And neither is this guy.
Posted on 06/06/2006 9:10:50 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
To promote his latest initiatives on border security and immigration reform, President George W. Bush will stop in Laredo for an hour-long visit today. It is the first time in 30 years that the president of the United States visits Laredo.
Bush is expected to make a brief statement at the Laredo Border Patrol Sector headquarters. He will also travel to Artesia, N.M.
The Laredo International Airport will be closed temporarily during the president’s arrival and departure on Air Force One, but no flights will be cancelled, said Airport Director Jose Flores.
For security reasons, spectators will not be allowed inside the airport terminal, nor will they be allowed to stand by the fence at the terminal, Flores said.
A group of greeters have been selected to welcome Bush at the airport, one of whom will be Mayor Betty Flores, according to White House officials.
Bush and immigration
Bush, who opposes deportation of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, supports a guest worker program.
According to a speech he gave last week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he is pushing for bigger fines for employers who hire illegal immigrants, as well as tamper-proof identity cards for workers.
He also supports tougher border law enforcement and citizenship for illegal immigrants who have spent years in this country, so long as they pay back taxes and demonstrate English proficiency.
Bush must work with competing House and Senate immigration reform proposals to reach a compromise bill.
Two bankers who have closely followed the increasingly bitter debate expressed their concerns with recent proposals from Congress.
Local concerns
Dennis Nixon, International Bank of Commerce president & CEO, and Gary J. Jacobs, Laredo National Bank chairman of the board, said greater high-tech surveillance, the dispatching of National Guardsman to the border and building a wall will not stem the tide of illegal immigration.
Studies from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, General Accounting Office and Congressional Budget Office have shown these programs are costly and ineffective, Nixon said.
Neither Nixon nor Jacobs will be on hand during the president’s visit.
The federal government must instead drastically increase immigration quotas, and overhaul its Immigration and Naturalization Service to process people in a more efficient manner, said Nixon, who has been deeply involved in the issue the last three years.
“I’ve just grown more disappointed and demoralized at the rhetoric,” he said.
“To hear the platform of the Republican Party of Texas leaves me with personal despair,” Nixon added. “None of these people have day-to-day border involvement and none have provided any sophisticated analysis to support their agenda.”
Putting more cameras, sensors and other high tech gadgetry on the border will not “mystically solve our problems,” he stressed. “It’s frustrating to see that kind of leadership across the board.”
Most immigrants who come to the United States often take jobs in opposite extremes of the workforce sector: lower end, unskilled jobs or higher skilled jobs in science, engineering and technology fields.
Jacobs said he supports the president’s guest worker program but few of the stricter proposals.
“I believe (Bush) has compassion for poor people in Mexico who come here desperately looking for work,” Jacobs said.
“And he has a ranch in Texas, so he knows personally the stupidity of building a fence anywhere around Laredo,” he said. “It’s horrendously expensive to build and maintain and will do no good whatsoever.”
Moreover, such a fence would send a wrong message “to our friends in Mexico,” Jacobs said.
He called the sending of National Guardsmen tot he U.S. Mexico border “offensive.”
“I was in the Air Force National Guard seven years,” Jacobs explained. “We use soldiers to kill people. The Guard was not trained to look for undocumented immigrants in the monte of South Texas.”
The best way to control Mexican immigration is to allow people who come to work in the United States to come and go freely, Jacobs said.
“We’ve made it so expensive to come here” Jacobs said, citing the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration reform bill of 1986.
“Before that bill, there were no coyotes and it cost $45 for a worker to cross into the United States,’ Jacobs said. “Now, it costs between $1,500 and $3,000 to hire a coyote, so they’re not going to go home.”
(Tricia Cortez may be reached at 728-2568 or by e-mail at tricia@lmtonline.com.)
I would love to challenge the President in seeing if I could duplicate one of his tamper proof cards.
Let him offer me a large sum, give me a copy of the card and a little time and I would make him IMO look like an @ss.
I don't counterfeit, but I know I could prove the President a liar on that card deal.
If that card has a connection to a Federal data base which has a correct picture, finger prints, DNA and all that, then I would be dead in the water.
That is why the President should create a Federal data base for employees. Get pictures, thumb prints, DNA and background checks from the foreign government they are coming from.
Make employers verify data and pay fines if caught hiring on the black market or ignoring the law. Eventually give them jail and a felony.
Do that and the illegals will dry up here and have to go home to not starve.
"he is pushing for bigger fines for employers who hire illegal immigrants"
Sure he is. Is that before or after he grants them both amnesty?
Here's a Guest Worker program for you Mr. President.
Close the freakin borders, DEPORT those found, Jail those who knowingly hired them and then those Illegals can come back into the country like all of the LEGAL Immigrants do.
THROUGH THE FRONT STINKING DOOR!
And neither is this guy.
Would you want him sneaking around your backyard at night, Dane?
Figures. How do you know he does not work for Alcada? The two on top are legal. Wake up before you make us have another 9/11.
Otherwise, he would not have been down there.
He chose not to visit there for five years of his presidency (to my knowledge) or otherwise take any proactive action on this horrific national security and electoral/demographic nightmare of a problem. It is simply photo op of course--probably not much more than that--but it does show the power of the People when they start to rise in revolt against Washington and tell them enough is enough.
The heat must continue on this man and the Congress. And, further, we should keep in mind the relevance of my tagline here, to avoid being played as manageable, obedient saps any longer.
.
We must be honest and see what is real versus what we would like it to be. I don't call that cynicism, I call it courage.
The trip to the border is mere politics, a sham. Remember when he flew down to New Orleans 6 times in two weeks? Were there any concrete results or was it "appeasement?"
GWB will not change one iota on the issue.
E.D. said that Laredo was no longer a safe place to visit - this morning on F&F.
Okey doke, but for you to be intellectually honest you should also criticize people who use such terms as Joe 6 pack, etc.
Just .... amazing.....!!!!
Elsewhere on FR, the Pres's press conference in Laredo has already been posted (Laredo Remarks re Border Patrol), and... tomorrow, he appears in Omaha.
I was just pointing out how funny it is to see the President run to the border several times, like running to the toilet with a bad case of d_______, in a frantic effort to shore up support with photo ops. It is so keystone cop-ish, it isn't even funny. Who would believe such nonsense, since it had not occured in the first five years when he had a chance?
Its like a kid--to avoid a good whippin'--coming home early from school and immacuately cleaning up his room, mowing the lawn, and finishing all of his upcoming weekend chores...because later in the evening he has to show Mom and Dad a very bad report card.
Please read what I posted three four times, as you have a serious problem with comprehension.
Hahaha. I like the way you see things!
He's got the "trots" alright!
Too many burritos, ese!~
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