Posted on 10/18/2011 12:04:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Minnesota Congresswomen and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has become the latest politician to call for an impenetrable fence along the entire length of the border with Mexico. "President Obama has failed the American people by failing to secure the southern border," said Bachmann. "I will secure that border and that will be Job One."
Statements like that may get some attention, but they are not practical. Don't take our word for it; take Rick Perry's.
The Texas governor has been called a lot of things, but he's hardly a mushy liberal. Yet even this tough Texan sneers at calls for a Berlin Wall-style border fence spanning hundreds of miles from Brownsville to El Paso.
Two reasons: We can't afford it, and we don't need it.
The cost of a barrier like that would be staggering, certainly in the billions. Bachmann and others are silent about how they would pay for it.
Moreover, it is unnecessary. The Texas-Mexico border includes many miles of desert that are either lightly populated or devoid of any human presence. Illegal immigrants don't cross there. They make their moves along urban corridors.
Perry knows this because he is the governor of Texas. He knows the issue is more nuanced - like his support for in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrants.
Secure the border? Absolutely - but in an intelligent way that puts our resources where they will have the most impact.
Voters should be wary of sound bites from candidates that fire up special-interest groups but lack logic. The next president will need real ideas, not gimmicks, to solve the challenges facing this nation.
Nice try in trying to highjack this thread. Go campaign for Perry on some other site. DU would be a nice little hamlet to start.
This thread is about Romney and Cain.
Ha! I have as much of a chance of at using that bus next year as your boy does. NONE.
My apologies to Cincinatus’ Wife.
I posted on the wrong thread (kicking own posterior).
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*That'd come in handy if they see a coyote.
What a picture of weakness that would project to our enemies.
Why don't you research that cost thing?
Question: How does Mexico treat those from other countries who sneak into their country? Shouldn’t we be at least as strict as they are?
It’s not about money. It’s not even about the issue of a fence. It’s about defending La Raza Rick Perry at any cost with the hope, remote as it may be, that they can resuscitated his train wreck of a campaign.
What do you think the presence of 20 million illegals and a joke of a border make us look like now?
Geeez Louise...
I’ve looked at Perry’s statements on the border fence and border security.
When Perry was asked whether he supported the fence originally envisioned by the Secure Fence Act, he indicated that he would not build that fence, but only fence what he deems to be “strategic,” which is as solid as the typical campaign promise of a professional politician.
Perry seems to make avoiding the inconveniencing of farmers his first priority with respect to fencing.
Perry typically offers a false choice between boots on the ground and a fence. We all know that maintaining forever the annual funding for high numbers of boots on the ground is a chimera. Nevertheless Perry rejects building out the fence, which would let us get by with a lower annual appropriation for fewer boots on the ground.
Here’s what we can expect from President Perry in my view:
1. A couple of years of higher “boots on the ground” and a bit of fencing here and there for public relations purposes. The “boots” focus on criminal activity such as drug cartels and not so much on hindering ordinary illegals.
2. Further foot-dragging on requiring employers to screen employees for illegals using databases
3. After a couple of years, Perry declares the border “secure” enough, saying that it is impossible to achieve perfection.
4. Perry pushes “comprehensive immigration reform” through congress. The Republican congress is unable to resist this when it comes from someone in their own party.
His idea of legalizing them but denying them voting rights will not last long.
Americans do not want an entire class of “second class citizens.” Either they will go ahead and give them the path to citizenship at the first bite at the apple, or wait a couple of years and then do it.
That worked so well between East and West Germany.
Poll: Perry now down to … three percent in Florida
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2794114/posts
IBOPE Zogby Poll (Cain 45%, Romney 21%, Rick Perry 7%, Bachmann, 1%)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2793986/posts
Texas Tea Party Activists Demand Perry Push Immigration Bills
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2793073/posts
He didn't build a career pandering to ILLEGAL aliens by fencing them out.
Cause he kisses mexican a$$, but some here want us to ignore the fact that giving in-state tuition to ILLEGALS is an immigration issue and NOT an education issue.
If he is going to do this in Texas, why in the hell should I believe he won’t do the same to the rest of us!
You are aware the Berlin Wall was built to keep people IN, right?
You were one of FR good guys. I don’t know what happened but it’s impossible to debate you or question anything about Cain. It’s disappointing.
Picture of weakness that would project to our enemies? And you’re advising me to research?
We don’t give a care about projecting. As any military historian, officer, or soldier would tell you, “projecting” doesn’t mean diddly squat in battle. You can march around with that realistic water pistol all the live-long day, but once your head’s blown off, you’re not going to impress anyone, let alone your enemies.
It’s called war. We’re in it. Bring big guns, and heavy defenses. That includes a big wall.
Or am I being “heartless”?
The Iron Curtain was built to keep people in, not out, like prison walls, so your comparison really doesn’t work. Sorry. Every nation-state reserves the right to enforce it’s borders.
This war on our border is BS! Federal protection of our border is BS!
Perry wants the border sealed, the cartels killed off and no amnesty. He wants fencing in urban areas where it works, drones for intel and boots on the ground.
If we can’t do that, but instead start the construction of a 25 foot wall for 2000 miles on our southern border, that makes us look weak.
Homeland Sec. Janet Napolatano is talking of boots on the ground and drone coverage for our border with Canada — what is that about 8,000 miles inc Alaska — why refuse the southern border govs the same things?
What next? How about our shores — rolled wire barriers?
What about the skies overhead?
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