If President Bush cannot push a comprehensive immigration-reform package through Congress, the least he can do is fully fund one item lawmakers on both sides of the aisle at least partly agree on — border enforcement. This is an area in which the federal government is failing to meet its responsibilities.
1. Comment by Carl H. (CARLHA)— February 1,2008 @ 12:39AM
Ratings:-2+67
What took you so long to realize that Bush has absolutely NO desire to provide Americans with security against illegal entrants?
Bush believes that illegal entrants are merely "good hearted" people.
Unfortunately, McCain is also opposed to border security.
2. Comment by NightHawk P. (NightHawk)— February 1,2008 @ 12:56AM
Ratings:-5+52
Who want's a " immigration-reform package ". Except for being a long process it's fine as it is. WE don't want illegals in our Country anymore. They are not immigrates. So lets have a criminal reform package that includes them. Leave immigration alone.
3. Comment by Be Legal 1. (amacovers)— February 1,2008 @ 2:45AM
Ratings:-6+47
Well I agree with this story. I believe that Washington does not GAF about us down here, why else is only 300 miles of fence been built in 18 mos? The Dems want the votes and the rep's want the cheap labor!Protecting the borders is a federal responsibility, in the end it's all of our responsibility. Give me a fence and an AK and I'll take care of my own. And thats a memo.
4. Comment by Bob K. (THS)— February 1,2008 @ 3:20AM
Ratings:-44+9
Those who do not support our troops will always be unwilling to prioritize our borders. Bush and Petraeus are doing their best to protect the Iran-Iraq border. He said just the other night that fewer terrorists are being attracted to Iraq from bordering countries.
Bush is also making great efforts to keep our allies in Turkey and Kurdistan from crossing the border and killing each other.
Bush made a special trip to the Mideast recently to try to convince Israel to stop using its borders with Palestine to embargo supplies the people living there need to stay alive.
Such selfishness, thinking only about our own border, when we need to police the world.
7. Comment by Don R. (gawalt)— February 1,2008 @ 3:43AM
Ratings:-34+13
Bush isn't in charge of the border enforcement.
I know this paper continually advocates ignoring law....
Moving on: for the readers, it is illegal for federal troops to be used because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. While the National Defense Act of 1916 stipulates that the national guard (not the Army ) can be used as a federal law order unit.
"Crime" is not under direct federal jurisdiction.
And I'm talking about actual enforcement. This silly column just wants money for vague policies which I doubt they really want enforced. Just the bucks.
As for this program it's Congress that has jurisdiction over the SCAAP. So the Bush headline, is disingenuous, and misleading.
9. Comment by m t. (tink9)— February 1,2008 @ 4:15AM
Ratings:-4+27
ADS supports "non-enforcement" reform, yet bemoans the fact that it costs real money to deal with this associated lawlessness they desire to import from Mexico.
So which is it ADS? The rule of law, or the chaotic mayhem at the border (at the cost of innocents and quality of life, ot to menion money) we presently experience?
You can no longer have this cake after eating it. The money does not exist to fight imported, self-inflicted crime. Furthermore, the political willpower to fund more police does not exist: the people living near the border are fed up with the lawmen and the illegals.
12. Comment by Rich K. (Rich907)— February 1,2008 @ 4:57AM
Ratings:-2+34
Re #7
The role of the Executive Branch of our national government is to implement the nation's laws. All the agencies that are empowered to enforce the laws respecting our borders are part of the Executive Branch.
Guess who is the CEO of the Executive Branch... President Bush. He is ultimately responsible for the failures of his administrative agencies to effectively enforce the laws respecting the border.
14. Comment by Kim H. (Kimwal)— February 1,2008 @ 5:28AM
Ratings:-4+27
Don't be fooled by this rag's editorial. Money talks and they change their tune to support the "fundees" who are sucking dollars and doing nothing. In reality this non-enforcement reform is a smoke screen for open borders. This newspaper is a loser user and will soon dry up.
15. Comment by J R M. (JeReM)— February 1,2008 @ 5:29AM
Ratings:-10+22
It is more than obvious, to anyone minimally observant, by the end of the first line, that the author of this opinion either dosen't know what they are talking about, or just bashing Bush! It reads "if President Bush cannot push a comprehensive immigration-reform package through Congress, the least he can do is fully fund one item lawmakers on both sides of the aisle at least partly agree on — border enforcement." The Democrats control Congress, and therefore control the purse. They have systematically defunded the border fence over the last 4 months! This administration HAS doubled the number of Border Patrol Agents manning our southern border! This misnomer that the federal government is solely responsible for enforcing our immigration laws is the last refuge of political correctness! Once these criminals, the ILLEGAL ALIENS, get past our borders and into our communities, it is encumbent upon local law enforcement to enforce all laws pertaining to the apprehension of these violators! Sheriff DUPEnick, shut up and do your job!
18. Comment by Bill M. (#5974)— February 1,2008 @ 6:05AM
Ratings:-2+26
There is a conspiracy to open our borders and sell our country out from under us. The federal government, the mass media and international business are in collusion to rip the average American off and sell what is rightfully ours to the highest bidder. Money talks and our votes don't mean a thing because we really don't have a choice. We are told who the front runners are and when it comes down to it our only "choice" is one of their candidates. No real change, only consolidation of power in the hands of the wealthy and powerful.
19. Comment by Lynne G. (#5981)— February 1,2008 @ 6:27AM
Ratings:-4+23
The executive branch of the federal government is responsible for enforcing the law...why has President Bush never enforced the employer hiring laws against hiring illegal workers??? He has shirked more than his duty as commander in chief...when's his court martial??
20. Comment by Sammie L. (missquiddle)— February 1,2008 @ 6:38AM
Ratings:-6+27
To all of you out there reading this article. Bush has DONE NOTHING to secure our borders. Neither has The House nor the Senate.
Please be very careful who you vote for in this Presidential campaign. McCain WILL PROMOTE AMNESTY. MCAIN WILL NOT CLOSE THE BORDERS. McCain wants a North American Union. The same goes for Hillary.
MCCAIN IS A DICTATOR WITH A HOT TEMPER. HILLARY IS A SOCIALIST. WATCH OUT WHAT YOU ASK FOR.
23. Comment by wit w. (Wit)— February 1,2008 @ 7:02AM
Ratings:-0+19
Reimbursement sounds fair but it is just a bubblegum and duct-tape solution to the cost of lawlessness. The real solution, and also the least costly (to law abiding citizens) is to strictly enforce immigration law. We must stop employment, housing, education, and healthcare of illegal entrants. I see nothing wrong with employing and educating documented visitors and legal immigrants from other countries, or humanitarian aid in their contries.
24. Comment by ed w. (Bonus One)— February 1,2008 @ 7:07AM
Ratings:-4+23
Why would anyone in their right mind vote for McCain. He is from Arizona, so that is a reason to vote for him????
He will be no better than what we have now. The Arizona people need tosend a message to all of the candidates that they will not stand for this costly immigration of illegal people.
It will eventually lead to a border war. You can't keep invading a country and try to change the language, culture, if the border is not closed, in 5 years we will be fighting to save our state from drug lords, etc.
Don't vote for the liberal McCain....I am an Arizona Resident
25. Comment by Kathy S. (#4593)— February 1,2008 @ 7:15AM
Ratings:-2+19
" Please make sure Majority Leader Pelosi brings the SAVE ACT to a vote. This bill will help end illegal immigration by beefing up the border and helping businesses to identify illegal workers.
Among the key provisions of the SAVE Act are:
-Requires every employer to use the electronic verification system (E-Verify) on every employee;
-Makes provisions to catch illegal aliens who have committed identity theft;
-Requires implementation of key border protection provisions. "
Please support the SAVE Act. ~ NUMBERSUSA
Send this to everyone you know who still supports the sovereignty of our nation.
None of these candidates are going to do a damn thing on illegal immigration as they have all been bought off by big business, or they're lusting after future entitlement voters.. same as Bush, we need to do it ourselves by demanding action from the employees we put in Congress.
27. Comment by Mary B. (maximaxine)— February 1,2008 @ 7:19AM
Ratings:-1+29
Quit whining. AZ should impose a 10% tax on wire remittances to Mexico, seize and sell any vehicles used in human or drug smuggling, and require visas for a fee for Mexican nationals visiting the US. In other words, make Mexicans pay the costs associated with the bad behavior of their compatriots.
28. Comment by Tim R. (#4326)— February 1,2008 @ 7:26AM
Ratings:-1+21
Immigration is about the standards for applying for residence and citizenship; who can apply; how many can be accepted, how the process is implemented.
Immigration is not about border security.
Immigration is not about deporting illegal aliens and cleaning up after them.
Immigration is not about a guest worker program.
So you can have comprehensive immigration reform, whatever that means, and still not address the three items above.
29. Comment by Richard H. (#6408)— February 1,2008 @ 7:31AM
Ratings:-9+11
As charming as is Gongresswoman Giffords on a personal note, she is sorely lacking when it comes to being serious about illegal immigration.
I receive frequent letters from her and in every one of them is the quote "It is extremely unfortunate that the Senate voted to end debate on immigration reform (amnesty)legislation in June. Doing nothing to address our nation's immigration crisis is irresponsible."
Does she really believe that we asked our leaders to "do nothing", when we convinced them that we didn't want amnesty for the millions of people here illegally?
Instead of trying to pay for some of the damage done by illegal immigration, she should be doing everything she can, including putting the military on the border and authorizing our local cops to assist the feds in this fight, to stop the cause of this damage.
I feel that she has the potential to be a very good member of Congress but.....
30. Comment by Tim R. (#4326)— February 1,2008 @ 7:33AM
Ratings:-0+21
27. Comment by Mary B. (maximaxine)
You wrote:
seize and sell any vehicles used in human or drug smuggling
The City of Bisbee budget is dependent on that very thing. Problem is many are vehicles which have been stolen and the best they can do is charge a storage fee from the date they notified the owner/rental agency they have the vehicle. And most are trashed because they ripout the seats and consuls to make more room.
Another idea is that any vehicle that crosses the border with Mexico license plates should have the VIN checked against stolen vehicle lists and a recovery fee charged for any vehicles recovered.
33. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 7:53AM
Ratings:-3+17
12. Comment by Rich K. (Rich907)
The thing is the Congress has the authority to take charge of the situation on the border. The Congress.
In Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution it sets forth the power of the Congress to put the National Guard on the border and enforce all, I say again all, U.S. laws.
Emphasis below is mine.
U.S. Constitution.
Article I – The Legislative Branch
Section 8. – Scope of Legislative Power
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
The militia above is the National Guard.
There is not qualifier in the segment regarding executing the laws, it does not say some of the laws.
The portion concerning executing the laws of the union means that the Congress can give the National Guard full enforcement of any and all U.S. laws.
The segment about calling forth lists three separate missions and could be listed three times once for each mission.
1. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union
2. To provide for calling forth the militia to suppress insurrections
3. To provide for calling forth the militia to repel invasions;
And as much as the Nay Sayers want to throw up the Posse Comitatus Act; the Posse Comitatus Act is a law which cannot supersede an article of the constitution.
35. Comment by Ralph A. (#6505)— February 1,2008 @ 8:14AM
Ratings:-8+10
Bush, who is that? Had no prior experience at running a government, why was he elected? Now McCain wants to get to be President, he will be just like Bush. Giffords is really trying hard to support your congressional area. Majority Leader Pelosi and Reid have turned their backs on the american people. They need to be voted out of office next election for them.
36. Comment by Joy D. (azgolflady)— February 1,2008 @ 8:16AM
Ratings:-0+23
On a recent newscast, the reporter showed a portion of some of the steel used in the pitiful amount of fence built so far. Clearly marked on the steel were the words 'Made in China' !! Getting the fence built is only one of our problems with disastrous co-dictator Bush but I hope this astounded more people than just myself ! This is a disgrace.
38. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 8:21AM
Ratings:-3+20
29. Comment by Richard H. (#6408)
Giffords is another participant in the great “immigration” debate who obviously does not know, nor care, about the difference between:
Immigration and migration.
Legal immigration and illegal immigration.
Legal migration and illegal migration.
She would rather use the current catch phrase as long as the corporate sponsors do not dry up.
Border control is NOT about immigration
Deporting and cleaning up after illegal aliens is NOT about immigration
A guest worker program is NOT about immigration, it is a special class of tourism, temporary visitors allowed to earn wages.
Allowing an individual to apply for, and earn, citizenship IS about immigration.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION is obtaining U.S. citizenship through the use of false, fraudulent and fictitious documents, such as the FBI/CIA agent that they recently withdrew naturalized citizenship from and deported.
ILLEGAL MIGRATION is crossing the international boundary, not at the Ports of Entry, or crossing the international boundary at Ports of Entry using false, fraudulent and fictitious documents.
Illegal IMMIGRATION produces illegal citizens
Illegal MIGRATION produces illegal aliens
Both illegal citizens and illegal aliens are law violators.
40. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 8:33AM
Ratings:-2+27
Border Security has nothing to do with immigration reform and only a portion to do with illegal aliens.
Border security is country security, sovereignty protection. There are many more reasons than the crossing of illegal aliens that are a consideration for border security.
These include, but are not limited to;
THOUSANDS OF TONS of illegal drugs driven across that border between the Ports of Entry,
terrorists and terrorists contraband (the smart terrorist will bring his tools with him rather than trying to buy on the black market and getting caught),
stopping the spread of diseases such as drug resistant TB,
stopping the syphilis epidemic that is spreading from the border cities to Tucson,
stopping the movement of stolen cars across the border,
stopping the movement of illegal weapons in both directions,
stopping the movement of the proceeds of smugglers across the border, etc., etc.
41. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 8:45AM
Ratings:-2+17
Following are excerpts from the identified below.
…………………………….. Cartels outrun outgun the law at Ariz border Fed report details thriving business behind violent international industry
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 3, 2007 12:00 AM
…………………………………………………
Such hideouts dot just about every hill Harris scouts in the 90 miles between Marana and Why in Pima County. There are more than 100 well-armed Mexican spotters operating in Arizona at any time, Harris and federal agents estimate.
The camps show how pervasive the Mexican drug-smuggling operation has become and why congressional investigators said last week that cartels "operate with relative impunity along the U.S. border."
………………………………………………………………..
Congressional investigators said. Yet where is the action by Congress.
I do not mean to imply that I am defending GW but everyone in DC gets to own a piece of this pie.
Now this is in Pima County, Arizona, U.S.
Do a poll of the various agencies, from the Pima County Sheriffs Department up through the DHS, and ask who is doing anything about this.
The pat answer you will get from every agency is “That is out side of our responsibilities” in other words “No my job, man”
No one in government will take responsibility for anything anymore, NO ONE.
Richard Nixon was that last one, on his way out of office, when he said “I will accept the responsibility but not the blame.”
43. Comment by Don C. (Thrasher)— February 1,2008 @ 8:53AM
Ratings:-4+20
The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the fact that Mexicans are out-breeding the ability of their economy to sustain the massive creation of people. Perhaps the poor Mexicans should consider living within their means as so many Americans have for so long. Maybe then they wouldn't be forced to move north to work.
44. Comment by Scott P. (S)— February 1,2008 @ 8:54AM
Ratings:-2+14
"This week Giffords and 40 other members of Congress sent a letter to President Bush asking him to fully fund the assistance program, which Congress has authorized for $950 million in fiscal 2009. However, Bush's budget plan has no funding for the program whatsoever."
45. Comment by Don C. (Thrasher)— February 1,2008 @ 8:57AM
Ratings:-3+29
Our government needs to stop rewarding poverty stricken people for having kids. If you can't afford to have children, then you shouldn't be rewarded with more money for each one you have. I'm sick of paying for irresponsible people.
The Mexicans aren't stupid, they know our government will reward them with lots of social services.
47. Comment by Lou A. (#4693)— February 1,2008 @ 9:14AM
Ratings:-1+22
Wait a minute...McCain stated during the debate that HE has taken care of securing the border in his state, because HE knows how to do it. Why blame President Bush when it's MCCain who hasn't done a thing...yet claims he's the EXPERT who can and will solve the illegal immigration problem. What a joke! I can't stand that arrogant, pompous jackass!
48. Comment by Peter K. (Sweet Pete)— February 1,2008 @ 9:18AM
Ratings:-5+14
Here is just part of a semi-related article on the plan to eventually do away with the borders all together. View the whole article at this AM's www.leftcoastnews.net -
A state lawmaker in Utah has introduced a resolution encouraging the U.S. to withdraw from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and any other bilateral activity that would move the country toward an EU-style continental merger.
Republican state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom introduced House Resolution 1 to the Utah legislature this week after a similar measure passed the House last year by a 47-24 vote but was blocked by a Senate committee just before the session's close.
"I feel confident we will get this resolution passed this year," Sandstrom told WND. "We learned a lot last year about our opponents, and this year we are better prepared to anticipate their legislative moves to block us."
The resolution reads in part: "The gradual creation of such a North American Union from a merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada would be a direct threat to the United States Constitution and the national independence of the United States and would imply an eventual end to national borders within North America."
49. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 9:19AM
Ratings:-1+15
44. Comment by Scott P. (S)
I am all for money to reimburse past expenses, I am all for full funding of all of the authorized positions for the Border Patrol. Because that has been a tactic of the politicians to authorize but not fund.
But someone has to tell some agency or another specifically that it is their mission, their responsibility to get a grip on what is happening in the geographic area of the border.
Using the example of 100 well armed, and well equipped with communications gear, drugee spotters in the Arizona desert.
The Border Patrol will say it is not their mission because these people are not in the act of crossing the border and are not directly with anyone who is. Besides they do not have the funds, equipment or training for pursuing a military type tactical operation that it would take.
The Pima County Sheriff’s office will say that it involves immigration and that is a Federal responsibility besides; they do not have the funds, equipment or training for pursuing a military type tactical operation that it would take.
The National Guard, who has the equipment and training are not allowed to perform the mission because someone believes it is prohibited by Posse Comitatus and the National Guard should not be involved in law enforcement because they do not have law enforcement training, the Guard performing the exact same mission on the Iraq/Iran border not withstanding.
It boils down then to a problem of funds and training.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
The Congress, if it wanted, using the authority of Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution could call forth the National Guard, such as the Special Forces of the Utah Guard, with the specific stipulation that they were to clean out these spotters.
50. Comment by B9 1. (TheAmericanWay)— February 1,2008 @ 9:29AM
Ratings:-2+17
I have been reading posts at this site for over a year now that have stated emphatically that the border is going unprotected and 1000's of criminals swarm across the border daily and this newspaper, the Mexican Daily Star, considers this headline news.
Well I guess when the TRUTH catches up with the ADS Propaganda Machine they have to print something close to a retraction.
How can a paper stay in business when 75% of what it writes anymore is just covering up for a lie that one of their open border reporters wrote?
51. Comment by Martin L. (The Enforcer)— February 1,2008 @ 9:30AM
Ratings:-7+24
Bush is by far the worst, most irresponsible, and most treasonous jerk to ever occupy the White House. He should have been impeached and removed a long time ago, and that goes for that evil, crooked SOB Cheney as well. Rest assured that Bush wants no borders, no sovereignty, and is a dangerous globalist swine and shill for big business. He's a disease, and so are all associated with the monster.
54. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 9:39AM
Ratings:-1+17
Here are excerpts from an article in which the Mexican government says it does not care what it’s citizens are doing it is unacceptable for the Border Patrol to defend themselves. The solution is not for Mexico to police their citizens but for the U.S. Border Patrol to stop protecting themselves.
Wonder where he ADS stands on this?
…………………………………………………………………………..
Mexico asks U.S. to investigate firing of tear gas over border
The Associated Press
Jan. 31, 2008 10:16 PM MEXICO CITY - The government has sent a diplomatic note to the United States formally requesting it investigate recent incidents in which U.S. Border Patrol officers fired tear gas onto the Mexican side of the border.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………
"Independently of whether these incidents are a response to hostile acts against Border Patrol agents by private citizens on the Mexican side, the Mexican government considers these actions by U.S. federal authorities to unacceptable," Foreign Relations said in a statement.
56. Comment by Steven W. (Mike W)— February 1,2008 @ 10:13AM
Ratings:-3+19
#55 - Your having a difficult time understanding that the ultra-conservatives are the actual open-border activists. Their hero, Reagan,
was the original Amnesty guy. Any other immigration bills that conservatives wrote?
57. Comment by Vern T. (Vern T)— February 1,2008 @ 10:23AM
Ratings:-5+14
Well, seven years after Bill Clinton left office the hating on him hasn't stopped, so what makes you think the hating on Bush will stop in (thank God) less than a year?
The FUBARaq debacle, though improving, will explode onward for years to come. The poor planning and strategy of "stay with Rummy's course" will continue to burden us for decades.
58. Comment by NoVa Mom B. (NoVa Mom)— February 1,2008 @ 10:34AM
Ratings:-1+15
What you all are forgetting or perhaps overlooking - is that any president we have recently had or will elect has no intentions of securing the border. The Master Plan is the SPP - the combination of USA, Mexico and Canada. Since they intend not to have ANY borders - there is no reason to stop illegal immigration or build a fence.
59. Comment by Allen N. (santiago)— February 1,2008 @ 10:43AM
Ratings:-1+15
To Bush, illegal aliens can do NO wrong!
You can add Clinton, McCain, Kyl, Obama, Kennedy, Flake and the rest of the weak-minded to that school of thought!
60. Comment by r G. (VivaLaMigra)— February 1,2008 @ 10:50AM
Ratings:-2+19
El Presidente Jorge Boosh is going to make sure the Fat Cats get their cheap, illegal-alien labor and US citizens be damned! The profits go to his Big Biz cronies; you mere peons can absorb the costs. If social unrest is part of the long-term damage, well, that's tough.
61. Comment by r G. (VivaLaMigra)— February 1,2008 @ 10:57AM
Ratings:-1+13
For poster "Don R" - the Posse C. law doesn't apply here. Border security is NOT domestic law enforcement! In fact, US troops could be given a shoot-to-kill order for anyone crossing the border illegally. I'm not advocating that, but as Commander in Chief, Bush [aka El Presidente Jorge Boosh!] has that Constitutional power.
The Supreme Court has, time and again, upheld the jurisdiction of the US Border Patrol - a FEDERAL agency! - operating within the boundaries of American states. They have the authority to arrest ANYONE on reasonable suspicion with SEVENTY FIVE MILES of an international boundary. That's why smugglers attempt to move their human cargo inland as fast as they can.
62. Comment by Alex L. (alex9078)— February 1,2008 @ 10:58AM
Ratings:-5+9
If anyone thinks putting up a fence will stop the smuggling they are in a dream. All you have to do is look at other countries that have had fences. Any fence can be climbed over, drilled through, or tunneled under. It has happened over and over again. The people who hire undocumented workers need to be held ac****able. I have more concern about the drug smugglers getting through the border than some workers. It's all a question of supply and demand. There are certain segments of the American public that use drugs and as long as the American people don't demand tougher drug laws the drug cartels will continue to flood our country with drugs.
63. Comment by sam a. (low gear)— February 1,2008 @ 10:58AM
Ratings:-11+4
Again and again, the real cause of illegal immigration remains under the table. The illegal is an important element in the economy through out America. This element has produced dependency both among the big and small employers. The Mexican is a very good worker who expects and is usually given little. He is working more for survival and this is a real motivator. Expelled all out of the country many firms will suffer, some may have to close their doors. The increased costs of doing business will trickle down to us all.
The point is that this is complex economic problem that goes beyond breaking the law and human fraility that exsists in us all.
In the 1920's Mexican farm labor was welcomed in this country. Then with the Great Depression and need for jobs, they were kicked out. Now with the the possiblity of a recession a new demand for jobs that cannot be outsourced may happen. As in life, there are few easy answers without untoward consequences.
66. Comment by Jay G. (Nessus)— February 1,2008 @ 11:22AM
Ratings:-3+15
I live in up in Michigan. I'm gonna try to speak simply, clearly and without heated rhetoric.
What has been going on with respect to immigration over the past several years is not normal immigration. This is just greed on the part of firm's who desire to never raise wages and also it is social/cultural transformation on the part of radical ethnic-chauvenist Mexicans.
We here in Michigan (and the rest of the non-border states), do not want our hometowns to turn into Tijuana.
We are not against immigration but it MUST BE LEGAL AND IN REASONABLE NUMBERS. Neither is true in the case of Mexico - huge numbers of illegal aliens, who do not assimilate, who retain loyalty to their country of Mexico, who refuse to learn and speak English.
This can't continue much longer, somethings got to give. Either the illegal invasion will be stopped or the United States will break apart or perhaps transform into a North American Union (who only chronically corrupt Mexico benefits from).
67. Comment by B9 1. (TheAmericanWay)— February 1,2008 @ 11:24AM
Ratings:-2+8
It is only the unevolved mind, the mind that thinks a Democrat is better than a Republican or vice versa that thinks it is about hating King George or even Slick Willy Clinton.
Fill in the name here__________.
The blank can be filled in with any name that has thought their own personal fortune is worth damaging this country.
If you are still having trouble pick the name of any politician, any candidate currently running for president.
Still having trouble thinking it is only about a red or blue team and one of those teams have the answers and will do what needs to be done, start with those that govern Tucson and you will see it is symptomatic clear up to King George.
It is about crooks gutting this country and we as legal law abiding citizens picking up the tab and repairing the damage.
Hating someone, to me, is as personal as loving someone and I do it on a case by case basis.
I do not hate the crooked politicians that are destroying my country. I despise them.
68. Comment by Tim R. (#4326)— February 1,2008 @ 11:27AM
Ratings:-0+13
63. Comment by sam a. (low gear)
Here’s the deal.
A lot of people are doom saying about the impact to the economy by the loss of the illegal aliens.
With a properly operated guest worker program they are replaced by legal workers and citizen/legal workers already here.
If these people were to leave and come back in an effectively operated guest worker program the impact to the economy would last for about 60 to 90 days. And right now with the economy being what it is would be a great time to implement that.
The rub comes from the pro-illegal alien groups and the Mexican government not wanting a guest worker program. They just want to legitimize things as they are. Cash payments under the table, no accounting, no withholding etc., etc., etc.
Why do they not want a guest worker program, you might ask.
I am here to tell you.
Because the guest worker program would force them to take the lower paying jobs in agriculture, that they currently will not accept.
Because their employers would be force to collect and pay their portions for taxes and other withholdings.
Because their employers would have to start paying time and one half. To do that then they would have to cut wages to keep the costs of labor the same.
Because they would become visible and have to start paying for medical services or be hounded to death by collection agencies.
Because only one third to one half of all illegal aliens are workers and their home countries would then have to sustain the ones that would not be returning to work.
Because they would have to start registering their vehicles and buy insurance.
Because their take home pay, minus the new expenses the legal workers pay, would drop to a point that the remittances that they currently send to their home countries would be reduced by at least 80%. Mexico’s economy is currently fueled 30% by those remittances.
69. Comment by Dana S. (Sitting Duck)— February 1,2008 @ 11:32AM
Ratings:-1+12
#7 wrote: "Moving on: for the readers, it is illegal for federal troops to be used because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Not true. Congress and the President can authorize the use of troops on our border.
Moving on. I will agree that Bush #2 hasn't been the President that I thought he would be. Nowhere close. However, to say he is shirking his duty with regard to crime on our borders insinuates that Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush #1, and Clinton did. Now, if the column writer had said, "Bush, like past Presidents, is shirking .....
Sounds like someone is being political and throwing all the blame on the Republican President instead of on Congress where the blame should be directed. And who feels that the President should be pushing "comprehensive immigration reform" through Congress? The "our view" ADS people? Whoever they are.
71. Comment by Rich K. (Rich907)— February 1,2008 @ 11:53AM
Ratings:-1+9
Re #33
Congress has the power to pass laws... Whether those laws get enforced is a function of the executive branch. The point is that there already are sufficient laws on the books to stop illegal immigration. We don't need more laws; we need to enforce the ones we already have.
73. Comment by Pierre L. (TheDecider)— February 1,2008 @ 12:00PM
Ratings:-10+5
"Our military machine is tremendously good at fighting wars - blowing up infrastructure, killing opposing armies, and toppling governments.
We did that successfully in Iraq, in a matter of a few weeks.
We destroyed their army, wiped out their air defenses, devastated their Republican Guard, seized their capitol, arrested their leaders, and took control of their government.
We won the war. It's over.
What we have now is an occupation of Iraq.
The occupation began when the war ended, and continues to this day.
According to our own Pentagon estimates, at least ninety five percent of those attacking our soldiers are Iraqi civilians who view themselves as anti-occupation fighters.
And last week both the Defense Minister and the Vice President of Iraq asked us for a specific date on which the occupation would end.
The war ended when Bush proclaimed victory long ago.
No it is time to honorably end the occupation of a foreign country.
Wars are won or lost, but occupations end by redeployments.
75. Comment by Pierre L. (TheDecider)— February 1,2008 @ 12:05PM
Ratings:-10+5
"There is no longer a war against Iraq.
It ended in May of 2003, when George W. Bush stood below a "Mission Accomplished" sign aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and correctly declared that we had "victoriously" defeated the Iraqi army and overthrown their government."
Thom Hartmann
We are no longer at War. The war ended, and we won.
We are now an occupying nation.
Occupiers of other nations leave when the war is over.
76. Comment by Lynne G. (#5981)— February 1,2008 @ 12:05PM
Ratings:-5+7
***The point is that there already are sufficient laws on the books to stop illegal immigration. We don't need more laws; we need to enforce the ones we already have.**
And it is the Executive Branch of the US federal government, headed by George W. Bush who has chosen NOT to enforce the laws of this country...is that not an impeachable offense??
77. Comment by Stephen C. (Crow Dog)— February 1,2008 @ 12:15PM
Ratings:-0+7
America is overspent. Expect a lot of programs will be cut, some very deserving health and security programs as well. As Americans we have to decide what the government's spending priorities will be.
Unless we do this the President and Congress will continue to go their own ways based on political concerns rather than the people's needs or conscience.
We cannot afford to continue to abdicate our responsibilies to Government and ease our consciences by blameing our elected officials (capable or not).
78. Comment by Tim R. (#4326)— February 1,2008 @ 12:19PM
Ratings:-0+6
71. Comment by Rich K. (Rich907)
They all get a piece of the blame for inaction.
When the President asked for and received a bill that increased the authorization for additional positions for the Border Patrol he signed it. And now they have a whole slew of positions authorized.
Then when Congress created the appropriations bills they funded only 10% of the authorized new positions, effectively tying the hands of the Executive Branch. But allowing the Congress to say they have increased the strength of the Border Patrol because of the unfunded authorizations.
And it was not just positions. The Douglas Station of the Border Patrol was authorized two helicopters with crews, years ago, but have never been funded. Maybe they can ride the authorization papers like magic carpet.
We do not need more laws creating new criminal acts, but we do need some laws that clearly delineate who is responsible for what and measures that will force them to take the appropriate actions.
Using the authorizations of Article 1 Section 8 the Congress can mandate that specific types of National Guard units perform specific missions under the command of a specific individual, such as the Secretary of Defense and the funds authorized for the purpose cannot be spent on anything else with the penalty being held in contempt of Congress.
79. Comment by Dana S. (Sitting Duck)— February 1,2008 @ 12:32PM
Ratings:-2+7
#71: I agree. However, we don't have the manpower, money, or the political will to enforce the laws.
Line-of-sight deployment of our troops on our borders is the only realistic solution. We are in a war against illegal immigration, drugs, etc., and the BP will never be properly equipped or have sufficient numbers to combat it.
If we can station 30,000 troops in Korea for fifty plus years, surely we could have been doing the same on our borders for the past thirty plus years in defense of our country.
If someone were to add up all the costs associated with illegal immigration, drugs, and other related crimes originating at our borders for the past thirty years, you would find the number to be in the billions if not trillions of dollars.
To say that the military shouldn't be used to combat this senseless expenditure of money in a losing battle is shortsighted and foolish.
81. Comment by Tim R. (#4326)— February 1,2008 @ 12:41PM
Ratings:-1+9
For all of you who are saying we do not need more laws but need the ones we have enforced, I could not agree with you more. Have been saying that for years.
Arizona government is a mirror of the U.S. government in this regard and Janet is a reflection of George.
If a business hires an illegal alien and places them on their payroll they are notified if the transaction does not pass the screening for the SSN and name check and the business does not correct the transaction the business has submitted false/fraudulent/fictitious transactions. At that point the business KNOWS the individual has an identity problem.
And this happens thousands of times per week.
Has the Governor or Attorney General of Arizona taken any action to prosecute these businesses for violations of Arizona tax laws.
82. Comment by Cris F. (getacluetucson)— February 1,2008 @ 12:43PM
Ratings:-1+3
#66- MI a non-border state? Last time I checked you share a fairly long border with Canada. And of course only white, law abiding people would come through that border so of course it doesn't count. The UP part of your state being so densely populated and all, and I'm sure there's no open shoreline to offer a vector to waterborne entry...
83. Comment by Lynne G. (#5981)— February 1,2008 @ 12:50PM
Ratings:-0+6
Hmmmm...lost 17,000 jobs last month, Exxon Mobil posted the largest ever profit for a US corporation last year, and Bush sees "troubling signs" that the US economy is tanking....
84. Comment by NightHawk P. (NightHawk)— February 1,2008 @ 1:29PM
Ratings:-2+7
You know someone can point out flaws, joke and put down someone. I may agree or not, laugh or not. But I have never put someone down because of their Service in the Military. Not even Sen. Kerry who I can't stand. They Served in the Military just like I did earning my respect. End of story.
85. Comment by Booney H. (Booney)— February 1,2008 @ 1:55PM
Ratings:-1+2
The Geopolitics of Dope
January 29, 2008
By George Friedman
Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Last week, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres into the United States on this scale goes beyond what has become accepted practice. The dynamics in the borderland are shifting and must be understood in a broader, geopolitical context.
Related Links
Borderlands and Immigrants
The Geopolitics of Immigration
Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico's Drug Cartels
The U.S. border with Mexico has been intermittently turbulent since the U.S. occupation of northern Mexico. The annexation of Texas following its anti-Mexican revolution and the Mexican-American War created a borderland, an area in which the political border is clearly delineated but the cultural and economic borders are less clear and more dynamic. This is the case with many borders, including the U.S.-Canadian one, but the Mexican border has gone through periods of turbulence in the past and is going through one right now.
There always have been uncontrolled economic transactions and movements along the border. Both sides understood that the cost of controlling and monitoring these transactions outstripped the benefit. Long before NAFTA came into existence, social and economic movement in both directions - but particularly from Mexico to the United States - were fairly uncontrolled. Borderland transactions in particular, local transactions in proximity to the border region (retail shopping, agricultural transfers and so on), were uncontrolled. So was smuggling. Trade in stolen U.S. cars and parts shipped into Mexico, labor from Mexico shipped into the United States, etc., were seen as tolerable costs for an open border.
A low-friction border, one that easily could be traversed at low cost - without extended waits - was important to both sides. In 2006, the United States imported $198 billion in goods from Mexico and exported $134 billion to Mexico. This makes Mexico the third-largest trading partner of the United States and also makes it one of the more balanced major trade relationships the United States has. Loss of Mexican markets would hurt the U.S. economy substantially. The U.S. advantage in selling to Mexico is low-cost transport. Lose that through time delays at the border and the Mexican market becomes competitive for other countries. About 13 percent of all U.S. exports are bought by Mexico.
Not disrupting this trade and not raising its cost has been a fundamental principle of U.S.-Mexican relations, one long predating NAFTA. Leaving aside the contentious issue of whether illegal immigration hurts or helps the United States, the steps required to control that immigration would impede bilateral trade. The United States therefore has been loath to impose effective measures, since any measures that would be effective against population movement also would impose friction on trade.
The United States has been willing to tolerate levels of criminality along the border. The only time when the United States shifted its position was when organized groups in Mexico both established themselves north of the political border and engaged in significant violence. Thus, in 1916, when the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa began operations north of the border, the U.S. Army moved into Mexico to try to destroy his base of operations. This has been the line that, when crossed, motivated the United States to take action, regardless of the economic cost. The current upsurge in violence is now pushing that line.
The United States has built-in demand for a range of illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and marijuana. Regardless of decades of efforts, the United States has not been able to eradicate or even qualitatively reduce this demand. As an advanced industrial country, the United States has a great deal of money available to satisfy the demand for illegal drugs. This makes the supply of narcotics to a large market attractive. In fact, it almost doesn't matter how large demand is. Regardless of how it varies, the economics are such that even a fraction of the current market will attract sellers.
Even after processing, the cost of the product is quite low. What makes it an attractive product is the differential between the cost of production and the price it commands. In less-developed countries, supplying the American narcotics market creates huge income differentials. From the standpoint of a poor peasant, the differential between growing a product illegal in the United States compared with a legal product is enormous. From the standpoint of the processor, shippers and distributors, every step in the value chain creates tremendous incentives to engage in this activity over others.
There are several factors governing price. The addictive nature of the product creates an inelastic demand curve in a market with high discretionary income. People will buy at whatever the price and somehow will find the money for the purchase. Illegality suppresses competition and drives cartelization. Processing, smuggling and distributing the drugs requires a complex supply chain. Businesses not prepared to engage in high-risk illegal activities are frozen out of the market. The cost of market entry is high, since the end-to-end system (from the fields to the users) both is a relationship business (strangers are not welcome) and requires substantial expertise, particularly in covert logistics. Finally, there is a built-in cost for protecting the supply chain once created.
Because they are involved in an illegal business, drug dealers cannot take recourse to the courts or police to protect their assets. Protecting the supply chain and excluding competition are opposite sides of the same coin. Protecting assets is major cost of running a drug ring. It suppresses competition, both by killing it and by raising the cost of entry into the market. The illegality of the business requires that it be large enough to manage the supply chain and absorb the cost of protecting it. It gives high incentives to eliminate potential competitors and new entrants into the market. In the end, it creates a monopoly or small oligopoly in the business, where the comparative advantage ultimately devolves into the effectiveness of the supply chain and the efficiency of the private police force protecting it.
That means that drug organizations evolve in several predictable ways. They have huge amounts of money flowing in from the U.S. market by selling relatively low-cost products at monopolistic prices into markets with inelastic demand curves. Second, they have unique expertise in covert logistics, expertise that can be transferred to the movement of other goods. Third, they develop substantial security capabilities, which can grow over time into full-blown paramilitary forces to protect the supply chain. Fourth, they are huge capital pools, investing in the domestic economy and manipulating the political system.
Cartels can challenge - and supplant - governments. Between huge amounts of money available to bribe officials, and covert armies better equipped, trained and motivated than national police and military forces, the cartels can become the government - if in fact they didn't originate in the government. Getting the government to deploy armed forces against the cartel can become a contradiction in terms. In their most extreme form, cartels are the government.
Drug cartels have two weaknesses. First, they can be shattered in conflicts with challengers within the oligopoly or by splits within the cartels. Second, their supply chains can be broken from the outside. U.S. policy has historically been to attack the supply chains from the fields to the street distributors. Drug cartels have proven extremely robust and resilient in modifying the supply chains under pressure. When conflict occurs within and among cartels and systematic attacks against the supply chain take place, however, specific cartels can be broken - although the long-term result is the emergence of a new cartel system.
In the 1980s, the United States manipulated various Colombian cartels into internal conflict. More important, the United States attacked the Colombian supply chain in the Caribbean as it moved from Colombia through Panama along various air and sea routes to the United States. The weakness of the Colombian cartel was its exposed supply chain from South America to the United States. U.S. military operations raised the cost so high that the route became uneconomic.
The main route to American markets shifted from the Caribbean to the U.S.-Mexican border. It began as an alliance between sophisticated Colombian cartels and still-primitive Mexican gangs, but the balance of power inevitably shifted over time. Owning the supply link into the United States, the Mexicans increased their wealth and power until they absorbed more and more of the entire supply chain. Eventually, the Colombians were minimized and the Mexicans became the decisive power.
The Americans fought the battle against the Colombians primarily in the Caribbean and southern Florida. The battle against the Mexican drug lords must be fought in the U.S.-Mexican borderland. And while the fight against the Colombians did not involve major disruptions to other economic patterns, the fight against the Mexican cartels involves potentially huge disruptions. In addition, the battle is going to be fought in a region that is already tense because of the immigration issue, and at least partly on U.S. soil.
The cartel's supply chain is embedded in the huge legal bilateral trade between the United States and Mexico. Remember that Mexico exports $198 billion to the United States and - according to the Mexican Economy Ministry - $1.6 billion to Japan and $1.7 billion to China, its next biggest markets. Mexico is just behind Canada as a U.S. trading partner and is a huge market running both ways. Disrupting the drug trade cannot be done without disrupting this other trade. With that much trade going on, you are not going to find the drugs. It isn't going to happen.
Police action, or action within each country's legal procedures and protections, will not succeed. The cartels' ability to evade, corrupt and absorb the losses is simply too great. Another solution is to allow easy access to the drug market for other producers, flooding the market, reducing the cost and eliminating the economic incentive and technical advantage of the cartel. That would mean legalizing drugs. That is simply not going to happen in the United States. It is a political impossibility.
This leaves the option of treating the issue as a military rather than police action. That would mean attacking the cartels as if they were a military force rather than a criminal group. It would mean that procedural rules would not be in place, and that the cartels would be treated as an enemy army. Leaving aside the complexities of U.S.-Mexican relations, cartels flourish by being hard to distinguish from the general population. This strategy not only would turn the cartels into a guerrilla force, it would treat northern Mexico as hostile occupied territory. Don't even think of that possibility, absent a draft under which college-age Americans from upper-middle-class families would be sent to patrol Mexico - and be killed and wounded. The United States does not need a Gaza Strip on its southern border, so this won't happen.
The current efforts by the Mexican government might impede the various gangs, but they won't break the cartel system. The supply chain along the border is simply too diffuse and too plastic. It shifts too easily under pressure. The border can't be sealed, and the level of economic activity shields smuggling too well. Farmers in Mexico can't be persuaded to stop growing illegal drugs for the same reason that Bolivians and Afghans can't. Market demand is too high and alternatives too bleak. The Mexican supply chain is too robust - and too profitable - to break easily.
The likely course is a multigenerational pattern of instability along the border. More important, there will be a substantial transfer of wealth from the United States to Mexico in return for an intrinsically low-cost consumable product - drugs. This will be one of the sources of capital that will build the Mexican economy, which today is 14th largest in the world. The accumulation of drug money is and will continue finding its way into the Mexican economy, creating a pool of investment capital. The children and grandchildren of the Zetas will be running banks, running for president, building art museums and telling amusing anecdotes about how grandpa made his money running blow into Nuevo Laredo.
It will also destabilize the U.S. Southwest while grandpa makes his pile. As is frequently the case, it is a problem for which there are no good solutions, or for which the solution is one without real support.
86. Comment by Michael B. (#1967)— February 1,2008 @ 1:59PM
Ratings:-4+9
#83 - "Hmmmm...lost 17,000 jobs last month, Exxon Mobil posted the largest ever profit for a US corporation last year, and Bush sees "troubling signs" that the US economy is tanking...."
Perfect timing for the illegals to go home.
I bet the shareholders of Exxon are happy. By the way, did you know that anyone can be a shareholder in a public company? Just buy their stock?
But be careful, because just like Hugo Chavez, Queen Shrillary said she is going to 'take' those profits from the thousands and thousands that own those shares, including many public employees unions retirement plans (oh no, oh no...)
87. Comment by LD A. (CitizenFreedom)— February 1,2008 @ 2:06PM
Ratings:-0+6
When will all you writers learn that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is us, you, me, everyone who is writing comments. When you say that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT should do this or that, you really mean, you, me and our fellow Americans who have failed to vote, has allowed out FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to do as it pleases with no oversight by US, The American People. Pay attention, vote, keep an eye on your elected representatives from now on.
88. Comment by Michael B. (#1967)— February 1,2008 @ 2:08PM
Ratings:-4+9
Of course, if you don't think the stock market is a good investment, you could always follow Queen Shrillary's financial strategy when her family had no money. Invest $1000 through a Tyson Foods lawyer and poof, a magic $100,000 for trading cattle futures.
Oh by the way, Tyson was indicted on over 30 charges of not only hiring illegals but arranging for their transport.
90. Comment by George C. (glasslicker101)— February 1,2008 @ 2:32PM
Ratings:-3+5
Do not applaud Gabrielle Giffords for doing anything. She is a typical status quo politico (like Jim Kolbe) who is against permanent checkpoints.This is nothing more than pandering to some whiners in Tubac, and will do nothing more than hamper the Border Patrol. Allowing know nothing politicians to dictate law enforcement operations will do nothing but cause ineffectiveness. All of the politicians are equally useless in assisting enforcement of immigration law, so the only recourse is to vote them out of office.
91. Comment by john m. (jonnystone)— February 1,2008 @ 2:38PM
Ratings:-0+4
If you want more money for border enforcement, make the apprehended illegal aliens STAY IN JAIL until they pay a hefty fine that covers both the cost of their incarcation and the costs associated with getting them put there. Instead of letting them out scot free and paying taxpayers' money to send them back over the border.
Set the bail really high because they are high flight risks. Then after they fork over the money to get out, immediately deport them. When they return (and they will), do it all over again. I bet many would be surprised at how easily a poor migrant with no prospects just looking for a crappy blue-collar job can come up with $20,000 bail over and over again.
85 - no one has time to read that novel you posted. Notice that no one has posted rating yet- this is because none of us bothered to read it.
92. Comment by Dana S. (Sitting Duck)— February 1,2008 @ 3:18PM
Ratings:-0+6
#87: If it were only that simple. We have career politicians breeding politicians. We have husbands and wives of politicians becoming politicians. We have a system that is controlled by two parties, the media, and money.
We have 30% of the public, that does vote, who doesn't mind being controlled by the above. And you have 70% of the non-voting public that doesn't mind being controlled by the 30% that think they are in control.
Any authority, not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution, must be returned to the states. Only there can the oversight of government be effective.
Term limits (no seat jumpers), 100% government funded elections, and a citizens "vote of confidence" tool that can be wielded in the face of stupidity are what's needed. IMO. Unfortunately, you need the politicians to make that happen.
Don't hold your breath, hoping for the above, or you will become brain-dead. Just like the 70% that don't vote.
93. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 3:27PM
Ratings:-0+4
92. Comment by Dana S. (Sitting Duck)
If it were only that simple. We have career politicians breeding politicians. We have husbands and wives of politicians becoming politicians. We have a system that is controlled by two parties, the media, and money.
Exactly.
Just like Hollywood, only slightly different, but still actors and still inbreeding.
94. Comment by Dave P. (AZ Man)— February 1,2008 @ 4:55PM
Ratings:-0+6
I sure hope this case helps Arizona
Federal Judge Rules That Local Governments Can Suspend Business Licenses for Hiring Illegal Aliens
Decision in Valley Park, Missouri, Case will have Far-Reaching Consequences Predicts the Immigration Reform Law Institute
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an unambiguous 57-page
decision handed down on January 31, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber
ruled that local governments have a right to take action against illegal
immigration by suspending or denying business licenses to employers who
knowingly hire illegal aliens. Judge Webber granted the City of Valley
Park, Missouri's, request for summary judgment in dismissing a case seeking
to prevent the city from implementing local ordinances meant to crack down
on businesses that employ illegal aliens. His ruling rejected every one of
the arguments made by the plaintiffs in this suit.
95. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)— February 1,2008 @ 5:25PM
Ratings:-0+4
94. Comment by Dave P. (AZ Man)
That is good, thanks.
Between that judge and the one in Oklahoma, who told the complaintants that they would not be using his court to further the cause of illegal aliens, we might have a chance.
97. Comment by tom c. (tom c)— February 1,2008 @ 5:28PM
Ratings:-4+5
the only reason bush jr. is where he is,is because of daddys money and contacts. i mean how many business's has jr. tried to run and only run them in to the ground?
at least he will be gone in less than 1 year. then some one else will have to carry the burden jr. leaves. a monkey could do a better job.
99. Comment by Prudent M. (Prudent-Man)— February 1,2008 @ 8:53PM
Ratings:-1+3
If I understand our Constitution, it's Congress that passes budgets and decides what to fund. Aren't Gabby and other members of Congress, sending Bush a letter asking him to fund the activity merely pointing out that the current Congress has yet to full pass budgets for the current fiscal year?
I seem to recall Gabby and Grijalva pushing for a huge zone of land from the border to Phoenix that the Border Patrol wouldn't be allowed into, with vehicles. Why does the Star not remind it's readers of that 'spearheading' by Gabby. I wonder when the Star will work Gabby's so called accomplishments into the weather forecast.
100. Comment by Joan K. (kicemout)— February 1,2008 @ 9:05PM
Ratings:-3+2
I think Bush is still pouting because his amnesty bill didn't pass. He's getting even with us. He's showing us who the boss is. Vote for McCain and we'll have more of the same.
101. Comment by vincent m. (#3942)— February 1,2008 @ 10:25PM
Ratings:-1+2
Joan K which candidate does not want to give amnesty? Duncan Hunter fit the bill but the prees an the party ignored him. I love this rag for giving President Bush crap about not enforcing the laws of the USA yet EVERYarticle they publish about Illegal aliens supports their criminal activity.
102. Comment by Wayne B. (rain)— February 1,2008 @ 10:45PM
Ratings:-1+1
This is a bi-partisan issue, the left agrees with the right that Bush did not enforce the border. Of course, they won't mention that Clinton didn't, either.
And if Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton get elected and have open borders with rampant crime, that would be ok by the left. But not if Bush does it.
The right is against all Presidents not enforcing border security, even our own.
vincent m. (#3942)
Amen, Vincent M too bad about Duncan Hunter! Well, he's not going to just lay down, now, either. I wonder what he'll do next?
104. Comment by Glenda S. (Glen)— February 2,2008 @ 12:01AM
Ratings:-1+0
As a conservative and some one that voted for Bush (only because I considered him the lesser of two evils)I agree with #51 Martin. Bush is the worst President ever. But the Democrats are no better. Both Hillary and Obama are globalist and want to keep the border open. McCain, Huckelberry and Romney are all big business and globalist. Ron Paul is the man we should put in the White House. If only voters would truly investigate his record and background. Ron Paul is the only good choice.
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Bush shirking duty to fight crime on border
If President Bush cannot push a comprehensive immigration-reform package through Congress, the least he can do is fully fund one item lawmakers on both sides of the aisle at least partly agree on — border enforcement. This is an area in which the federal government is failing to meet its responsibilities.What took you so long to realize that Bush has absolutely NO desire to provide Americans with security against illegal entrants?
Bush believes that illegal entrants are merely "good hearted" people.
Unfortunately, McCain is also opposed to border security.
Report this comment
Who want's a " immigration-reform package ". Except for being a long process it's fine as it is. WE don't want illegals in our Country anymore. They are not immigrates. So lets have a criminal reform package that includes them. Leave immigration alone.
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Well I agree with this story. I believe that Washington does not GAF about us down here, why else is only 300 miles of fence been built in 18 mos? The Dems want the votes and the rep's want the cheap labor!Protecting the borders is a federal responsibility, in the end it's all of our responsibility. Give me a fence and an AK and I'll take care of my own. And thats a memo.
Report this comment
Those who do not support our troops will always be unwilling to prioritize our borders. Bush and Petraeus are doing their best to protect the Iran-Iraq border. He said just the other night that fewer terrorists are being attracted to Iraq from bordering countries.
Bush is also making great efforts to keep our allies in Turkey and Kurdistan from crossing the border and killing each other.
Bush made a special trip to the Mideast recently to try to convince Israel to stop using its borders with Palestine to embargo supplies the people living there need to stay alive.
Such selfishness, thinking only about our own border, when we need to police the world.
Report this comment
A border fence is nothing more than the "bridge to no where."
One more chance to fleece the U.S. Treasury and turn it over to friends of Republicans.
Say, hey, whaaa? A star editorial I agree with? I'd better read it again.
Report this comment
Bush isn't in charge of the border enforcement.
I know this paper continually advocates ignoring law....
Moving on: for the readers, it is illegal for federal troops to be used because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. While the National Defense Act of 1916 stipulates that the national guard (not the Army ) can be used as a federal law order unit.
"Crime" is not under direct federal jurisdiction.
And I'm talking about actual enforcement. This silly column just wants money for vague policies which I doubt they really want enforced. Just the bucks.
As for this program it's Congress that has jurisdiction over the SCAAP. So the Bush headline, is disingenuous, and misleading.
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What do unnatural acts have to do with anything?
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ADS supports "non-enforcement" reform, yet bemoans the fact that it costs real money to deal with this associated lawlessness they desire to import from Mexico.
So which is it ADS? The rule of law, or the chaotic mayhem at the border (at the cost of innocents and quality of life, ot to menion money) we presently experience?
You can no longer have this cake after eating it. The money does not exist to fight imported, self-inflicted crime. Furthermore, the political willpower to fund more police does not exist: the people living near the border are fed up with the lawmen and the illegals.
Build the fence.
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9. Comment by m t. (tink9)
"ADS supports "non-enforcement" reform"
Yes, and so does Rev. Hoover and his Band of Marxist Mau-Mau's:
We Don't Want Enforcement
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Bush shirking duty to fight crime on border
And this is a suprise? Bush has been shirking his duty ever since he was in the National Guard.
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Re #7
The role of the Executive Branch of our national government is to implement the nation's laws. All the agencies that are empowered to enforce the laws respecting our borders are part of the Executive Branch.
Guess who is the CEO of the Executive Branch... President Bush. He is ultimately responsible for the failures of his administrative agencies to effectively enforce the laws respecting the border.
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ENFORCE THE LAWS WE HAVE NOW. PLUS, BUILD THE FENCE.!!
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Don't be fooled by this rag's editorial. Money talks and they change their tune to support the "fundees" who are sucking dollars and doing nothing. In reality this non-enforcement reform is a smoke screen for open borders. This newspaper is a loser user and will soon dry up.
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It is more than obvious, to anyone minimally observant, by the end of the first line, that the author of this opinion either dosen't know what they are talking about, or just bashing Bush! It reads "if President Bush cannot push a comprehensive immigration-reform package through Congress, the least he can do is fully fund one item lawmakers on both sides of the aisle at least partly agree on — border enforcement." The Democrats control Congress, and therefore control the purse. They have systematically defunded the border fence over the last 4 months! This administration HAS doubled the number of Border Patrol Agents manning our southern border! This misnomer that the federal government is solely responsible for enforcing our immigration laws is the last refuge of political correctness! Once these criminals, the ILLEGAL ALIENS, get past our borders and into our communities, it is encumbent upon local law enforcement to enforce all laws pertaining to the apprehension of these violators! Sheriff DUPEnick, shut up and do your job!
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Let's face it, despite the ranting and howling of the rank and file, Bush and the GOP are pro-illegal immigration.
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How to write an editorial 101:
Stick your finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Write accordingly.
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There is a conspiracy to open our borders and sell our country out from under us. The federal government, the mass media and international business are in collusion to rip the average American off and sell what is rightfully ours to the highest bidder. Money talks and our votes don't mean a thing because we really don't have a choice. We are told who the front runners are and when it comes down to it our only "choice" is one of their candidates. No real change, only consolidation of power in the hands of the wealthy and powerful.
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The executive branch of the federal government is responsible for enforcing the law...why has President Bush never enforced the employer hiring laws against hiring illegal workers??? He has shirked more than his duty as commander in chief...when's his court martial??
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To all of you out there reading this article. Bush has DONE NOTHING to secure our borders. Neither has The House nor the Senate.
Please be very careful who you vote for in this Presidential campaign. McCain WILL PROMOTE AMNESTY. MCAIN WILL NOT CLOSE THE BORDERS. McCain wants a North American Union. The same goes for Hillary.
MCCAIN IS A DICTATOR WITH A HOT TEMPER. HILLARY IS A SOCIALIST. WATCH OUT WHAT YOU ASK FOR.
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" Bush shirking duty to fight crime on border"
Gee, that's a shocker headline. Is there anything that Bush has not shirked his duty on, other than helping the upper class do well?
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what do you expect from bush? hes a loser.
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Reimbursement sounds fair but it is just a bubblegum and duct-tape solution to the cost of lawlessness. The real solution, and also the least costly (to law abiding citizens) is to strictly enforce immigration law. We must stop employment, housing, education, and healthcare of illegal entrants. I see nothing wrong with employing and educating documented visitors and legal immigrants from other countries, or humanitarian aid in their contries.
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Why would anyone in their right mind vote for McCain. He is from Arizona, so that is a reason to vote for him????
He will be no better than what we have now. The Arizona people need tosend a message to all of the candidates that they will not stand for this costly immigration of illegal people.
It will eventually lead to a border war. You can't keep invading a country and try to change the language, culture, if the border is not closed, in 5 years we will be fighting to save our state from drug lords, etc.
Don't vote for the liberal McCain....I am an Arizona Resident
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" Please make sure Majority Leader Pelosi brings the SAVE ACT to a vote. This bill will help end illegal immigration by beefing up the border and helping businesses to identify illegal workers.
Among the key provisions of the SAVE Act are:
-Requires every employer to use the electronic verification system (E-Verify) on every employee;
-Makes provisions to catch illegal aliens who have committed identity theft;
-Requires implementation of key border protection provisions. "
Please support the SAVE Act. ~ NUMBERSUSA
Send this to everyone you know who still supports the sovereignty of our nation.
None of these candidates are going to do a damn thing on illegal immigration as they have all been bought off by big business, or they're lusting after future entitlement voters.. same as Bush, we need to do it ourselves by demanding action from the employees we put in Congress.
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Oops.. here's the link for $25 post: NUMBERSUSA
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Quit whining. AZ should impose a 10% tax on wire remittances to Mexico, seize and sell any vehicles used in human or drug smuggling, and require visas for a fee for Mexican nationals visiting the US. In other words, make Mexicans pay the costs associated with the bad behavior of their compatriots.
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Immigration is about the standards for applying for residence and citizenship; who can apply; how many can be accepted, how the process is implemented.
Immigration is not about border security.
Immigration is not about deporting illegal aliens and cleaning up after them.
Immigration is not about a guest worker program.
So you can have comprehensive immigration reform, whatever that means, and still not address the three items above.
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As charming as is Gongresswoman Giffords on a personal note, she is sorely lacking when it comes to being serious about illegal immigration.
I receive frequent letters from her and in every one of them is the quote "It is extremely unfortunate that the Senate voted to end debate on immigration reform (amnesty)legislation in June. Doing nothing to address our nation's immigration crisis is irresponsible."
Does she really believe that we asked our leaders to "do nothing", when we convinced them that we didn't want amnesty for the millions of people here illegally?
Instead of trying to pay for some of the damage done by illegal immigration, she should be doing everything she can, including putting the military on the border and authorizing our local cops to assist the feds in this fight, to stop the cause of this damage.
I feel that she has the potential to be a very good member of Congress but.....
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27. Comment by Mary B. (maximaxine)
You wrote:
seize and sell any vehicles used in human or drug smuggling
The City of Bisbee budget is dependent on that very thing. Problem is many are vehicles which have been stolen and the best they can do is charge a storage fee from the date they notified the owner/rental agency they have the vehicle. And most are trashed because they ripout the seats and consuls to make more room.
Another idea is that any vehicle that crosses the border with Mexico license plates should have the VIN checked against stolen vehicle lists and a recovery fee charged for any vehicles recovered.
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Why not load the buses up and ship them to washington DC!!!
Then it becomes THEIR PROBLEM and not AZ
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"He is from Arizona . . . "
No. He is not.
He is a carpetbagger in every sense of the word.
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12. Comment by Rich K. (Rich907)
The thing is the Congress has the authority to take charge of the situation on the border. The Congress.
In Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution it sets forth the power of the Congress to put the National Guard on the border and enforce all, I say again all, U.S. laws.
Emphasis below is mine.
U.S. Constitution.
Article I – The Legislative Branch
Section 8. – Scope of Legislative Power
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
The militia above is the National Guard.
There is not qualifier in the segment regarding executing the laws, it does not say some of the laws.
The portion concerning executing the laws of the union means that the Congress can give the National Guard full enforcement of any and all U.S. laws.
The segment about calling forth lists three separate missions and could be listed three times once for each mission.
1. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union
2. To provide for calling forth the militia to suppress insurrections
3. To provide for calling forth the militia to repel invasions;
And as much as the Nay Sayers want to throw up the Posse Comitatus Act; the Posse Comitatus Act is a law which cannot supersede an article of the constitution.
If the Congress wanted to they could take charge.
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Well, you know, war presidents get busy with other things. Cut him some slack he's been too busy being war president.
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Bush, who is that? Had no prior experience at running a government, why was he elected? Now McCain wants to get to be President, he will be just like Bush. Giffords is really trying hard to support your congressional area. Majority Leader Pelosi and Reid have turned their backs on the american people. They need to be voted out of office next election for them.
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On a recent newscast, the reporter showed a portion of some of the steel used in the pitiful amount of fence built so far. Clearly marked on the steel were the words 'Made in China' !! Getting the fence built is only one of our problems with disastrous co-dictator Bush but I hope this astounded more people than just myself ! This is a disgrace.
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McCain will want the very same things as Bush. Look at who is leading his campaign. One of Fox men.
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29. Comment by Richard H. (#6408)
Giffords is another participant in the great “immigration” debate who obviously does not know, nor care, about the difference between:
Immigration and migration.
Legal immigration and illegal immigration.
Legal migration and illegal migration.
She would rather use the current catch phrase as long as the corporate sponsors do not dry up.
Border control is NOT about immigration
Deporting and cleaning up after illegal aliens is NOT about immigration
A guest worker program is NOT about immigration, it is a special class of tourism, temporary visitors allowed to earn wages.
Allowing an individual to apply for, and earn, citizenship IS about immigration.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION is obtaining U.S. citizenship through the use of false, fraudulent and fictitious documents, such as the FBI/CIA agent that they recently withdrew naturalized citizenship from and deported.
ILLEGAL MIGRATION is crossing the international boundary, not at the Ports of Entry, or crossing the international boundary at Ports of Entry using false, fraudulent and fictitious documents.
Illegal IMMIGRATION produces illegal citizens
Illegal MIGRATION produces illegal aliens
Both illegal citizens and illegal aliens are law violators.
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Americans have four choices in the Presidential election
1) A self-made conservative against amnesty (Romney)
2) A liberal who has on several occasions tried to sabotage his own party and is FOR amnesty (Juan McAmnesty)
3) A socialist, an empty shell but charismatic pro-amnesty newbie.
4) A committed corrupt communist that is pro-Amnesty (Queen Shrillary).
If illegal immigration is important to you, there is only one choice. ALL other choices mean amnesty will happen months, not years.
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Border Security has nothing to do with immigration reform and only a portion to do with illegal aliens.
Border security is country security, sovereignty protection. There are many more reasons than the crossing of illegal aliens that are a consideration for border security.
These include, but are not limited to;
THOUSANDS OF TONS of illegal drugs driven across that border between the Ports of Entry,
terrorists and terrorists contraband (the smart terrorist will bring his tools with him rather than trying to buy on the black market and getting caught),
stopping the spread of diseases such as drug resistant TB,
stopping the syphilis epidemic that is spreading from the border cities to Tucson,
stopping the movement of stolen cars across the border,
stopping the movement of illegal weapons in both directions,
stopping the movement of the proceeds of smugglers across the border, etc., etc.
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Following are excerpts from the identified below.
……………………………..
Cartels outrun outgun the law at Ariz border
Fed report details thriving business behind violent international industry
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 3, 2007 12:00 AM
…………………………………………………
Such hideouts dot just about every hill Harris scouts in the 90 miles between Marana and Why in Pima County. There are more than 100 well-armed Mexican spotters operating in Arizona at any time, Harris and federal agents estimate.
The camps show how pervasive the Mexican drug-smuggling operation has become and why congressional investigators said last week that cartels "operate with relative impunity along the U.S. border."
………………………………………………………………..
Congressional investigators said. Yet where is the action by Congress.
I do not mean to imply that I am defending GW but everyone in DC gets to own a piece of this pie.
Now this is in Pima County, Arizona, U.S.
Do a poll of the various agencies, from the Pima County Sheriffs Department up through the DHS, and ask who is doing anything about this.
The pat answer you will get from every agency is “That is out side of our responsibilities” in other words “No my job, man”
No one in government will take responsibility for anything anymore, NO ONE.
Richard Nixon was that last one, on his way out of office, when he said “I will accept the responsibility but not the blame.”
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To say nothing of the 70 million people the census bureau predicts will be added to our population in the next 30 years due to immigration.
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The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the fact that Mexicans are out-breeding the ability of their economy to sustain the massive creation of people. Perhaps the poor Mexicans should consider living within their means as so many Americans have for so long. Maybe then they wouldn't be forced to move north to work.
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"This week Giffords and 40 other members of Congress sent a letter to President Bush asking him to fully fund the assistance program, which Congress has authorized for $950 million in fiscal 2009. However, Bush's budget plan has no funding for the program whatsoever."
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Our government needs to stop rewarding poverty stricken people for having kids. If you can't afford to have children, then you shouldn't be rewarded with more money for each one you have. I'm sick of paying for irresponsible people.
The Mexicans aren't stupid, they know our government will reward them with lots of social services.
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The Department of Homeland security has an enormous multi billion dollar yearly budget.
Why is the border still open?
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Wait a minute...McCain stated during the debate that HE has taken care of securing the border in his state, because HE knows how to do it. Why blame President Bush when it's MCCain who hasn't done a thing...yet claims he's the EXPERT who can and will solve the illegal immigration problem. What a joke! I can't stand that arrogant, pompous jackass!
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Here is just part of a semi-related article on the plan to eventually do away with the borders all together. View the whole article at this AM's www.leftcoastnews.net -
A state lawmaker in Utah has introduced a resolution encouraging the U.S. to withdraw from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and any other bilateral activity that would move the country toward an EU-style continental merger.
Republican state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom introduced House Resolution 1 to the Utah legislature this week after a similar measure passed the House last year by a 47-24 vote but was blocked by a Senate committee just before the session's close.
"I feel confident we will get this resolution passed this year," Sandstrom told WND. "We learned a lot last year about our opponents, and this year we are better prepared to anticipate their legislative moves to block us."
The resolution reads in part: "The gradual creation of such a North American Union from a merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada would be a direct threat to the United States Constitution and the national independence of the United States and would imply an eventual end to national borders within North America."
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44. Comment by Scott P. (S)
I am all for money to reimburse past expenses, I am all for full funding of all of the authorized positions for the Border Patrol. Because that has been a tactic of the politicians to authorize but not fund.
But someone has to tell some agency or another specifically that it is their mission, their responsibility to get a grip on what is happening in the geographic area of the border.
Using the example of 100 well armed, and well equipped with communications gear, drugee spotters in the Arizona desert.
The Border Patrol will say it is not their mission because these people are not in the act of crossing the border and are not directly with anyone who is. Besides they do not have the funds, equipment or training for pursuing a military type tactical operation that it would take.
The Pima County Sheriff’s office will say that it involves immigration and that is a Federal responsibility besides; they do not have the funds, equipment or training for pursuing a military type tactical operation that it would take.
The National Guard, who has the equipment and training are not allowed to perform the mission because someone believes it is prohibited by Posse Comitatus and the National Guard should not be involved in law enforcement because they do not have law enforcement training, the Guard performing the exact same mission on the Iraq/Iran border not withstanding.
It boils down then to a problem of funds and training.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
The Congress, if it wanted, using the authority of Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution could call forth the National Guard, such as the Special Forces of the Utah Guard, with the specific stipulation that they were to clean out these spotters.
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I have been reading posts at this site for over a year now that have stated emphatically that the border is going unprotected and 1000's of criminals swarm across the border daily and this newspaper, the Mexican Daily Star, considers this headline news.
Well I guess when the TRUTH catches up with the ADS Propaganda Machine they have to print something close to a retraction.
How can a paper stay in business when 75% of what it writes anymore is just covering up for a lie that one of their open border reporters wrote?
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Bush is by far the worst, most irresponsible, and most treasonous jerk to ever occupy the White House. He should have been impeached and removed a long time ago, and that goes for that evil, crooked SOB Cheney as well. Rest assured that Bush wants no borders, no sovereignty, and is a dangerous globalist swine and shill for big business. He's a disease, and so are all associated with the monster.
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51 Well said.
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Interesting the ADS criticizing bush for not fixing something it supports, after all illegal immigration is a border crime.
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Here are excerpts from an article in which the Mexican government says it does not care what it’s citizens are doing it is unacceptable for the Border Patrol to defend themselves. The solution is not for Mexico to police their citizens but for the U.S. Border Patrol to stop protecting themselves.
Wonder where he ADS stands on this?
…………………………………………………………………………..
Mexico asks U.S. to investigate firing of tear gas over border
The Associated Press
Jan. 31, 2008 10:16 PM
MEXICO CITY - The government has sent a diplomatic note to the United States formally requesting it investigate recent incidents in which U.S. Border Patrol officers fired tear gas onto the Mexican side of the border.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………
"Independently of whether these incidents are a response to hostile acts against Border Patrol agents by private citizens on the Mexican side, the Mexican government considers these actions by U.S. federal authorities to unacceptable," Foreign Relations said in a statement.
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Get the last of your hate in now - Bush won't be around much longer.
Hate Bush, Hate Bush, Hate Bush
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#55 - Your having a difficult time understanding that the ultra-conservatives are the actual open-border activists. Their hero, Reagan,
was the original Amnesty guy. Any other immigration bills that conservatives wrote?
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Well, seven years after Bill Clinton left office the hating on him hasn't stopped, so what makes you think the hating on Bush will stop in (thank God) less than a year?
The FUBARaq debacle, though improving, will explode onward for years to come. The poor planning and strategy of "stay with Rummy's course" will continue to burden us for decades.
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What you all are forgetting or perhaps overlooking - is that any president we have recently had or will elect has no intentions of securing the border. The Master Plan is the SPP - the combination of USA, Mexico and Canada. Since they intend not to have ANY borders - there is no reason to stop illegal immigration or build a fence.
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To Bush, illegal aliens can do NO wrong!
You can add Clinton, McCain, Kyl, Obama, Kennedy, Flake and the rest of the weak-minded to that school of thought!
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El Presidente Jorge Boosh is going to make sure the Fat Cats get their cheap, illegal-alien labor and US citizens be damned! The profits go to his Big Biz cronies; you mere peons can absorb the costs. If social unrest is part of the long-term damage, well, that's tough.
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For poster "Don R" - the Posse C. law doesn't apply here. Border security is NOT domestic law enforcement! In fact, US troops could be given a shoot-to-kill order for anyone crossing the border illegally. I'm not advocating that, but as Commander in Chief, Bush [aka El Presidente Jorge Boosh!] has that Constitutional power.
The Supreme Court has, time and again, upheld the jurisdiction of the US Border Patrol - a FEDERAL agency! - operating within the boundaries of American states. They have the authority to arrest ANYONE on reasonable suspicion with SEVENTY FIVE MILES of an international boundary. That's why smugglers attempt to move their human cargo inland as fast as they can.
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If anyone thinks putting up a fence will stop the smuggling they are in a dream. All you have to do is look at other countries that have had fences. Any fence can be climbed over, drilled through, or tunneled under. It has happened over and over again. The people who hire undocumented workers need to be held ac****able. I have more concern about the drug smugglers getting through the border than some workers. It's all a question of supply and demand. There are certain segments of the American public that use drugs and as long as the American people don't demand tougher drug laws the drug cartels will continue to flood our country with drugs.
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Again and again, the real cause of illegal immigration remains under the table. The illegal is an important element in the economy through out America. This element has produced dependency both among the big and small employers. The Mexican is a very good worker who expects and is usually given little. He is working more for survival and this is a real motivator. Expelled all out of the country many firms will suffer, some may have to close their doors. The increased costs of doing business will trickle down to us all.
The point is that this is complex economic problem that goes beyond breaking the law and human fraility that exsists in us all.
In the 1920's Mexican farm labor was welcomed in this country. Then with the Great Depression and need for jobs, they were kicked out. Now with the the possiblity of a recession a new demand for jobs that cannot be outsourced may happen. As in life, there are few easy answers without untoward consequences.
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You're 100% correct NoVaMom. CFR and Co. are more concerned with the morphing of the Trans Texas Corridor, NASCO, NAFTA Superhighway.
And around our area from I-19 on through I-10 CANAMEX, thats the trans-national Superhighway that will affect this reagion.
Trans-national for now, within 5 years it will be the North American Community, then the North American Union.
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President Bush should be impeached for his failure to secure the border.
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I live in up in Michigan. I'm gonna try to speak simply, clearly and without heated rhetoric.
What has been going on with respect to immigration over the past several years is not normal immigration. This is just greed on the part of firm's who desire to never raise wages and also it is social/cultural transformation on the part of radical ethnic-chauvenist Mexicans.
We here in Michigan (and the rest of the non-border states), do not want our hometowns to turn into Tijuana.
We are not against immigration but it MUST BE LEGAL AND IN REASONABLE NUMBERS. Neither is true in the case of Mexico - huge numbers of illegal aliens, who do not assimilate, who retain loyalty to their country of Mexico, who refuse to learn and speak English.
This can't continue much longer, somethings got to give. Either the illegal invasion will be stopped or the United States will break apart or perhaps transform into a North American Union (who only chronically corrupt Mexico benefits from).
Mexico is the problem - it needs major reform.
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It is only the unevolved mind, the mind that thinks a Democrat is better than a Republican or vice versa that thinks it is about hating King George or even Slick Willy Clinton.
Fill in the name here__________.
The blank can be filled in with any name that has thought their own personal fortune is worth damaging this country.
If you are still having trouble pick the name of any politician, any candidate currently running for president.
Still having trouble thinking it is only about a red or blue team and one of those teams have the answers and will do what needs to be done, start with those that govern Tucson and you will see it is symptomatic clear up to King George.
It is about crooks gutting this country and we as legal law abiding citizens picking up the tab and repairing the damage.
Hating someone, to me, is as personal as loving someone and I do it on a case by case basis.
I do not hate the crooked politicians that are destroying my country. I despise them.
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63. Comment by sam a. (low gear)
Here’s the deal.
A lot of people are doom saying about the impact to the economy by the loss of the illegal aliens.
With a properly operated guest worker program they are replaced by legal workers and citizen/legal workers already here.
If these people were to leave and come back in an effectively operated guest worker program the impact to the economy would last for about 60 to 90 days. And right now with the economy being what it is would be a great time to implement that.
The rub comes from the pro-illegal alien groups and the Mexican government not wanting a guest worker program. They just want to legitimize things as they are. Cash payments under the table, no accounting, no withholding etc., etc., etc.
Why do they not want a guest worker program, you might ask.
I am here to tell you.
Because the guest worker program would force them to take the lower paying jobs in agriculture, that they currently will not accept.
Because their employers would be force to collect and pay their portions for taxes and other withholdings.
Because their employers would have to start paying time and one half. To do that then they would have to cut wages to keep the costs of labor the same.
Because they would become visible and have to start paying for medical services or be hounded to death by collection agencies.
Because only one third to one half of all illegal aliens are workers and their home countries would then have to sustain the ones that would not be returning to work.
Because they would have to start registering their vehicles and buy insurance.
Because their take home pay, minus the new expenses the legal workers pay, would drop to a point that the remittances that they currently send to their home countries would be reduced by at least 80%. Mexico’s economy is currently fueled 30% by those remittances.
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#7 wrote: "Moving on: for the readers, it is illegal for federal troops to be used because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Not true. Congress and the President can authorize the use of troops on our border.
Moving on. I will agree that Bush #2 hasn't been the President that I thought he would be. Nowhere close. However, to say he is shirking his duty with regard to crime on our borders insinuates that Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush #1, and Clinton did. Now, if the column writer had said, "Bush, like past Presidents, is shirking .....
Sounds like someone is being political and throwing all the blame on the Republican President instead of on Congress where the blame should be directed. And who feels that the President should be pushing "comprehensive immigration reform" through Congress? The "our view" ADS people? Whoever they are.
Typical one-sided journalism.
Deploy the troops!
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Well duh!
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Re #33
Congress has the power to pass laws... Whether those laws get enforced is a function of the executive branch. The point is that there already are sufficient laws on the books to stop illegal immigration. We don't need more laws; we need to enforce the ones we already have.
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The war is over. We won.
Now we must end the OCCUPATION.
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"Our military machine is tremendously good at fighting wars - blowing up infrastructure, killing opposing armies, and toppling governments.
We did that successfully in Iraq, in a matter of a few weeks.
We destroyed their army, wiped out their air defenses, devastated their Republican Guard, seized their capitol, arrested their leaders, and took control of their government.
We won the war. It's over.
What we have now is an occupation of Iraq.
The occupation began when the war ended, and continues to this day.
According to our own Pentagon estimates, at least ninety five percent of those attacking our soldiers are Iraqi civilians who view themselves as anti-occupation fighters.
And last week both the Defense Minister and the Vice President of Iraq asked us for a specific date on which the occupation would end.
The war ended when Bush proclaimed victory long ago.
No it is time to honorably end the occupation of a foreign country.
Wars are won or lost, but occupations end by redeployments.
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Ten Reasons to End the Occupation of Iraq.
"There is no longer a war against Iraq.
It ended in May of 2003, when George W. Bush stood below a "Mission Accomplished" sign aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and correctly declared that we had "victoriously" defeated the Iraqi army and overthrown their government."
Thom Hartmann
We are no longer at War. The war ended, and we won.
We are now an occupying nation.
Occupiers of other nations leave when the war is over.
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***The point is that there already are sufficient laws on the books to stop illegal immigration. We don't need more laws; we need to enforce the ones we already have.**
And it is the Executive Branch of the US federal government, headed by George W. Bush who has chosen NOT to enforce the laws of this country...is that not an impeachable offense??
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America is overspent. Expect a lot of programs will be cut, some very deserving health and security programs as well. As Americans we have to decide what the government's spending priorities will be.
Unless we do this the President and Congress will continue to go their own ways based on political concerns rather than the people's needs or conscience.
We cannot afford to continue to abdicate our responsibilies to Government and ease our consciences by blameing our elected officials (capable or not).
This is our time and our countries last hope!
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71. Comment by Rich K. (Rich907)
They all get a piece of the blame for inaction.
When the President asked for and received a bill that increased the authorization for additional positions for the Border Patrol he signed it. And now they have a whole slew of positions authorized.
Then when Congress created the appropriations bills they funded only 10% of the authorized new positions, effectively tying the hands of the Executive Branch. But allowing the Congress to say they have increased the strength of the Border Patrol because of the unfunded authorizations.
And it was not just positions. The Douglas Station of the Border Patrol was authorized two helicopters with crews, years ago, but have never been funded. Maybe they can ride the authorization papers like magic carpet.
We do not need more laws creating new criminal acts, but we do need some laws that clearly delineate who is responsible for what and measures that will force them to take the appropriate actions.
Using the authorizations of Article 1 Section 8 the Congress can mandate that specific types of National Guard units perform specific missions under the command of a specific individual, such as the Secretary of Defense and the funds authorized for the purpose cannot be spent on anything else with the penalty being held in contempt of Congress.
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#71: I agree. However, we don't have the manpower, money, or the political will to enforce the laws.
Line-of-sight deployment of our troops on our borders is the only realistic solution. We are in a war against illegal immigration, drugs, etc., and the BP will never be properly equipped or have sufficient numbers to combat it.
If we can station 30,000 troops in Korea for fifty plus years, surely we could have been doing the same on our borders for the past thirty plus years in defense of our country.
If someone were to add up all the costs associated with illegal immigration, drugs, and other related crimes originating at our borders for the past thirty years, you would find the number to be in the billions if not trillions of dollars.
To say that the military shouldn't be used to combat this senseless expenditure of money in a losing battle is shortsighted and foolish.
Deploy our troops to our borders. Now!
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#68 Tim R. makes the best sense I have heard. What he describes are very powerful forces that will be very difficult to change.
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For all of you who are saying we do not need more laws but need the ones we have enforced, I could not agree with you more. Have been saying that for years.
Arizona government is a mirror of the U.S. government in this regard and Janet is a reflection of George.
If a business hires an illegal alien and places them on their payroll they are notified if the transaction does not pass the screening for the SSN and name check and the business does not correct the transaction the business has submitted false/fraudulent/fictitious transactions. At that point the business KNOWS the individual has an identity problem.
And this happens thousands of times per week.
Has the Governor or Attorney General of Arizona taken any action to prosecute these businesses for violations of Arizona tax laws.
NO.
If they did we would not need the sanctions laws.
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#66- MI a non-border state? Last time I checked you share a fairly long border with Canada. And of course only white, law abiding people would come through that border so of course it doesn't count. The UP part of your state being so densely populated and all, and I'm sure there's no open shoreline to offer a vector to waterborne entry...
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Hmmmm...lost 17,000 jobs last month, Exxon Mobil posted the largest ever profit for a US corporation last year, and Bush sees "troubling signs" that the US economy is tanking....
Ya think???
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You know someone can point out flaws, joke and put down someone. I may agree or not, laugh or not. But I have never put someone down because of their Service in the Military. Not even Sen. Kerry who I can't stand. They Served in the Military just like I did earning my respect. End of story.
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The Geopolitics of Dope
January 29, 2008
By George Friedman
Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Last week, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres into the United States on this scale goes beyond what has become accepted practice. The dynamics in the borderland are shifting and must be understood in a broader, geopolitical context.
Related Links
Borderlands and Immigrants
The Geopolitics of Immigration
Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico's Drug Cartels
The U.S. border with Mexico has been intermittently turbulent since the U.S. occupation of northern Mexico. The annexation of Texas following its anti-Mexican revolution and the Mexican-American War created a borderland, an area in which the political border is clearly delineated but the cultural and economic borders are less clear and more dynamic. This is the case with many borders, including the U.S.-Canadian one, but the Mexican border has gone through periods of turbulence in the past and is going through one right now.
There always have been uncontrolled economic transactions and movements along the border. Both sides understood that the cost of controlling and monitoring these transactions outstripped the benefit. Long before NAFTA came into existence, social and economic movement in both directions - but particularly from Mexico to the United States - were fairly uncontrolled. Borderland transactions in particular, local transactions in proximity to the border region (retail shopping, agricultural transfers and so on), were uncontrolled. So was smuggling. Trade in stolen U.S. cars and parts shipped into Mexico, labor from Mexico shipped into the United States, etc., were seen as tolerable costs for an open border.
A low-friction border, one that easily could be traversed at low cost - without extended waits - was important to both sides. In 2006, the United States imported $198 billion in goods from Mexico and exported $134 billion to Mexico. This makes Mexico the third-largest trading partner of the United States and also makes it one of the more balanced major trade relationships the United States has. Loss of Mexican markets would hurt the U.S. economy substantially. The U.S. advantage in selling to Mexico is low-cost transport. Lose that through time delays at the border and the Mexican market becomes competitive for other countries. About 13 percent of all U.S. exports are bought by Mexico.
Not disrupting this trade and not raising its cost has been a fundamental principle of U.S.-Mexican relations, one long predating NAFTA. Leaving aside the contentious issue of whether illegal immigration hurts or helps the United States, the steps required to control that immigration would impede bilateral trade. The United States therefore has been loath to impose effective measures, since any measures that would be effective against population movement also would impose friction on trade.
The United States has been willing to tolerate levels of criminality along the border. The only time when the United States shifted its position was when organized groups in Mexico both established themselves north of the political border and engaged in significant violence. Thus, in 1916, when the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa began operations north of the border, the U.S. Army moved into Mexico to try to destroy his base of operations. This has been the line that, when crossed, motivated the United States to take action, regardless of the economic cost. The current upsurge in violence is now pushing that line.
The United States has built-in demand for a range of illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and marijuana. Regardless of decades of efforts, the United States has not been able to eradicate or even qualitatively reduce this demand. As an advanced industrial country, the United States has a great deal of money available to satisfy the demand for illegal drugs. This makes the supply of narcotics to a large market attractive. In fact, it almost doesn't matter how large demand is. Regardless of how it varies, the economics are such that even a fraction of the current market will attract sellers.
Even after processing, the cost of the product is quite low. What makes it an attractive product is the differential between the cost of production and the price it commands. In less-developed countries, supplying the American narcotics market creates huge income differentials. From the standpoint of a poor peasant, the differential between growing a product illegal in the United States compared with a legal product is enormous. From the standpoint of the processor, shippers and distributors, every step in the value chain creates tremendous incentives to engage in this activity over others.
There are several factors governing price. The addictive nature of the product creates an inelastic demand curve in a market with high discretionary income. People will buy at whatever the price and somehow will find the money for the purchase. Illegality suppresses competition and drives cartelization. Processing, smuggling and distributing the drugs requires a complex supply chain. Businesses not prepared to engage in high-risk illegal activities are frozen out of the market. The cost of market entry is high, since the end-to-end system (from the fields to the users) both is a relationship business (strangers are not welcome) and requires substantial expertise, particularly in covert logistics. Finally, there is a built-in cost for protecting the supply chain once created.
Because they are involved in an illegal business, drug dealers cannot take recourse to the courts or police to protect their assets. Protecting the supply chain and excluding competition are opposite sides of the same coin. Protecting assets is major cost of running a drug ring. It suppresses competition, both by killing it and by raising the cost of entry into the market. The illegality of the business requires that it be large enough to manage the supply chain and absorb the cost of protecting it. It gives high incentives to eliminate potential competitors and new entrants into the market. In the end, it creates a monopoly or small oligopoly in the business, where the comparative advantage ultimately devolves into the effectiveness of the supply chain and the efficiency of the private police force protecting it.
That means that drug organizations evolve in several predictable ways. They have huge amounts of money flowing in from the U.S. market by selling relatively low-cost products at monopolistic prices into markets with inelastic demand curves. Second, they have unique expertise in covert logistics, expertise that can be transferred to the movement of other goods. Third, they develop substantial security capabilities, which can grow over time into full-blown paramilitary forces to protect the supply chain. Fourth, they are huge capital pools, investing in the domestic economy and manipulating the political system.
Cartels can challenge - and supplant - governments. Between huge amounts of money available to bribe officials, and covert armies better equipped, trained and motivated than national police and military forces, the cartels can become the government - if in fact they didn't originate in the government. Getting the government to deploy armed forces against the cartel can become a contradiction in terms. In their most extreme form, cartels are the government.
Drug cartels have two weaknesses. First, they can be shattered in conflicts with challengers within the oligopoly or by splits within the cartels. Second, their supply chains can be broken from the outside. U.S. policy has historically been to attack the supply chains from the fields to the street distributors. Drug cartels have proven extremely robust and resilient in modifying the supply chains under pressure. When conflict occurs within and among cartels and systematic attacks against the supply chain take place, however, specific cartels can be broken - although the long-term result is the emergence of a new cartel system.
In the 1980s, the United States manipulated various Colombian cartels into internal conflict. More important, the United States attacked the Colombian supply chain in the Caribbean as it moved from Colombia through Panama along various air and sea routes to the United States. The weakness of the Colombian cartel was its exposed supply chain from South America to the United States. U.S. military operations raised the cost so high that the route became uneconomic.
The main route to American markets shifted from the Caribbean to the U.S.-Mexican border. It began as an alliance between sophisticated Colombian cartels and still-primitive Mexican gangs, but the balance of power inevitably shifted over time. Owning the supply link into the United States, the Mexicans increased their wealth and power until they absorbed more and more of the entire supply chain. Eventually, the Colombians were minimized and the Mexicans became the decisive power.
The Americans fought the battle against the Colombians primarily in the Caribbean and southern Florida. The battle against the Mexican drug lords must be fought in the U.S.-Mexican borderland. And while the fight against the Colombians did not involve major disruptions to other economic patterns, the fight against the Mexican cartels involves potentially huge disruptions. In addition, the battle is going to be fought in a region that is already tense because of the immigration issue, and at least partly on U.S. soil.
The cartel's supply chain is embedded in the huge legal bilateral trade between the United States and Mexico. Remember that Mexico exports $198 billion to the United States and - according to the Mexican Economy Ministry - $1.6 billion to Japan and $1.7 billion to China, its next biggest markets. Mexico is just behind Canada as a U.S. trading partner and is a huge market running both ways. Disrupting the drug trade cannot be done without disrupting this other trade. With that much trade going on, you are not going to find the drugs. It isn't going to happen.
Police action, or action within each country's legal procedures and protections, will not succeed. The cartels' ability to evade, corrupt and absorb the losses is simply too great. Another solution is to allow easy access to the drug market for other producers, flooding the market, reducing the cost and eliminating the economic incentive and technical advantage of the cartel. That would mean legalizing drugs. That is simply not going to happen in the United States. It is a political impossibility.
This leaves the option of treating the issue as a military rather than police action. That would mean attacking the cartels as if they were a military force rather than a criminal group. It would mean that procedural rules would not be in place, and that the cartels would be treated as an enemy army. Leaving aside the complexities of U.S.-Mexican relations, cartels flourish by being hard to distinguish from the general population. This strategy not only would turn the cartels into a guerrilla force, it would treat northern Mexico as hostile occupied territory. Don't even think of that possibility, absent a draft under which college-age Americans from upper-middle-class families would be sent to patrol Mexico - and be killed and wounded. The United States does not need a Gaza Strip on its southern border, so this won't happen.
The current efforts by the Mexican government might impede the various gangs, but they won't break the cartel system. The supply chain along the border is simply too diffuse and too plastic. It shifts too easily under pressure. The border can't be sealed, and the level of economic activity shields smuggling too well. Farmers in Mexico can't be persuaded to stop growing illegal drugs for the same reason that Bolivians and Afghans can't. Market demand is too high and alternatives too bleak. The Mexican supply chain is too robust - and too profitable - to break easily.
The likely course is a multigenerational pattern of instability along the border. More important, there will be a substantial transfer of wealth from the United States to Mexico in return for an intrinsically low-cost consumable product - drugs. This will be one of the sources of capital that will build the Mexican economy, which today is 14th largest in the world. The accumulation of drug money is and will continue finding its way into the Mexican economy, creating a pool of investment capital. The children and grandchildren of the Zetas will be running banks, running for president, building art museums and telling amusing anecdotes about how grandpa made his money running blow into Nuevo Laredo.
It will also destabilize the U.S. Southwest while grandpa makes his pile. As is frequently the case, it is a problem for which there are no good solutions, or for which the solution is one without real support.
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#83 - "Hmmmm...lost 17,000 jobs last month, Exxon Mobil posted the largest ever profit for a US corporation last year, and Bush sees "troubling signs" that the US economy is tanking...."
Perfect timing for the illegals to go home.
I bet the shareholders of Exxon are happy. By the way, did you know that anyone can be a shareholder in a public company? Just buy their stock?
But be careful, because just like Hugo Chavez, Queen Shrillary said she is going to 'take' those profits from the thousands and thousands that own those shares, including many public employees unions retirement plans (oh no, oh no...)
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When will all you writers learn that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is us, you, me, everyone who is writing comments. When you say that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT should do this or that, you really mean, you, me and our fellow Americans who have failed to vote, has allowed out FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to do as it pleases with no oversight by US, The American People. Pay attention, vote, keep an eye on your elected representatives from now on.
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Of course, if you don't think the stock market is a good investment, you could always follow Queen Shrillary's financial strategy when her family had no money. Invest $1000 through a Tyson Foods lawyer and poof, a magic $100,000 for trading cattle futures.
Oh by the way, Tyson was indicted on over 30 charges of not only hiring illegals but arranging for their transport.
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#67, I voted for Kodos.
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Do not applaud Gabrielle Giffords for doing anything. She is a typical status quo politico (like Jim Kolbe) who is against permanent checkpoints.This is nothing more than pandering to some whiners in Tubac, and will do nothing more than hamper the Border Patrol. Allowing know nothing politicians to dictate law enforcement operations will do nothing but cause ineffectiveness. All of the politicians are equally useless in assisting enforcement of immigration law, so the only recourse is to vote them out of office.
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If you want more money for border enforcement, make the apprehended illegal aliens STAY IN JAIL until they pay a hefty fine that covers both the cost of their incarcation and the costs associated with getting them put there. Instead of letting them out scot free and paying taxpayers' money to send them back over the border.
Set the bail really high because they are high flight risks. Then after they fork over the money to get out, immediately deport them. When they return (and they will), do it all over again. I bet many would be surprised at how easily a poor migrant with no prospects just looking for a crappy blue-collar job can come up with $20,000 bail over and over again.
85 - no one has time to read that novel you posted. Notice that no one has posted rating yet- this is because none of us bothered to read it.
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#87: If it were only that simple. We have career politicians breeding politicians. We have husbands and wives of politicians becoming politicians. We have a system that is controlled by two parties, the media, and money.
We have 30% of the public, that does vote, who doesn't mind being controlled by the above. And you have 70% of the non-voting public that doesn't mind being controlled by the 30% that think they are in control.
Any authority, not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution, must be returned to the states. Only there can the oversight of government be effective.
Term limits (no seat jumpers), 100% government funded elections, and a citizens "vote of confidence" tool that can be wielded in the face of stupidity are what's needed. IMO. Unfortunately, you need the politicians to make that happen.
Don't hold your breath, hoping for the above, or you will become brain-dead. Just like the 70% that don't vote.
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92. Comment by Dana S. (Sitting Duck)
If it were only that simple. We have career politicians breeding politicians. We have husbands and wives of politicians becoming politicians. We have a system that is controlled by two parties, the media, and money.
Exactly.
Just like Hollywood, only slightly different, but still actors and still inbreeding.
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I sure hope this case helps Arizona
Federal Judge Rules That Local Governments Can Suspend Business Licenses for Hiring Illegal Aliens
Decision in Valley Park, Missouri, Case will have Far-Reaching Consequences Predicts the Immigration Reform Law Institute
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an unambiguous 57-page
decision handed down on January 31, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber
ruled that local governments have a right to take action against illegal
immigration by suspending or denying business licenses to employers who
knowingly hire illegal aliens. Judge Webber granted the City of Valley
Park, Missouri's, request for summary judgment in dismissing a case seeking
to prevent the city from implementing local ordinances meant to crack down
on businesses that employ illegal aliens. His ruling rejected every one of
the arguments made by the plaintiffs in this suit.
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94. Comment by Dave P. (AZ Man)
That is good, thanks.
Between that judge and the one in Oklahoma, who told the complaintants that they would not be using his court to further the cause of illegal aliens, we might have a chance.
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94. Comment by Dave P. (AZ Man)
have you got a link address?
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the only reason bush jr. is where he is,is because of daddys money and contacts. i mean how many business's has jr. tried to run and only run them in to the ground?
at least he will be gone in less than 1 year. then some one else will have to carry the burden jr. leaves. a monkey could do a better job.
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got the link for the article about the sanctions law.
http://oneoldvet.com/?p=4756#more-4756
For some reason the ACLU and other "rights" organizations seem to be having a fit over this ruling.
to bad so sad
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If I understand our Constitution, it's Congress that passes budgets and decides what to fund. Aren't Gabby and other members of Congress, sending Bush a letter asking him to fund the activity merely pointing out that the current Congress has yet to full pass budgets for the current fiscal year?
I seem to recall Gabby and Grijalva pushing for a huge zone of land from the border to Phoenix that the Border Patrol wouldn't be allowed into, with vehicles. Why does the Star not remind it's readers of that 'spearheading' by Gabby. I wonder when the Star will work Gabby's so called accomplishments into the weather forecast.
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I think Bush is still pouting because his amnesty bill didn't pass. He's getting even with us. He's showing us who the boss is. Vote for McCain and we'll have more of the same.
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Joan K which candidate does not want to give amnesty? Duncan Hunter fit the bill but the prees an the party ignored him. I love this rag for giving President Bush crap about not enforcing the laws of the USA yet EVERYarticle they publish about Illegal aliens supports their criminal activity.
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This is a bi-partisan issue, the left agrees with the right that Bush did not enforce the border. Of course, they won't mention that Clinton didn't, either.
And if Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton get elected and have open borders with rampant crime, that would be ok by the left. But not if Bush does it.
The right is against all Presidents not enforcing border security, even our own.
vincent m. (#3942)
Amen, Vincent M too bad about Duncan Hunter! Well, he's not going to just lay down, now, either. I wonder what he'll do next?
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98. Comment by Harley G. (Harley g)
If ACLU has a fit, we must enact it!
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As a conservative and some one that voted for Bush (only because I considered him the lesser of two evils)I agree with #51 Martin. Bush is the worst President ever. But the Democrats are no better. Both Hillary and Obama are globalist and want to keep the border open. McCain, Huckelberry and Romney are all big business and globalist. Ron Paul is the man we should put in the White House. If only voters would truly investigate his record and background. Ron Paul is the only good choice.
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