While SB 1070 is still being litigated, it has had a positive effect in dealing with illegal immigration. Yet, I remember Gov. Perry announcing his opposition to the Arizona law saying, “it would not be the right direction for Texas.”
Gov. Perry has been in office for over ten years, eight of those with a Republican President. What results does he have (with illegal immigration) to demonstrate the “right direction” for Texas?
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” And you sure shouldn’t sell Liberty cheaply, for no purpose.
Stating that “it would not be the right direction for Texas” is not opposition. This is the Governor who called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” global warming a “carbon cult,” and called printing money for political purposes, “treasonous.”
The Feds only authorized 700 miles of fencing, and made actual efforts at 300. The border is 2000 miles long, and 1200 miles is in Texas. That wall was designed to be a failure: scalable with a truck or ladder, and un-manned. The plans always called for the fence to be “non-contiguous sections.”
Eminent domain by the Federal Government to take land and land use in Texas in order to set up a real fence would take 1200 miles, however deep, of private property from Texans. It would wipe out productive farms, ranches and homesteads owned by Americans. But again: there’s only plans for 300 miles in Texas.
“”The remaining 370 miles, to be built primarily in urban areas, are expected to have actual steel fencing. About 85 miles, in 26 noncontiguous sections, are expected to be built in Texas. The bulk of that fencing, about 70 miles, is slated for South Texas.””
We do have our DPS, our helicopters, our Rangers. We have 250 of the 1000 National Guardsmen and 2/6 aerial drones that Obama’s administration sent and we did win a reprieve when he decided to pull the troops after only 6 months. Then, there’s that fence, for all of its holes
We do have 1200 miles of border, so the few resources we have are stretched thin. By the time personnel reaches an area, say at the fence, where movement is detected, the invaders are nowhere to be seen.
Then, there’s also the problem with getting Houston, El Paso, Austin, etc., PD to identify and arrest illegal aliens. Their police chiefs are hostile to the idea. Some of the County Sheriffs refused to implement the virtual wall, some because they didn’t want to cooperate, but mostly because of the problem of reacting and manning response.