Replies

Every day on my way to and from work here in the L.A. area, I pass a Home Depot. Outside the fence, day after day, in all kinds of weather, illegal Mexican men hang out to try to catch a day job. If they do get one, they are paid in cash and probably at a rate lower than minimum wage.

There is a fire station directly across the street from where the men hang out. Not far away, there is a Highway Patrol HQ. Both LAPD and the Sheriff's Dept. patrol the area. Just around the corner there is an L.A. school bus depot. And the men hang out just outside the wall of a new county yard where they auction off impounded vehicles.

All of that local officialdom immediately around the site where these guys hang out, and no one does anything about the men. Heck, I'd wager that many's the cop or fireman who hires these guys for jobs at their own homes.

Therein lies the heart of the problem. For generations, the border states and their local governments have tacitly encouraged Mexican migration while explicitly preventing local law enforcement from doing anything to arrest and deport the illegals. State and local governments do not want to do anything about the problem, which has now become all but intractable. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Mexicans here in Southern California. In order to round up, identify and deport the illegals, you'd have to round up all ethnic Mexicans — even those who have been here for generations and are American citizens. That would be unconstitutional.

The biggest problem I have with the President's proposal is not the guest-worker part. That seems to me to be humane given the facts on the ground. My problem with it is that it doesn't contain any solid approach to stem the flow of illegal immigration. If the Congress were able to produce a bill that included genuine, hard-nosed provisions to stem the flow, I could support such a bill even if it preserved the guest-worker plan.

But despite my reservations about this proposal, one thing I NEVER will do is withdraw my support from this President.

Great post Wolf. But this is not about withdrawing support for the president. It's about voicing objection to what is obvisouly a faulty proposal. That's how these things are defeated. If you remember, he proposed something similar just prior to 9/11. It was met with similar resistance and ultimately (and rightfully) dropped.

You raise a good point. I too, live near a Home Depot. I also drive pass tens if not hunderds of ILLEGALS each day. The president's proposal would grant legal status to ILLEGALS who have jobs. What will it do for the tens or hundreds we see each day who loiter outside Home Depots without them? Absolutely nothing. But we already know it's caused an increase in ILLEGAL entries which has added to those numbers.

As for law enforcement doing nothing about ILLEGALS...they can't. ILLEGALS are protected by santuary rules. In my opinion, it stinks. But law enforcement's hands are tied.

I know that's a long read but it's worth it.

Despite your defeatist straw man argument of "roundups", you ideally and rationally approach the problem by enacting pilot projects, enforceable by law, of denying all social services to those who are not citizens or are not legal aliens in the United States sovereign territory. No drivers licenses, no SSN cards, no food stamps, no AFDC, no State SSI, no low interest government loans, no education, period, nada. I have seen repatriation plans work in other countries, I have seen whole neighborhoods full of illegal aliens from Iran, for example, in one of the largest economies of the world, traced and deported. It can be done. The problem is, lack of will and ingenuity, under this Administration nor under any subsequent Democrat Administration. Regardless. The system is rigged by both major parties, for two very starkly differing political reasons. I suggest we solve the problem now, before it escalates and we have a Balkan Chaos situation which will only play into the hands of a tyrant who will take measures that we long could have avoided if we only enforced our borders and facilitated the departure of unauthorized persons back to their countries. To say this cannot be done, means there will be no end to illegal immigration and swarming numbers of individuals here without authorization, which is precisely the point, where do we draw the line, and if we do not draw the line, we are giving up America so that it can change, before our very eyes, over the next 10-20-30 years, into something we vaguely can recognize. I oppose politicians who refuse to draw the line and show a desire to reverse throttle. And, well, quite frankly, I don't give a G.G.D if they have a (D) or a (G) or an (I) or an (R) after their name on the ballot.