Charlie Daniels: Time to shut down on illegal immigrants

It seems that the U.S.A. has a history of waiting until the horse is gone before securing the proverbial barn door. In some cases it´s simply expensive or inconvenient, but in some cases it is downright dangerous.

Although few on the left are willing to admit, it´s pretty well known that Bill Clinton had at least three chances to take bin Ladin into custody and refused. We all know that we brought Saddam to his knees during the first Gulf War and sailed away without finishing the job, necessitating the second Gulf War.

We all know that our Congress usually takes so long in passing meaningful legislation that by the time it becomes law it is, many times, toothless and obsolete.

But one of the most dangerous things happening in our nation right now is the situation at our southern borders. Everyday illegals cross the international border of Mexico with impunity. Our cities are inundated with unpapered, non-English speaking aliens.

I have no problem with honest people coming to this country seeking a better life for them and their families, but when they come in illegally I am dead set against it. We don´t even know they´re here and we have no way of knowing what kind of people they are.

Are they Islamic sympathizers bent on destroying us and our way of life? Are they violent gang members who hire out to do murder and mayhem? Are they drug traffickers, fugitives from the law, disease carriers or political malcontents?

The fact is that when they simply walk across our borders we have no way of knowing who or what they are. Is this not insanity?

It has been proven that most politicians have not got the guts to deal with the situation. It´s not a Democratic or Republican thing, nor a left or right thing, it´s simply a political hot potato that will continue to grow bigger and hotter until it eventually explodes in one way or another.

These illegals are straining the budgets of every border state and now some politicians want to give them what´s tantamount to having undocumented American citizenship, allowing them to participate in social programs and entitlements.

There is no way that this situation is ever going to resolve itself. This is a festering sore that becomes bigger and more infected every passing day and, at sometime in the future, will manifest itself in some catastrophic result in this nation. Whether it comes in the form of a nuclear attack or some contagious, out-of-control disease, when it hits I hope that people in this nation will remember how our state and federal politicians left us vulnerable and defenseless, all in the cause of trying to buy themselves a few more votes.

In my book they´re all culpable - the president, Congress, Senate, governors and legislatures. It´s way past time to shut the barn door.

Charlie Daniels is a successful country music artist and enjoys writing a weekly column.

So, what have YOU done lately to help "enforce" immigration code? When was the last time you've filed a complaint against an illegal alien with your local ICE office? if ever?

First of all, Charlie is right on as usual. Second, what you propose isn't that simple. As an employer, you can refuse to hire those without proper paperwork. As a citizen, good luck reporting the crowd waiting for work at the local park. Nevermind, Home Depot is their gathering spot now, and ICE doesn't seem to care.

Now I can have suspicions about the man selling bedspreads, or the lady selling tamales(buy them, they're delicious!) in the grocery store parking lot, but I'm basing my suspicions on their skin color and language/accent. I'm not going there, if you know what I mean. You see? It's not that easy. Oh, I understand why you posted what you did to who you did, but in reality, it just isn't that simple.

Charlie Daniels kicks ass : )

For all interested here is the URL that will take you to the actual text of the Cornyn bill. http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/immigration/ I haven't begun to read it section by section which I intend to do. Based on the summary and skimming some parts of the bill the proposed legislation contains a lot of good things. The guest worker program proposed is much more restrictive than the one the President proposed and it appears to be quite similar to the Bracero program which operated well until the Kennedy Administration canceled it.

The increase in enforcement officers proposed would be useful but the bill does not get into the general area of border security. The problems we have with illegal entry will not be cured without a real commitment to control the frontiers of the US by the national government working with the border states. That seems to me to belong to another piece of legislation. In effect there has to be a 'Border Security Act' in tandem with proposals such as this one. The technical means are certainly readily available to make this happen. What is lacking is the political will to do it generated both by large campaign donations from industries that are financially helped in a major way by the presence of a large, continually refreshed pool of illegal aliens and from the Democrats firm commitment to creating another 'black vote' block by encouraging a new underclass that will serve and reinforce the same role that the inner city black vote does.

This bill seems to be silent on general repatriation of illegals. After watching the circus that has surrounded attempts in this country to prosecute aliens who are either allies or enablers of Muslim terrorists I have come to the reluctant conclusion that mass repatriation is just not a political reality. Any attempt would almost instantly mobilize the forces of the Dems, the 'civil rights' industry, the 'human rights' lobby, and a host of other leftists including in all of these many lawyers. The latter would be delighted to engage in the delaying and procrastinating tactics used with death penalty cases to draw out many deportations to absurd lengths.

In the last half century the courts and the Congress has created such a webwork of laws and administrative regulations that any reasonably clever group can tie the governments hands in most large scale internal security operations. (That is one reason the Dems are so incoherently rageful over the President's end run around this hedge of obstruction in some part of the War on Terror through robust use of the presidential war powers.)

Unless Mexico were to conduct very large scale attacks on the US using its regular armed forces mass expulsion of illegals is just not a political reality. What has to be done is the porous border ended for good and the border and ports of entry really controlled tightly as a matter of national security. The illegals here will have to be dealt with through some sort of combination amnesty and police measures to insure speedy and prompt deportation of any illegal who commits a felony or even certain misdemeanors. Ideally this should be for how ever long the person lives here. In this way there would always be a legal stigma on these people even if they had completed citizenship requirements after a period being a registered resident alien. To the maximum degree possible those here illegally who do not come forward and enter into the amnesty program should be promptly deported when found. Employers who continue to hire illegals should face very stiff fines and criminal penalties.

These solutions while not ideal would enable the US to gain control of both a dangerous threat to national security and end a critical socially destabilizing condition.

Lots of good points in your post that I agree with, Kyl/Cornyn is better legislatively than McCain/Kennedy though both of them imo would make the problem worse, we need to get operational control of the border and massive deportations would never fly.

But once the border was closed the government could at least begin the attrition process of deporting those they come in contact with. They won't even do that today and then they expect us to believe if they get their amnesty/guest worker program they'll suddenly doing it?

They have no credibilility on this issue and the way Bush is attempting to sneak in $247 for a program not even approved yet I think he knows they're not trusted to follow up with enforcement and so he's trying to ignore the justifiable criticism and ram it through.

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