Posted on 05/15/2006 7:42:23 PM PDT by JerseyHighlander
Bush Budget Scraps 9,790 Border Patrol Agents Houston Chronicle
President uses law's escape clause to drop funding for new homeland security force. Washington -- The law signed by President Bush less than two months ago to add thousands of border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has crashed into the reality of Bush's austere federal budget proposal, officials said Tuesday.
Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 after extensive bickering in Congress, the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. Roughly 80 percent of the agents were to patrol the southern U.S. border from Texas to California, along which thousands of people cross into the United States illegally every year.
But Bush's proposed 2006 budget, revealed Monday, funds only 210 new border agents.
The shrunken increase reflects the lack of money for an army of border guards and the capacity to train them, officials said.
Retired Adm. James Loy, acting head of the Department of Homeland Security until nominee Michael Chertoff takes over, said funding only 210 new agents was a "recognition that we need to balance those things as we go on down the road with other priorities."
The White House referred questions about the border agents to the Homeland Security Department.
The law signed by Bush had a caveat that went virtually unreported at the time. A summary, published by the Senate Government Affairs Committee, required the government to increase the number of border patrol agents by at least 2,000 per year, "subject to available appropriations."
Democrats were unhappy that the proposed budget used the escape clause so soon after the president approved the huge boost in border agents.
"We know we must do more to shore up security along our borders," said Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, top Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "The president's budget does not even attempt to meet this challenge."
Some Republicans also were displeased.
"This is an area of homeland security that needs to be ramped up in order to increase surveillance and patrols of our nation's vast and often remote borders," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
A Jan. 24 letter signed by leading Republican lawmakers implored the president to fully fund the new law "in order to secure our borders against infiltration by terrorists."
The lead signer was Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a leader of GOP efforts to toughen immigration laws and anti-terrorism statutes.
20,000,000 more
strike that, it's 100,000,000 more, over 20 years
You are mistaken. We sealed the border between North and South Korea for more than 50 years.
We are pulling the 2nd Infantry Division off that border and bringing them home. We should put them on our Mexican border.
They are highly trained in sealing a border and could be used to train other troops scheduled to be deployed to other hostile borders around the world. With the 2nd Division on the border, not only would the criminal aliens not break into the country, the Mexican military wouldn't cross the border and shoot at Americans any more.
We sealed the border and protected South Korea for 50 years. There is no reason to believe our military can't protect our border.
Bears repeating
Yes, because I'm new to the forum, I can't criticize people who are responding irrationally to the subject of immigration.
When people on this forum are crying out that Bush has betrayed this country, I'm reminded of Al Gore's moment in front of a MoveOn crowd. When people on this forum pin the blame for Congressional inaction on the President, I'm reminded of how the DUmmies blame America for 9/11. When people on this forum want to treat the illegal immigrants like enemy combatants, instead of trespassers, I'm reminded of DUmmy entreaties to prevent conservatives from voting.
There are two issues in securing the border. The first, which the President has the most discretion over, is securing it against foreign enemies. The second requires the cooperation of Congress and that is securing the border against illegal immigration. The two are completely different, and the President has done a decent job of ensuring our borders are safe from enemy incursions. If that weren't true, we'd probably have been attacked by now by terrorists who made it into our country illegally. As it is, Muslims or Arabs who have tried to cross the border illegally have been apprehended, and those are just the attempts that we know about. The number of incursions that have been stopped are unknown because to reveal them would be to compromise the intelligence sources used to find and stop them. We don't know everything that is being done to secure us from terrorist attacks, and we can't know everything or else risk invalidating those methods.
So, I'll hold my tongue if the DU-style irrationality stops. Since I'm not going to hold my breath and risk suffocation for such craziness to stop, I'm going to toss in my opinions, just as everybody else is feeling free to do. Or are the opinions of "anti-Bushies" more valid than mine? And if so, you should read my comments on Bush being as far Left as one can go and still be a conservative. We all knew what he was, and we also know that he is what it takes to get a Republican elected in this country. Anything less conservative or more conservative would have been unable to win in 2000 or 2004. And we'd either be living in a Gore hell hole, or a Kerry hell hole right now, and the anti-Bushies primary complaint will be that they should've voted for Bush.
Which only begs the question... Why should I hold my tongue when nobody else seems to be doing so?
Confronted with the national crisis of an illegal foreign invasion it's nice to see where George "big spender" Bush had his priorities -- not by cutting the biggest entitlement since LBJ, but in making our borders even less secure!
Election 2006 Immigration-Reform Candidates
http://www.betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/featuredraces.html
Bush is a whore for Big Business. The Bush administration informed the Mexican government of the Minutemen's positions so the Mexican government could help illegals find other places to cross. Bush is actively helping illegal aliens sneak into this country because his pals in Big Business need the cheap labor. As far as Bush is concerned, the average American can kiss his rear-end. For Bush, his friends come first, and he doesn't care how much it costs anyone else.
Anti-Bushies refer to me often as a Bush-bot, yet nobody tells them to stop.
I'm going to call it like I see it on this one, and the DU similarity is one of irrational hysteria contained with in a lot of the posts. And I'm not casting aspersions on people who dislike Bush for legitimate reasons, just on the extreme cases where I think some FReepers are going over the line from genuine concern for our sovereignty and outright bigotry against hispanics and Muslims. Since I've run into more animosity from Liberals than I have from American Muslims that I've met. Therefore, I have more animosity toward Liberals than for Muslims in general. I rank Liberals right up there with terrorists, when it comes to recognizing threats to our security. Hispanics looking for jobs rank very low on my threat-o-meter, and while I would like better law enforcement of our immigration laws, I'm always more concerned with securing our borders against the enemy. But I also think that if Congress wants to toss in the necessary funding, I'd like to see BP up to full strength as defined by the bill they passed a couple of years ago. But I'm also aware that getting the BP up to that full strength level is going to take an act of Congress, and I'm not going to blame the President.
The President has a lot of faults, but he would never betray this country or put us at risk. And that is what a lot of the extremely harsh rhetoric on this forum has been implying.
"Bush has consecutively reduced discretionary spending in the budget every year he has been in office. "
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-26.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/tst021606a.cfm
Yep, you're right, and these guys are wrong.
AMNESTY ! ! !
Bush>>>"I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, … to pay their taxes, … to learn English … and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I’ve have just described is not amnesty it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen."
I understand Bush's speech as follows: all an illegal has to do is register, learn English well enough to answer several standard questions, and remain safely in the US... 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 years. His residency then citizenship is locked in. He or she does NOT have to go back to Mexico and try from there.
Allee, allee in free!
So, is it going to be 12 million, 30 million or 100 million new Democrat voters? Maybe only 60 per cent of those will vote Democrat if a liberal RINO runs on the Republican ticket.
This is a sell out. The rhetoric of the President sounded reasonable, but when you unwrap the details, there's an ugly amnesty staring you in the face. Also, there is only a 9 months committment (1 year minus ramp up) of the National Guard units. There's no quantity committment on the Border Patrol. This is a sell out but it may appear "reasonable" to those who don't read the speech directly.
Bush says there's no amnesty but there is.
With that attitude of course it is not.
Increasing border enforcement is fine but thinking we could ever seal the border is absurd.
I know a couple of Border Patrol Supervisors who would take issue with you on that one. They insist if given the resources the Border Patrol can shut it down.
Those are legitimate concerns and gripes with the President... But have you read all of the posts with less than legitimate accusations leveled against the President? They're all over every single immigration thread.
Those are the ones I'm responding to. They demean and cast a shadow over the opinions held by people with legitimate gripes and concerns, and if the extreme posts are allowed to characterize the entire site, then FR will be earning the unearned label of being a right wing, bigotted web site that many people, including a lot of conservatives, believe it to be. The best part about FR that separates it from the DU is the discourse and diversity of opinions, most of them rational and well founded, based on reality. Unfortunately, the posts that stick out tend to be the ones that imitate the DU for their unreal, hysterical tones.
I may be a Bush bot, but I'm as likely to criticize the President when he makes a mistake, or is disingenuous. But I have to say that he is far less often disingenuous than his predecessor, and when he is - it is almost always unintentional or due to a poorly thought out or badly worded statement. Clinton on the other hand was deliberately disingenuous.
As for this President, I'm inclined to let him try it his way. His way may be better than the "do nothing" Congress that we've been saddled with. It may not be as ideal as building a wall 40 feet high, and 30 feet thick, from the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean, but he is the point and I'm willing to give him the lead, or else admit that I wasted my vote. Since I'm not going to admit that Kerry would've been better, I'm willing to put the country into the hands of the man I voted to receive it, and if he has a plan - I say let's try it. If it is like a lot of things he's tried to do and done, it will probably work out better than predicted and at lower costs than expected.
I agree with more strict enforcement on employers, however I also think that in the absence of a self-consistent immigration policy that includes a closed border, such a measure would be punitive and hypocritical.
If the government isn't going to be serious about closing the border and rationalizing our immigration policy, then punishment for employers who hire illegals should be limited to those who pay less than minimum wage, or deny benefits to undocumented workers. This caveat will focus on already illegal behavior and companies employing illegals.
Ideally speaking, a rational immigration policy, closed border, and strict and punitive enforcement of immigration laws on employers and illegals in-country would be preferred.
It brings to mind that Canada is far more discriminating and less welcoming to immigrants than we are. Even White Anglo Saxon Protestants with jobs and savings in the bank have trouble emigrating to Canada, let alone third world refugees with no education and employment offers. Then again, Canada can't absorb or employ the numbers of immigrants that we can.
As for the specifics of how the guest worker program will work, I think employers who insist on hiring an immigrant can register with the INS, who will then post employment opportunities. The employers would pay a finder's fee and work with the guest worker they end up hiring as far as covering costs goes. But there should be a number of open slots for seasonal workers, menial laborers/unskilled, who will be admitted based on economic requirements for immigrant labor defined by each state. Essentially, states would be able to set quotas with the INS for visas they need to fill gaps in employment within their state, and the parameters that the state is looking for.
There will have to be a "bond" system, for employers or states who request guest worker visas where the employer or state pays a refundable bond, refunded upon the successful completion of a visa term and the departure of the guest worker, or conversion of the guest worker's status to citizen track and permanent residency. A violation of the visa term, including conviction of a criminal act would result in forfeiture of the bond, and possibly revocation or limitations on that state's or employer's access to the system.
The bond system is used in other countries successfully. If certain states or employers feel the need to hire immigrants, the system should not be prohibitive or punitive for those who work with the system. If anything the system should grease the wheels and enable, or else we might as well not bother with the fiction of immigration, and just close our borders and revoke all immigration visas, future and pending.
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