Posted on 10/26/2006 8:51:12 AM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration.
"Unfortunately the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and therefore illegal immigration has been on the rise," Bush said at a signing ceremony.
"We have a responsibility to enforce our laws," he said. "We have a responsibility to secure our borders. We take this responsibility serious." He called the fence bill "an important step in our nation's efforts to secure our borders."
The centerpiece of Bush's immigration policy, a guest worker program, remains stalled in Congress.
And a handful of House Republican are at the brakes, blocking negotiations with the Senate for a bill that includes the president's proposal.
Still, Bush argues that it would be easier to get his guest worker program passed if Republicans keep their majorities in the House and Senate after the Nov. 7 elections. His proposal would allow legal employment for foreigners and give some of the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a shot at becoming American citizens. The measure Bush put into law Thursday before heading for campaign stops in Iowa and Michigan offers no money for the fence project covering one-third of the 2,100-mile border.
Its cost is not known, although a homeland security spending measure the president signed earlier this month makes a $1.2 billion down payment on the project. The money also can be used for access roads, vehicle barriers, lighting, high-tech equipment and other tools to secure the border.
Mexican officials have criticized the fence. Outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has spent much of his six years in office lobbying for a new guest worker program and a chance at citizenship for the millions of Mexicans working illegally in the U.S., calls the fence "shameful" and compares it to the Berlin Wall.
Others have doubts about its effectiveness.
"A fence will slow people down by a minute or two, but if you don't have the agents to stop them it does no good. We're not talking about some impenetrable barrier," T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing Border Patrol agents, said Wednesday. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that apprehensions at border crossings are down 8 percent nationally for the budget year that just ended, Bonner said. Apprehensions were up in the San Diego sector, he said, an area of the nearly 2,000-mile border that has the most fencing.
A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection would not confirm the statistics or discuss reasons for the increase in the San Diego sector. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both Texas Republicans, had wanted to amend the fence bill to give local governments more say about where fencing is erected. They lost that battle, but Republican leaders assured them the Homeland Security Department would have flexibility to choose other options instead of fencing, if needed.
Cornyn said he voted for the fence because he wanted to help demonstrate that Congress was serious about border security.
"The choice we were presented was: Are we going to vote to enhance border security, or against it?" Cornyn said. "I think that's how the vote was viewed."
According to the BushBots, this outrageous statement clearly indicates you are a retarded, leftist DU troll!
LOL!
If the destruction of America's national sovereignty, America's middle class and the Republican Party are your goals, then Bush is indeed doing a whole lot right!
No the worst are from your party. Carter the retard, my apologies to the mentally handicapped including my uncle, and Clinton whom put all of us at risk "when Monica blew, Al Qaeda grew". (quote thanks to another freeper)
Yes, Reagan's amnesty was a huge blunder. So was backing the mujahadeen in Afganistan.
But Bush has undone Reagan's work of shrinking federal government, building America's military power, and defending our national sovereignty.
I know.
But check out my prior posts - I'm probably more Conservative than most of them and have been an active Republican for a VERY long time.
I remember Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits and Keating walking out on Barry Goldwater at the Repubican Convention in 1964.
I've hated RINOs ever since - and people who think like them.
Good news, but champagne remains corked until wall erected.
Yet, you rail about Bush signing for a fence?
What was so bad about the mujahadeen?
What I said was that divided government is always better than one-party rule. We were better off with a Republican Congress fighting Clinton's abuses of power every step of the way, than a Republican Party that rubber-stamps Jorge Bush's abuses of power.
If you were a TRUE conservative, and knew about the philosophy behind our Constitution, you would understand this. The Founding Fathers knew that all politicians are crooks and that all political parties are just organized crime.
Anyone who puts blind faith in any one political party is not a TRUE conservative.
Ever heard of a guy named Osama bin Laden?
Majahadeen were RADICAL MOSLEMS, for cryin' out loud! Backing your mortal enemy (ISLAM) to spite a co-religious comrade with whom you are having a temporary disagreement (RUSSIA) was absurd. I said so at the time, not that anybody would listen to a college student...
You are a moron. You think you are far right, when in actuality, you are a Lew Rockwell liberal, who sees more eye to eye with Cindy Sheehan than with Reagan. Take that Bush is a globalist liberal agenda back to the Liberty Post, where it belongs.
Did Bush suspend the abortion $ that was going to in foreign aid, reversing a clintoon exec order?
Did Bush unilaterally withdraw from the ABM?
Did Bush reject the Kyoto protocol against world condemnations?
Did Bush give the harshest speech to the UN it ever received in the lead up to the Iraq war?
Did Bush appoint John Bolton over the UN's and the Dems vociferous objections?
Did Bush unilaterally reject the International Criminal Court?
Is Bush the only world leader giving Israel cover during its fight with the hezzie dirtballs?
Did Bush give in and stop the NSA surveillance program because europe complained?
Did Bush conquer Iraq despite the UN telling him not to invade?
Did Bush allow bombings of a terrorist pow-wow accross the Pakistani border without UN approval?
Did he allow a hellfire missile to take out some terror scum in Yemen w/o UN approval of an attack on yemeni soil?
Did Bush put up steel tarrifs for a year despite the gnashing of teeth from the GATT and our allies?
Did Bush play hardball with the Canadians on soft lumber for the last 5 years? Did Bush play hardball with the canadians on salmon fishing harvests in 2001/2002?
Is Bush pushing for nuclear power plants, more coal plants and drilling in ANWR despite the howls of the global warming cretins and envirowackos?
Do our troops operate anywhere in the world under the UN banner or did Bush sign an executive order prohibiting it?
Is Bush heeding the UN and other world critics about the need to ban the death penalty?
Did Bush close down Guantanamo or any other prison despite the international condemnation?
Did Bush send Rummy to NATO to get along with the status quo or to pull it out of its stupor?
Did Bush sit down for one on one talks with NoKo because Kofi Annan and the globalists said he must?
Is Bush offering Japan and Israel and Australia and Britain our missile defense systems because Russia and China approve?
Did Bush and Cheney call Putin on the carpet because it would smooth international relations?
Who, besides Bush and the Pope, call on China to open up to political and religious freedom?
Who was the only president to EXPLICITLY say we will defend Taiwan against a chinese aggression?
Which world leader told the UN to pound sand and caused it's gun grabbing conference on small arms control to flop?
Who said that we will treat any regime that sponsors terrorists the same as the terrorists themselves?
Who is the only world leader pushing hard to isolate Iran over the nuclear program?
Did Bush allow the execution of Mexican criminals over the screeching objections of the Mexican gov't?
Who is pushing for massive UN reform?
Who has been insisting on a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
Who spearheaded the arms shipment interception policy with a handful of other countries that did not ask the UN for approval, and which led to busting Kaddafi?
Which country is putting the kabash on UN talks regarding international taxation?
Who is having troops operate in the horn of Africa w/o UN approval?
Which leader has called the islamo fascists islamo fascists?
Is Bush content with the status quo in the ME or is he ramrodding changes down their throats?
Has Bush lifted the sanctions on Cuba due to international pressure, or did he up the fines to Americans that travel there?
Did Bush cave into the euroweenies who complained about the size of the corporate tax cuts he signed into law?
Did Bush just sign the Border Fence Bill, against the backdrop of Vincente Fox calling it another Berlin Wall?
Did He just ramrod thru the legislation allowing our military to try these scumbag terrorists?
Internationalist my ass.
Good post. Saved. Thanks.
No, I rail about Bush selling out our national sovereignty to international corporations; encouraging our invasion by the Third World; bloating the size of the federal government; trampling on our privacy; destroying our Constitutional right to free speech; miring us in an unwinnable and naive war to turn Iraqis into peace-loving, free market democrats; and GUARANTEEING that the DemocRats will control the federal government for the next decade.
Well done!
Wake up.
Has gun control flourished or withered during Bush's term. It not only has withered, but there only a handful of morons left in this country, dems in safe seats, that are willing to even propose new gun restrictions. Did Bush direct Ashcroft to change the federal governments official position on the 2nd amendment to state that it is an induvidual right. The Chuckie Schumers of the world were screaming, but he didn't give a rats ass about Chukie Schumer and his ilk.
There is no way on this earth that this economy would be cooking along as it has been if not for Bush's tax cuts. Yes BUSH's tax cuts. He proposed them, he strongarmed them thru congress and he intends to make them all permanent. Corporate profits are skyrocketing in most sectors which, contrary to libthink, is a DAMN GOOD THING.
Has Bush defanged, to a large degree OSHA and the EPA? You better believe it. The clean air act, remember that debacle? Bush has reined that turd in, so much so that Elliot Spitzer and the NY libs are suing the feds. Bush wipes his a** with environmentalists. He also rescinded via executive order Clinton's OSHA workplace rules that would have stifled business.
Bush is reshaping the ME. Before hitting Afghanistan and Iraq, terrorists were free to plan and plot and finance and train in large swaths of the muslim world. No more. Aside from Syria and Iran, there are no more safe havens in the ME. Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, UAE were rife with terrorists and terror financiers. Now, they have been some of the most helpful allies in snuffing Al Quaeda. Are they perfect, hell no, but that is a far cry from where they were 6 years ago.
And now he has listened to the will of conservatives and broke from his plans for a comprehensive immigration reform package, and has signed on to border security first, with the House GOP.
Yet all I hear from you is complaints. Is GWB a rabid right winger like me, nope. But other than Reagan and Coolidge, he is next on the list of most conservative presidents. Is he a rabid right winger like me? Nope, but he is BY FAR THE BEST MAN FOR THE JOB TODAY.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.