Posted on 06/19/2002 6:40:43 AM PDT by Tancredo Fan
Do you think that troops should be placed on the Mexican & Canadian borders?
Related story:
Tancredo wants troops now along U.S. borders
By Bill McAllister and Michael Riley
Denver Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 19, 2002 - WASHINGTON
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., launched a public campaign Tuesday for the immediate deployment of troops to patrol the borders with Canada and Mexico.
In a news conference outside the Capitol, the two-term lawmaker led his Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in urging President Bush to place thousands of active-duty soldiers or National Guard troops on the Canadian and Mexican borders to choke off the flow of illegal immigrants.
Tancredo conceded he had no idea what the deployment would cost or how many troops would be needed. He seconded a suggestion by Bill King, a retired Border Patrol chief agent, that it might take as many as 20,000 troops to secure the Mexican border.
"It sounds good to me," Tancredo said. "That may be a drop in the bucket."
Congress has approved funding to put 10,000 more agents on the northern and southern borders by September 2003.
The White House, however, rejected Tancredo's call for more troops.
"Immediately after Sept. 11, troops were located on the border on a temporary basis until federal officials could be trained to provide reinforcement and additional support," said spokesman Scott Stanzel. "At this point we don't see a need for troops to be stationed at the borders."
Tancredo is an outspoken critic of Bush's efforts to liberalize immigration, and a poll released this week suggests that the congressman's view may be in line with the majority of Americans.
The poll of 1,015 likely voters by Zogby International found that 68 percent of respondents believe the government should deploy troops on the borders temporarily to curb illegal immigration. Fifty-eight percent agreed that the U.S. should admit fewer immigrants each year.
Bush's Republican allies in Congress called Tancredo's plan too costly and unlikely to effectively seal the borders.
"We need to be aware to threats to our security, but the answer is not closing our borders at a cost that would divert huge resources from what the real need is," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah.
Canadian and Mexican officials said they already were working hard with the United States to improve border security. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley are working on a "smart border" plan so legitimate travelers can move back and forth "while increasing the security of our border through cooperation and intelligence-sharing," said Pamela Chappell, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Embassy.
"Having military on the border will not move us toward that goal," she said.
There you go again. Nobody is talking about "shutting the door". We're talking about controlling who gets in - about enforcing our laws.
What in the WORLD is wrong with that?
Hmmm... Having a hard time seeing how this could be accomplished.
Gee, if not, then......You would never have had the courage to post that on September 12th, 2001!
100% of the troubles we have had visited upon us are from stupid ideas of 'open borders' and 'let anyone in' (remember the Middle Easterners who waltzed in here, those wonderful "immigrants" who trained right under our stupid, open-bordernoses, and then took out 3000 innocent souls in NYC and on those horrid flights?
What a jerk. Do we now have to post the photos of people jumping to their deaths at the World Trade Center again to prove the point when it comes to the common sense issue of control of our own national borders as a component of national security???
The prospect of paying more for food, may be valid, although,the price of chicken and milk (two industries heavy into immigrant employment) has doubled in the last two years I could cut back drastically on both - in fact, I have on the chicken. It is just my little protest.
I haven't built a house lately, but I don't think the price of houses has decreased in the last few years and theya re heavy into that industry also.
This sort of negates the argument of inexpensive goods due to cheap labor.
Also my property taxes have doubled in the last 3 years. What could be causing that?
Why do people insist on calling these people guest workers? They are temporary workers. Those are not insulting words, just a good description of what they do. A guest is someone I invite into my home to partake of my hospitality. A worker is someone I pay to do a job.
OK, so how many millions more should we take in?
30 million more? 65 million more? 125 million more? How many is enough, and once you have reached that point, how are you going to stop it?
There was a time, we had a fairly secure border. Let's check back and see what we were doing back then that worked. Yes, times are different, but just on a larger scale. Believe me, there were a lot of people who wanted in back then also, but we managed to keep it at a minimum.
Military on the border would be just one of the components, but it would be a very strong and visible component. Our President could make it very clear to the people here illegally and to President Fox that we are going to keep them out and send them back when we find them. We need to make Mexico understand that future foreign aid is depends on their cooperation in this. Couple this with strict enforcement of employment laws (the very same laws we citizens have to adhere to). The government could do a very thorough check of the SS records and catch many of these people.
Another component would be stop all the freebies, make these employers withhold and submit taxes, make the employers or employees responsible for the medical costs (not the taxpayers), make these people financially responsible for the automobiles they drive (insurance or posted bonds, as we must do). Believe me, if the employers and the employees were forced to live within the laws and be responsible for themselves (as we do), the work in America would not look nearly so attractive.
There are a lot of reasons why it won't be easy and there are a lot of reasons to say 'it can't be done'. America has always been the country that could do the impossible and I believe the majority of the people in this country has the will to do this. It is our leaders that are dragging their feet.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
But the question is how to go about doing it. There's an awful lot of space to cover.
Freedom, even dumb beeves want it.
No, neither my neighbor nor I go into the other's country to rape, pillage, scam welfare, or take precious jobs from those wondferful unemployed that have neither the skills nor the desire nor the guts to swing a shovel in 100+ f heat.
This ivory-tower bureaucrat Tancredo wants to solve a problem down here via protection of our military? Yeah, right, well Pearl Harbor was a shining display of Pentagon prowess to defend our turf.
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