006 7:38:50 AM PST by Reagan Man
Sadly, the President missed yet another great opportunity to correct his course on immigration reform tonight. The President should have clarified his plan and joined the forces in Congress holding the line against amnesty. Instead, Americans will have to wait and wonder where the President stands on securing our borders, while he pushes for guest workers.
The President must enforce our immigration laws before we consider any guest worker proposal. Until we bring law and order to our border anarchy, importing more workers into the equation is out of the question.
In 1986, Congress passed a blanket amnesty on the promise that border security would come later. We all remember the ’86 bait-and-switch, and we won’t be fooled again. There is no way to determine if we need guest workers, and there is no way to gain control of this broken system until we seal our borders and control our country’s interior.
A Gallup poll released this week showed that a mere 25 percent of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of immigration—his worst approval rating of all major issue areas that were surveyed.
The House’s get-tough immigration bill is in the Senate’s hands, where it is in jeopardy of being dropped or – worse yet – turned into a blanket amnesty. From his bully pulpit, President Bush could have broken the Washington stalemate and secured the most significant immigration reform in a decade. But tonight we got more of the same—more stalling, more roadblocks, more lax enforcement with no action in sight.
Border security is not an issue from which President Bush should run away. An overwhelming majority of Americans demand that their government secure the border now, and if we restore law and order, Republicans will be the political winners. As the President does in so many other areas, he must not retreat but lead.
I think he does get it.. The current immigration flap is ON PURPOSE.. Bush is not stupid.. Hes a globalist.. And massive immigration waters down Americas nationalistic bent.. Only way to combat THAT, is by massive immigration by people that have no intention of blending in(Mexicans).. Mexicans are proud of their totally corrupt governments (they have ALWAYS had) and the current Drug Cartel in charge is no different..
Bush is not stupid.. as you so glibly surmise.. Its being done ON PURPOSE, for the reason(s) I gave.. Bush is not alone.. Consider massive unchecked immigration is the (( ONLY )) thing democrats and this administration agree on..
An accident?, I don't think so.. Nothing happens by accident in Foggy Bottom.. the fog is immigration.. and WILL continue unchecked.. Global governance is looming. Only thing needed is watering down Americas nationalistic Bent.. Which is happening. Yeah!.. even here at Free Republic..
This was probably the worst part of his speech. Bush would have been better off saying nothing about immigration.
It sucks, just as Clintons, GHWB's, and RWR's and Fords did.
NOW, he is talking about fixing it. We've had 30 years minimum of unfettered access, and GWB is PROPOSING to fix it. Where is your anger at the congress for the last 30 years. They are lawmakers, are they not?
Untrue. I'll have to find it, but there is publication that reviewed that claim and found it to be false. llegals do not pay in taxes what they use in services-to the tune of about $2000 extra per year per native household.
The US is not responsible for fixing Mexico. Mexicans are.
I won't even get started on illegal alien crime, but I can tell you in my area, it is the major contributor to the crime stats.
And there IS a need to treat "hard working families" this way. Each time you ignore their behavior, you encourage and increase the problem for the native population. Who gave you the right to ignore the needs of your fellow citizens in favor of subsidizing citizens of another country? If you wish to invest your private funds in such as venture, feel free, but you most certainly DON'T have the right to impose that on the rest of us.
It's laughable. 15 million that have proven they don't give a hoot about the law, will now change their stripes. Why? Well, because of another law of course! LOL!!!
We already have 11,000 people patrolling. The fence will make them tremendously more effective because it will slow the invaders down long enough for them to get on the scene and make an arrest.
Currently, without a fence our Border Patrol has to spread out over an area 20 miles deep into the desert on our side of the border. For a 2000 mile border that means they are patrolling 40,000 square miles or one agent per 3.6 square miles assuming agents worked 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. In reality, the density of agents is much lower. They are very spread out and it is very easy to get by them. Thousands get by successfully every night.
With a fence the Border Patrol will be able to focus on a line 50 feet wide. For a 2000 mile border that will mean that they are paroling a long thin strip which totals only 20 square miles. That means Border Patrol Agent density will be 0.002 square miles per agent. They will be very close together and it will be much more difficult to penetrate the border undetected. With the existing personnel we will get much denser coverage of our border.
Ladders won't work fast enough if they have to penetrate coiled siege wire, a ditch, a fence, a second fence and then more coiled siege wire. Movement sensors would give Border Patrol Agents plenty of time to get on the scene in most cases. In areas near San Diego it works very well so we know it is effective. If we catch one, we will probably not shoot him unless he gives due cause. We would likely arrest him just like we do now. But with a very tight border, a lot less illegals will be even making the attempt so the workload will taper off. A little meaningful enforcement buys a lot of compliance.
As far as tunnels go, at that point we have won. Tunnels will be very expensive to dig and while they might be cost effective for drugs they will never makes sense except for the very best paying illegals. Of the 25 or so tunnels discovered so far, most were found before they were complete which means they were a lost investment for the smugglers. I don't claim a fence will be perfect but right now we have over half a million people coming per year which is several thousand per day. How long do you think a tunnel would go undiscovered if several thousand people started emerging from it every night?
sw
A bunch of the people that glommed onto this thread are neo nazis...not all.
If you are a bigot, you are on my sh*t list. Comprende?
Where did our founding fathers come from..dip.
Good arguments, but I still believe that a wall would be too easy to circumvent, too expensive to build and maintain. If economic conditions ever do improve in Mexico, the wall would be instantly a waste of time.
Getting it done politically with half the nation opposed to it would be impossible.
Yup very true of how it worked. That's when immigration was legal and controlled. Even during the Great Wave many years saw no more than 3 or 4 hundred thousand enter and it worked for this country unlike today with the free-for-all we're experiencing.
On FR my concern right now is that traditional conservatism is being watered down and that leads to American nationalism being watered down. You make a good point. I don't think Bush43 is as big a globalist as Bush41 was/is. I do believe Bush is turning a blind eye on immigration reform for two obvious reasons. One, he wants to assure a continued flow of cheap labor into the US. Two, Bush is pandering to the Hispanic voters in hopes of them going for GOP candidates in 2006&2008. I just finished listening to a live speech by the President. On immigration reform, spending and big government, his rhetoric is purely status quo.
Exactly so. And those slums still persist a hundred years later and in many places they are now expanding out into the suburbs. Ask the people of Long Island. In the mid-1960s we started a war against poverty and as far as i know it is still ongoing and I am still paying massive taxes to pay for it. I can't for the life of me think why anyone would think it was a good idea to import more poverty.
The point is that the vast majority of those people then constitute the mainstream of America today. I think you will find that there has been a complete sea change in the make up of those areas.
You will always have slums..
Immigrants have always started at the bottom and worked their way up. Latin immigrants will be no different.
Dittos to that, couldn't have said it better myself. :) I'd have more respect for some of these people if they just came out and admitted it's about greed and increasing profits off the backs of these poor immigrants willing to work for barely anything instead of hiding behind outdated poems as a reason policies can't be modified.
Not even close! That is the Tamar Jacoby deception where she tries to talk about the contributions without tallying the costs. Read this: The High Cost of Cheap Labor
You seem remarkably uninformed about illegal immigration. Perhaps you should sit back and listen for a while and learn something.
Forget about the last 30 years. We've had five long years of rhetoric from this President on the issues of illegal immigration and open borders. What has Bush done about the over one million illegals that enter the US every year? NOTHING! What has Bush done about securing our borders? NOTHING! What has Bush done about employers who violate the law? NOTHING! This is a huge national security issue and after five long years, all Bush can do is handout rhetorical BS. Bush has offered nothing to solve the problems of illegal immigration. PresReagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 into law. Its still the law of the land. It specifically states that employers who hire illegals will be prosceuted and punished for violating the law. I suggest PresBush enforce the IRCA of 1986. It would go a long way to solving the illegal immigration problem America has today. Time for Bush to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
Each illegal costs the taxpayers $89,000 net. But those that hire illegals do not care about that, because they make the profit and the sucker taxpayer pays it.
As long as Mexicans can make ten times the money in the US as they can at home, we will have this problem. Fix that problem, and you will cure the illegal immigration problem. That is why a guest worker program is integral to any solution.
A Guest Worker Program is integral only to businesses making greater profits on cheaper labor. The cheap labor lobby could give a rats behind about the plight of poverty in Mexico, so long as they get workers for cheap.
Scratch any Republican who supports the President's proposals and you'll find someone profiting from cheap labor.
I'll be happy to look that over, but I'll probably find the same twisted statistics as usual.
I believe I am as well informed as any average person. I don't claim to have any cures, just tired of the non stop bashing of Bush when he is trying to do something about a nearly intractable problem.
Most of the griping on this thread boils down to ..get rid of Mexicans. That isn't going to happen.
Thanks for the reasonable discussion.
Who says half the nation is opposed? Poll after poll shows that 75% to 80% of our population thing the borders are a major problem and want stronger enforcement. Illegal immigration is the single area of greatest job disapproval for President Bush with most of his own base in disagreement with his policies. The House just passed a bill which included 700 miles of fence with fairly strong Democratic support.
It is basically only the Open Borders types who are opposed.
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