[Ladycalif]

That is NOT true - we put down the signs were still not allowed in.

[RonDog]

That is NOT true - we put down the signs were still not allowed in.

I am sorry that your experience was different than mine.

I was (obviously) not with you when it happened, so I cannot effectively address what happened to you.

I CAN, however, state with conviction that the woman who sat beside me in the second row was wearing a Minuteman BASEBALL CAP (and perhaps also a Minuteman SHIRT) -- and they let HER in with no problem.

Perhaps the volunteers that hassled you were overly protective. Some of the FDT staff that I encountered did seem a little lacking in people skills.

Still, Fred himself seems to support our cause, from totalbuzz.freedomblogging.com:

Let me ask you a couple questions about immigration. What needs to be done to secure the borders?

I think complying with existing law would be a good start. And that would mean several hundred miles of fence. Clearly, technology has an important part to play in that. I think more Border Patrol is needed.

It’s not a matter of how. You can get a few experts around the table and figure it out precisely in a day. This is a nation that went to the moon how many years ago? And we’re saying we can’t even secure even a long border? That’s not serious. It’s a matter of political will and priorities.

It will cost some money. Just as a lot of other things, frankly, are going to cost additional amounts of money. National security and military needs and capabilities. We’re stretched too thin and worn out in a lot of respects.

But it’s no trick as to the how. The trick is to the whether. It’s true with so many issues facing our country. The most important issues are still on the table because they’re politically difficult.

You can’t get an expert in Washington worth his salt who will tell you that our current entitlement course is sustainable. Just the opposite. And here we are in the middle of a political campaign, and nobody’s saying anything about it. And nobody is pressing them to say anything about it. And here we go along. Is it a matter of lack of expertise? Is it a matter of know-how? No.

To say you have a stretch of territory here and the United States of America can’t make it preventable so that illegals can’t come across? It’s not a serious (assessment) I don’t think.

Let’s say we secure the border. There’s anywhere from 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants in the country. You’ve spoken in the past against any plan that would give them amnesty. What would you do with those people?

Enforcement by attrition is what I call it. If you secure the border, if you require employers to obey the law and give them some assistance in doing that – again, technology is a great help here. They have a system called the e-verify system where employers can, in effect, punch a button and pretty much tell…

And, at a time when we’re suppose to be trying to secure the border, quit luring people across the border with sanctuary cities and in-state tuition and things of that nature. Both of which, incidentally, are against the law. When I was in the Congress, we passed laws that prohibited that, and it’s been violated on a daily basis. The locals are telling their local law enforcement people that they cannot cooperate when they come across an illegal presence in their jurisdiction.

So if we quit shooting ourselves in the foot in that respect, after a while the situation will reverse itself and we will begin to see it take care of itself. It will take a good while, there’s not question about that. But the alternative of either a mass deportation – you can’t even apprehend them and nobody wants to do that – or just say, “Well, you got here so welcome to the club. And you’re entitled the (rights) of citizenship. And never mind those people that waited 14 years in line in Hong Kong to become American citizens.”

Orange County is one of the bases for the Minuteman Project, a civilian border patrol group. President Bush called them vigilantes. Gov. Schwarzenegger praised their work. What do you think of that?

(DARRELL NG, a former aide to Schwarzenegger and one of two Thompson aides in the room for this interview, clarified that Schwarzenegger later backed off from his initial praise for the group.)

FRED THOMSPON: Schwarzenegger? I don’t know enough of everything they have done to pass judgment on all of them.

Anybody trying to help secure the border, I think, is a good thing, if they obey the law.