Congressman Tom Tancredo
Colorado's Sixth District Representative
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Posted on 05/25/2002 1:33:39 PM PDT by TomGuy
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Congressman Tom Tancredo |
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Bordering on insanity After Sept. 11, INS reform a matter of life, death By Tom Tancredo March 24, 2002 Does the United States need borders? The answer is obvious to most Americans. We understand that our border is not a obstacle simply to be overcome by travelers and businesses, but instead a critical tool for protecting America's national interests. In fact, a poll commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies in the wake of Sept. 11 found that the overwhelming majority of Americans, across all races, regions, incomes, and political beliefs, blamed lax border control for contributing to the attacks and thought that improved immigration enforcement would reduce the likelihood of future atrocities. Unfortunately, such opinions aren't shared by much of America's elite. The anti-border view is found both on the political right and left. Perhaps most notorious among the cheerleaders for open borders have been strident libertarians at the Cato Institute and The Wall Street Journal. While the Journal's trenchant opinion pages have done much to promote the cause of liberty, they also have called repeatedly for a five-word amendment to the Constitution: "There shall be open borders." In a bitter irony, the newspaper's headquarters is located across from the World Trade Center site and was severely damaged on Sept. 11. In an ill-timed newsletter mailed just prior to the attacks, the president of the Cato Institute, the nation's premier libertarian think tank, wrote "We support relaxing the controls on immigration." But shortly after the attacks, Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at Cato and president of the lobbying group Club for Growth, recommended to advocates of open immigration to "lay low and don't talk about it a lot." Few opponents of strong borders are as candid, but over the years they have been remarkably effective in blocking efforts to improve immigration enforcement. The leadership of the AFL-CIO, for instance, appears so desperate to recruit new members that last December it reiterated a call for both an amnesty for all illegal aliens and an end to the ban on hiring future illegals, all the while piously claiming to be against open borders. And some business interests also have sought to weaken borders to increase their access to cheap labor and facilitate the movement of their personnel. After Sept. 11, advocates of loose borders launched an effort to deny the obvious. Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza said with a straight face that "There's no relationship between immigration and terrorism." Jeanne Butterfield, director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (and former director of the Palestine Solidarity Committee), echoed this party line: "I don't think the events of last week can be attributed to the failure of our immigration laws." Because of such resistance to enhanced border controls, very little has been done since the September attacks to enhance our immigration system. Many of the measures widely discussed in the past six months - a tracking system for foreign students, a computerized check-in/check-out visa mechanism for foreign visitors, and federal standards to defend the integrity of state driver's licenses - were actually passed by Congress more than five years ago, but were repealed or watered down afterward. None of my colleagues in Congress has been called to task for these actions undermining homeland security, though this may change as the November elections draw near. Since the attacks, agencies responsible for border control have made some small administrative changes. The State Department, for instance, now requires more thorough checks for young male visa applicants. And the Immigration and Naturalization Service has finally thought it worthwhile to hand over to the FBI the names of people who have gone underground to avoid deportation. Useful as they are, such changes don't go nearly far enough. State Department visa officers, for instance, are still constrained by a 1990 law which makes it almost impossible to deny a visa to a foreigner based on his "beliefs, statements or associations," if they would have been constitutionally protected in the United States. Thus the Palestinian woman we saw on TV on Sept. 11 crowing over the murder of our fellow Americans must be given a visa as long as she's not an actual terrorist. The fact that our immigration system is still broken became clear to everyone when the INS recently mailed visa-approval notices for the World Trade Center hijacker-pilots. Of course, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi won't be taking any more classes at Huffman Aviation, but any system that allows something like this to occur is deeply troubled and cries out for reform. But even the terrorist visa fiasco hasn't dissuaded the open-borders crowd from pursuing their agenda. The very day the news broke about the terrorist visas, the House of Representatives approved something the lawyers call Section 245(i), an amnesty loophole for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Even worse, this amnesty was cleverly attached to a very good border security bill, co-authored by California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein and already passed by the House of Representatives in December. This attempt to hijack a vital border security measure to promote amnesty for illegal aliens represents perhaps the most discouraging event of my entire career in politics. My shame that such a measure would be sponsored by our commander in chief, whose bold action against terror overseas has proven so effective, is tempered by pride that a surprisingly large majority of my party stood up to the president in voting against this ill-advised measure. But perhaps administration support for weak border controls should come as no surprise, considering the leadership at the INS. Commissioner James Ziglar, a self-described libertarian, has repeated the same denials of a linkage between immigration policy and terrorism as the open-borders lobbying groups: "We're not talking about immigration," he said at one point, "we're talking about evil." Maybe he thinks the 19 terrorists materialized out of thin air rather than coming through our immigration-control system. Even worse is Ziglar's chief deputy for long-term policy and planning, Stuart Anderson. As the San Diego Union-Tribune reported last week, Anderson is a libertarian ideologue who has worked tirelessly for years to weaken immigration law enforcement. Anderson, formerly of the Cato Institute and later Sen. Spencer Abraham's immigration staffer, has actually described the limited immigration response to Sept. 11 as "Gestapo tactics" - a sentiment more in line with Jane Fonda than Tom Ridge. Having people like Ziglar and Anderson in charge of the INS is a little like appointing former Washington mayor Marion Barry as drug czar. But even if the agency had leadership committed to enforcing the law, the deep-seated problems at the INS call for a complete restructuring of the agency and, indeed, of our whole approach to border enforcement. That's why in December I introduced a bill (H.R. 3600) that would create a National Border Security Agency, combining the law enforcement elements of the INS (including the Border Patrol) with the Customs Service and Coast Guard. The new agency would be headed by the director of homeland security and would provide for an integrated approach to managing the movement of people and cargo across our borders. Such consolidation is the approach favored by Ridge and was recently endorsed by the White House. Not only would the nation benefit from better communication among those defending our frontiers, but such a breakup of the current INS would enure that its law-enforcement duties are not pushed aside by the demands of special-interest groups and open-borders ideologues. A sovereign nation needs borders - borders defended on land, at sea, and in the air. Border defense needs to be closely coordinated, and overseen by responsible officials with both the resources and the commitment to do their jobs. This isn't just a matter of avoiding another embarrassment like Mohamed Atta's visas - this is a matter of life or death for ourselves and our children. |
But, they know on the door of my house to gain entry and are in my house only so long as it is necessary for them to do the work I've called them to do.
Because they have been in my house so often and for extended periods of time DOES NOT MAKE THEM MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY!!! They follow my rules while in my house and only enter with my permission/acquesence.
Why is it so difficult for the Mexicans and leftest extremist, ultra-liberals to grasp the analogy between the front door of my house and the border of our nation?
Flame away..
Having people like Ziglar and Anderson in charge of the INS is a little like appointing former Washington mayor Marion Barry as drug czar.
Tell it like it is!! Hey TF - express yourself.
Valor? He supports expanding the guest-worker program.
You might like to check this thread out. It started on March 8th of this year and is still going with close to 3000 post.
I assume you are referring to Tancredo because I certainly don't favor a guest worker program.
To my knowledge there is not a working guest-worker program in effect right now. However, Tancredo is in favor of a guest-worker program. I disagree with Tancredo on that point. Why would anyone want to start a guest-worker program when there are illegal aliens standing on almost every street corner looking for work?
I believe you will find that Tancredo would favor a guest-worker program when and if we ever get the immigration situation under control. Even then I would oppose the program. I would rather see these jobs going to Americans.
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