Posted on 02/08/2005 8:51:25 AM PST by JustAnotherSavage
DOBBS: As we reported, the president's budget calls for only 210 new border protection agents instead of the 2,000 new agents that were supposed to be added. My guest tonight says we are shortchanging immigration enforcement and leaving our country vulnerable to terrorism through the policies we're pursuing in both immigration and border security. Michael Cutler is a former special agent in the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
MICHAEL CUTLER, : It's an almost negligible number. Congress talked about adding 2,000 more special agents for each of the next five years. We're talking about a 10 percent increase that doesn't address the problem of attrition, agents who leave, and the agency does have a high attrition rate.
DOBBS: How many agents do we need? We've got about 2,500 along the border, right now, right, north and south?
CUTLER: Well, there's 10,000 and change altogether, but then you have shifts and days off and so forth.
DOBBS: About 2,500 on a daily basis?
CUTLER: Probably on a daily basis. Maybe a little bit more. We need many more than that.
DOBBS: Let me show you something that may strike you -- -- what the prime minister of the United Kingdom had to say today on immigration.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER(video): The public concern about this is very simple. It's a play by the rules concern. It's a concern that people, for example, who come in to claim asylum should be genuine refugees, that people who come in to work or study here should genuinely be coming in to work or study, and therefore what you need in place are strict controls that work in the interest of the country that means that only the people who play by the rules come in, and those that don't, DON'T!
(Excerpt) Read more at transcripts.cnn.com ...
CUTLER: Goodness gracious, we probably could use five times as many, but you know what we also need that no one really talks about is interior enforcement. The Congress had said we were supposed to get 800 new special agents to enforce the laws from within the interior and no one is even talking about that.
DOBBS: Maybe the reason they're not talking about is they're overcome with laughter and just numb at the absurdity of even that number. How many criminal aliens are in the country right now at any one time?
CUTLER: The estimates that I've read runs at 80,000 to 100,000. I think it might even be higher. So what we are doing is encouraging more people to come here and violate the laws. You get one opportunity for first impression. The immigration laws are supposed to be instructive and show people how seriously we take our laws. What's the message?
DOBBS: The estimated 100,000 illegal aliens -- and by that, criminal illegal aliens...
CUTLER: Drug traffickers and so forth.
DOBBS: People who have committed crimes in this country and who are also illegal aliens, how many do we have in interior enforcement as it is so delicately put?
CUTLER: Right now about 2,000 people dedicated to that mission. I've made the analogy before, we have 38,000 cops policing New York, which is why the 8 million people who live here live in the safest big city. We should have a comparable number of special agents to cover the interior of the United States.
DOBBS: The idea that illegal aliens some 3 million estimated entered the country last year, an estimated 20 million at the higher end of the range but 20 million illegal aliens, the fact is no one wants to say straightforwardly, there is no way in the world the United States government can enforce its immigration laws even if there was a will in the U.S. Congress and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to do so.
CUTLER: No resources, no mission, no motive. You know, it's just crazy.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER(video): The public concern about this is very simple. It's a play by the rules concern. It's a concern that people, for example, who come in to claim asylum should be genuine refugees, that people who come in to work or study here should genuinely be coming in to work or study, and therefore what you need in place are strict controls that work in the interest of the country that means that only the people who play by the rules come in, and those that don't, DON'T!
DOBBS: Uh-oh. Illegal means illegal, at least in the United Kingdom. The British government says only skilled workers who can support themselves financially and speak English will now be allowed to remain in Britain permanently.
sounds reasonable to me...
too bad the folks in D.C. don't see it the same way...
DOBBS: Can you imagine, Michael Cutler, President George W. Bush saying such a thing as Prime Minister Blair said?
CUTLER: I wish we would hear him say that. When he talks about a guest worker program for people who have already come here illegally, what he's saying is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of what we just heard Mr. Blair say. If we're going to have to have a guest worker program, and I don't know that we need it, then it ought to be open only to those people who apply from overseas from their home countries who aren't already in the United States in violation of our laws.
DOBBS: But you can't pursue an immigration policy that would bring specific skills or talents to this country, because you simply are swamped with illegal immigration, and there is no way to track what is happening unless someone, actually a foreign citizen, surrenders to the immigration protocols of the country, which is very difficult to reason, if you think about 3 million people entering illegally each year. It seems we're just creating the problem and reinforcing it and reinforcing it.
CUTLER: Well, we do, and we did this before with the amnesty of 1986. We supposedly had cleaned the swamp out, we said, OK, we're going to start from scratch, we're going to have everybody accounted for, and we'll go from there, and what we wound up with is so many more people now because...
DOBBS: Well, here's where we are right now though, Michael, as you well know. We have a president who says he's basically going to give amnesty. You can call it a guest worker program, whatever. The difficult issues to deal with here, a homeland security department that is not enforcing security at the border, otherwise 3 million illegal aliens -- I can't even imagine how anyone with a straight face can respond that we have border security if 3 million people can cross it illegally, but in the United States of America in 2005, people can do that particularly if they're in charge of it. What in the world are we going to do? Why aren't the American people reacting to this? CUTLER: The funny thing is when I talk to my neighbors and folks who I know and they know where I've worked and they've seen me on your wonderful program and they've seen me go before Congress, they come up to me and say, what is wrong with our supposed leaders in Washington? And I tell them the same thing you're saying, call your congressman, call your senator, make as much noise as possible. Make the government accountable. Because what we're doing is asking for more problems, including terrorism, including the massive criminal problem. Right now roughly 30 percent of the inmate population in federal penitentiaries are aliens who shouldn't be here and they're victimizing our people...
DOBBS: Illegal aliens.
CUTLER: Or even aliens who are residents that have become deportable because they've committed murder or sold drugs or done some other heinous crime. So what are we doing to get a handle on it? Immigration fraud runs rampant, no one talks about it, but there's no one out there to conduct investigations to make certain...
Since when has Tony Blair cared about the "public", the "citizens", or the nation.
This man jumps on more bandwagons than Kofi Annan.
Churchill must be turning in his grave.
Speaking of DC, here's a snip (hold your nose):
Senator Thad Cochran is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and joins us tonight from Capitol Hill. Senator, good to have you with us.
DOBBS: Well, let me turn to border security, because a number of critics are saying that this administration and, frankly, this Congress does not understand nor grasp, nor at least want to deal with the relationship between border security and homeland security. In this instance, after signing the law that enacted intelligence reform, the president's budget calls for only an increase of 210 border patrol agents. What is your reaction to that -- that -- to that?
COCHRAN: Well, there is more way -- there are more ways to do the job of border security than just hiring more agents. We're developing technologies, new ways of making sure that the credentials that people have who are coming across the border are not counterfeit, that they are accurate in terms of the information that is contained in them. There are many other things that this president has done, organize a new Department of Homeland Security. We have a new director who probably is going to be confirmed tomorrow...
DOBBS: Senator, can I ask you a question? Can I just ask you one question?
COCHRAN: There are a lot of things you can make...
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: How in the world do three million illegal aliens enter the country?
COCHRAN: ... on the subject of homeland security.
DOBBS: Senator, let me just ask you one question. How did three million illegal aliens enter the country last year if we're doing so well?
COCHRAN: Well, I'm not saying that we're solving every problem or arresting every person that ought to be arrested and deported, but we're doing a better job than has been done in the past. And we're making the changes needed in government organizations, in funding programs, developing technologies that we need to solve this problem.
Blair is about the only ally this country has. I think President Bush would disagree with you.
It would be nice if our own President were so clear on the matter.
POLL IS UP!!
Do you believe President Bush's proposal to add 210 border patrol agents is sufficient to secure U.S. borders?
Yes 2% 146 vote
No 98% 5721 votes
Total: 5867 votes
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
See Post #5. I'm also tired of this term "guest worker" Guest implies invitation. These illegals were NOT invited.
DOBBS: Can you imagine, Michael Cutler, President George W. Bush saying such a thing as Prime Minister Blair said?
CUTLER: I wish we would hear him say that. When he talks about a guest worker program for people who have already come here illegally, what he's saying is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of what we just heard Mr. Blair say. If we're going to have to have a guest worker program, and I don't know that we need it, then it ought to be open only to those people who apply from overseas from their home countries who aren't already in the United States in violation of our laws.
snip--
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0502/07/ldt.01.html
This is very good, I am not wanting all these deadbeats coming to my country.
They have no money to be spending in shop.
I'm NOT seeking the president's view point.
Lovely sentiment, however anything that Blair says is not worth the paper it's printed on.
The issue of immigration has been growing and growing in this country for years, and I doubt that anybody serious believes that the latest press-release from Downing Street will change anything.
That is a leading question-
Mr Patel, you must learn to speak English properly, or you'll be out on yer ear too.
We already have a guest worker program for *legal* immigrants. Bush should know this and be able to differentiate between that and his proposed amnesty.
This is the rhino in the room (no pun intended) that no one wants to talk about. This beast is going to cause big trouble in the mid term elections. The dimocraps are likely to figure out a way to embrace "border security" without POing their usual hard left constituency. And we just keep denying it, clinging to the straw of a couple percent increase in the Latino GOP vote. What a joke, a sad joke, but still a joke.
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