BUSH'S STAND ON ILLEGALS MAKES NO SENSE

boblonsberry.com ^ | 04/25/06 | Bob Lonsberry

[shortstop]

Ten percent of Mexico is in America.

Not the territory, the population.

Ten percent of the population of the Republic of Mexico lives illegally in the United States of America.

And it’s only getting worse. The number of Mexican citizens crossing illegally into the United States each day is in the tens of thousands. Which proves Mexico has a better president than we do.

Here’s how I figure.

The vast majority of Mexicans want free immigration into the United States. The vast majority of Americans don’t.

Score one for them.

The vast majority of Americans want a physical wall built along the Mexican border. The vast majority of Mexicans don’t.

Score two for them.

Illegal Mexican immigration into the United States helps the economy of Mexico and hurts the economy of the United States.

Score three for them.

Their president says he will encourage illegal immigration. Our president says he will discourage it.

Their president actually did and our president actually didn’t.

Score four for them.

Which is about game, set, match.

And it only got worse this week when George W. Bush stood up in Orange County, California, and said things that could only make Mexicans cheer and Americans sob. Our captain seems to be playing for the wrong team.

Here are some examples.

George W. Bush said two things were certain: We can’t deport illegal aliens and we can’t punish businesses that employ them. The problem with that is that a full 50 percent of Americans – a number far higher than his own personal popularity – favor deportation for all illegal aliens in this country.

And an even higher percentage favor strict sanctions on people who hire illegals.

Which essentially means the president has thumbed his nose at the people.

The president says the cornerstone of his immigration reform is a guest worker program and eventual citizenship for illegals here now. Both those viewpoints are also opposed by the majority of Americans.

Further, George W. Bush said that the Border Patrol was not in the business of capturing or stopping illegal aliens. Rather, he wants them to look for contraband and terrorists. He specifically does not want the Border Patrol involved in stopping the people streaming across our border.

Which, again, is just opposite of what the American people want and expect.

The president also described legislation being discussed in the Senate as an “important compromise.” It is, of course, nothing of the sort. It is one extreme position. It is the wildly pro-illegal immigration position. A compromise would be the middle ground between to points, not one point at the exclusion of the other.

He has essentially endorsed the Teddy Kennedy plan for alien normalization. Which explains why one of the first and loudest voices of praise for the president’s remarks came from Senator Kennedy.

Finally, the president told the Orange County crowd – a group of businesspeople generally uncomfortable with the flood of aliens – that the illegal immigrants are “decent, hard-working people” who “need to be treated with respect.”

Which gets back to the point that Mexico has a better president than we do. There’s no doubt that the Mexican president stands up for his country. There’s no evidence that the American president stands up for his.

Rather, he seems to sell our interests – and our opinions – down the river.

Which gets back to the midterm elections. George W. Bush is about 12 months away from impeachment hearings if the Democrats take over the Congress, and the way things are going they’re apt to get at least half of it come November.

Why?

Because the Republican Party has turned off the Republicans.

Half the country hated Bush the day he was elected. The other half liked him. The dramatic swing in support numbers shows that it’s not Democrats who are ticked at Bush, it’s Republicans. His support has evaporated – among the people who put him in office. Among the Republicans. Especially the conservative Republicans.

And the president’s stance on illegal immigration is one of the major reasons for that. Between the debt he has accumulated and the millions of illegals he has let sneak into our country, it is quite likely that the negative effect of this presidency will be felt for decades and decades.

And that’s not a Democrat saying that, it’s a Republican.

George W. Bush has abandoned our values and our borders. And we’re abandoning him.

And that might leave us with a Democrat next go ‘round, but it’s hard to believe that could be any worse.

[Brad’s Gramma]

had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers.

WHAT THE HECK??????

[Vaquero]

Us WOP's...or (our more correctly my grandparent WOP's )were detained at Ellis Island. They left their native land illegally because their governments did not like the exodus.

They were welcome here as labor. They arrived here and were individually checked out for health problems and the possibility of other undesirable traits and put into quarantine as needed and some were sent back because of a cough or a sneeze or some other physical or perceived mental ailment which could be mild or could be not so mild. They were then issued papers and then and only then were they allowed to mingle with the rest of the nation.

[A.Hun]

Yes, but they were accepted with no proof of ID, etc.

That was not a perfect comparison by any means (they were quarantined, etc.)

I was making the point that there was little oversight of immigration for many years, and many were passed through that could not qualify today.

[BurbankKarl]

That is how rampant the fraud is....pretty pathetic.

[SerpentDove]

>>Doom them to lives of poverty and see then how their sentiments change<<

So in your world, we OWE them?

Interesting to see how peoples' minds work.

[A.Hun]

Even more of an argument for a guest worker program that identifies illegals and issues them a number.

I will say, there is no excuse for a firm to encourage the hiring of illegals and then try to cover it up. If you submit the same SS# 4000 times, your ass should end up in jail.

[A.Hun]

I didn't say we owed them anything...but the fact is that many look to the US to escape poverty..

We were talking about driving Mexico towards Marxism. Hatred of the US sure would help another Chavez..

[Gaffer]

I don't blame him for the problem, only his toleration and willingness to incorporate these people into our society and economy. As for my taste, I don't give a cat's patootie about what the ROW thinks about the 'face' we are presenting. As far as I'm concerned we should be showing our ass to ROW.

[american spirit]

"Driving Mexico to marxism"?........when you get time check out the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto vs. the Constitution and then decide for yourself which one our fedgov seems to be following.

[Praxeus]

No you are wrong. An HTML page about the governor of texas does not mean it was made clear to the voters for president what bush had in mine re immigration. No way, no how.

The very idea that you and the others are trying to pass this off as "everybody knew" is plain ridiculous. You are only fooling yourselves, and you will see come election.

Enjoy your HTML confidence.

[Paul Ross]

Hyperbole isn't measured by length...

So? Still waiting for an example of my use of hyperbole in this thread...

Truth is not hyperbole.

[carton253]

When I read this thread and your posts are included, I get the overwhelming sense that you expect the President to go down to the border with his shotgun and prowl the borders.

The President is upholding his oath. The institutions are in place to protect the border. They are being overrun... I understand that.

The President believes the best thing we can do is make them guest workers and give them the ability to come out of the dark so they can be documented and sent home after time.

So, when you post that the President is not upholding his oath...it's hyperbole. It is overstated, overwrought, over dramatic, and wrong. He isn't going to solve the problem in the way this thread thinks he should. But that difference in opinion doesn't mean he is shirking his oath or duty.

[spintreebob]

and leaving open borders is not a conservative principle. I guess thats where the the 'compassionate' prefex to conservative came from

Open borders is a capitalist free market principle. But at times, the mercantilist enemies of capitalism find it convenient to profit form it. There are many types of pro-immigration Republicans that form a coalition of strange bedfellows... not to mention the Dems and other strange bedfellows.

1. Libertarian Republicans like me and Eric Dondero are free market capitalist pro-immigration Republicans.
2. Compassionate conservaties include Bush and here in IL St Rep Froehlich, St Sen Rauschenberger and others.
3. Mercantilists who believe that the government should "help"... help business, help poor people, help whomever.
4. Businessmen who like the willing workers.
5. PTA (soccer) moms who are afraid of being called "racist"... and who like to call others that.
6. Karl Rove types who see a large bloc of people who are very conservative in their value system.

The other side(s) also are coalitions of strange bedfellows, including many Dems and others. The Dem base is very divided on the issue. Leaders like Hilary are doing focus groups and polling to find out what their position on the issue is.

[spintreebob]

"and how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. "

I don't dispute that these laws may be on the books. But where is your proof that they are enforced. I've gone to Mexico 'illegally' several times with full knowledge of at least some officials. It didn't seem their custom to enforce much of anything.... except for a couple looking for leverage to get a bribe from a naive tourist. I've had offers of jobs in Mexico (which my ex-Mexican wife rejected for me). There was no expectation that any kind of enforcement of anything would block my employment there.

[Fruitbat]

You sound exactly like the Know-Nothings, who thought all those unwashed Irish Catholics coming ashore in the 1840s would doom the nation.

And you sound oblvious to the problem. ; )

[Fruitbat]

The problem is that to come here legally, it's a nightmare. A legal immigrant seeking to bring in his wife and kids has to wait over 10 years. Illegals just hop the fence and bypass the immigration hassles. And now Bush will reward them while the legals still struggle with a terrible immigration system. The current bill will allow illegals to have legal status and to be able to bring in their out of country relatives - 30 million in total! That's almost a third of Mexico! Meanwhile, legal immigrants get screwed with long, difficult and expensive processing times.

Right, that's my point. Crime pays in this way.

We'll be large part Spanish speaking in this country soon. It can only fragment us, not bring us together.

[sinkspur]

And you sound oblvious to the problem. ; )

My previous post went right over your head. Know-Nothing nativism reigns!

[spintreebob]

re: "No immgration laws during ... Early immigration laws came in in the late 1800's"

There have always been immigration laws. There have not always been immigration papers and bureaucracies. Each immigrant was presumed (more or less) innocent of the "immigration laws" until proven guilty.

There have always been laws against people of low moral character from immigrating to the USA, including murderers, robbers, rapists, prostitutes, drug addicts, homosexuals and other undesireables. Up for debate in the early years was whether Catholics and other non-Christians were people of low moral character. My ancestors insisted that anyone who served alcohol in church and approved of the use of alcohol in the home was inherently immoral.

1800-1840 my ancestors came up the bay between PA and MD and walked off the boat into PA. They were called weird but nobody asked them for "papers". Many of them still don't vote because that is "too worldly". (Rove is pandering for their votes in PA also.)

[texasbluebell]

Well, am I correct in my belief or not? I can only conclude...yes.

Please don't tell me you think the R's are going to get more than a handful of those voters for decades to come!

This country will be swamped with liberals. Or is that the true motive of the open borders crowd after all?