Posted on 10/21/2005 8:28:48 AM PDT by KevinNuPac
National Guard and Freedom Defense Wall Should Protect Our Nation's Borders
By Kevin Fobbs
This past week Texas Governor Rick Perry sent out what has now become a familiar alarm. He was frustrated and angry about what appears to be the inability of our nation to handle the teeming millions of illegal alien immigrants who are invading our borders daily.
Governor Perry has thrown down the gauntlet and, working with advisors from the Arizona Minuteman and Civil Defense Project, has developed what he is referring to as a comprehensive blueprint for securing the Texas border with Mexico. Part of that security element involves the use of the Texas National Guard.
Perry believes that the illegal alien problem is now a border security emergency because drug violence and unparalleled illegal immigration is washing across the border into the towns and cities of his state.
He is adamant about protecting the lives of his state's citizens. He said that he is not going to allow his constituents to continue to be placed in the type of danger where their lives, their homes and their communities are put at risk and the economy and their health are seriously and irreparably jeopardized.
Some, like Cindy Sheehan -- who is busy trying to hustle around the nation in a seriously misguided attempt to convince the state governors to pull their National Guard troops out of combat in Iraq -- would probably engage themselves in a new ill-advised cause of challenging the authority of the governors to place their troops on their own state border (especially if it gained them another 15 minutes of fame -- but that's another story).
The ever media hungry Cindy Sheehan and MoveOn.org would probably come up with a catchy campaign theme like, "Let The Illegals In...Bring The Border Troops Home... Get Them Off Their Border" -- like the National Guard should only be just another government subsidized scholarship program with free discipline instruction -- but not too tough.
Cindy Sheehan aside, there are probably those who would have serious misgivings about using state National Guard troops to protect the state's borders between the United States and Mexico. Those who support this proposition would be incorrect in assuming that a state's sovereign right is not to protect life, liberty and security of its citizens.
Governor Perry makes an airtight case for his recommendation to use his state's National Guard. He believes they should be utilized as part of an overall strategy for Texas to be able to take control of its own border. The proof is in the numbers. Over 119,000 illegal aliens have crossed his Texas border this year and guess what; they are not just from Mexico but from countries like Brazil, El Salvador, Iraq and Iran. Do al-Qaida operatives come to mind? Well they should.
According to reports of President Bush's statement this week in signing the Department of Homeland Security's Appropriation Act for 2006 he said, "To defend our border we've got to enforce our borders. When our borders are not secure, terrorists and drug dealers and criminals find it easier to come to America."
The president was addressing an increasing number of illegal immigrants who originate from Asia, Central and South America, Iran and Iraq. For example, in 2003, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 39,200 illegal immigrants described as "OTMs -- Other-Than-Mexicans," along our nation's southwest border. The next year the numbers skyrocketed 68 percent to approximately 65,800 that we know of. In subsequent years the picture only grew grimmer. According again to the president this week, "We return only 30,000 of the 160,000 non-Mexican illegal immigrants we caught coming through our southwest border."
Can we now understand that even if we are to use conservative numbers which the president has provided us, his statement this week to expel every single illegal alien in the United States becomes a beacon light for those in our nation who have been advocating for stronger border enforcement and the use of National Guard troops to patrol our nation's southern and northern borders.
The president's strong hard line should send a message to the illegal immigration amnesty advocates and open border supporters that he is addressing an issue near and dear to citizen patriots; the protection and defense of our homeland from purposeful and politically directed invasion of America, and the undermining of our social and economic infrastructure.
Criminals in great numbers are interwoven in the illegal immigration invasion. The danger and the threat to the citizens in our border states have spread to almost every corner in America. Our law enforcement officials have been increasingly put at risk as well with the adoption of Sanctuary City status in cities across America. Law enforcement officials cannot stop and detain illegal immigrant suspects whom they strongly believe may be illegal alien criminal suspects in these so-called Sanctuary cities.
The city of Chicago which was host this past weekend to the nation's first "America First National Security Summit" is one of many similar Sanctuary Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and many others.
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R) CO believes that these Sanctuary Cities are illegal and a direct violation of section 642 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which outlines in part, "Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State or local law, Federal State or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual."
These cities are in apparent open violation of the law and are putting their own law enforcement officials at risk. The city's citizens must either halt the practice where it is in place or prevent a city from taking up this practice. It is wrong, dangerous and only emboldens the illegal criminal and terrorist alien elements to seek these sanctuaries out.
Police are being targeted this month according to Americans for Legal Immigration which reported recently that local and federal police officials have been warned of probable attacks later this month by the highly deadly MS-13 terrorist gang, which is now infiltrating many of our nation's states and cities.
We need the National Guard as our primary first line of defense on our nation's borders. Certainly if we can defend South Korea's borders from invasion of North Korean troops, we should be able to utilize state National Guard troops to police and protect our own citizens from continued invasion of illegal alien terrorists and criminal elements.
How large is that problem in America? By the president's own account, INS removed several million illegal immigrants from the United States, of which 300,000 had criminal records. Again this represents those that we caught -- certainly not the vast majority who are still at large to prey upon our nation's innocents.
It will take real boots on American soil to solve this problem. Even the Real ID Act which gives immigration authorities and judges the ability to expeditiously deport illegal aliens and prevent foreigners from taking advantage of asylum rules, does not fully address the issue.
But there is one aspect of the bill that will in the long run preserve our nation's safety and provide certain security. The bill also speeds construction of a security fence, which I refer to as the Freedom Wall. This Freedom Wall would stretch along the 2,000 mile U.S.- Mexico border. This fence or wall was authorized, in part, nearly a decade ago by Congress but has been delayed by numerous unfounded challenges from open-borders advocates and environmentalists.
The great Freedom Wall is not an attempt to close our nation off from the world. It is not a Great Wall of China. Rather is it a way to insure that we have a nation that will be there in the future to interact with the world we live in.
The urgency of the moment demands that we put aside political correctness and be more like the Israelis who put up their own security fence or wall. Terrorism in Israel was dramatically reduced as a result. The fence severely curtailed the number of Palestinian terrorist incursions and bombings in a region that is similarly open to criminal and terrorist hostile actions.
America needs its National Guard with their boots on American ground and at our borders and joining in with the citizen patriots who volunteer as border neighborhood watch patrollers. The 2,000 mile long Freedom Wall is necessary as well and would not only safeguard our nation's borders but preserve our country's security and insure that our children and their children's children will awake in an America that is American and not ruled by balkanized terrorists groups, speaking multiple official languages.
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist to the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385).
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Most excellent article. Thanks for posting.
Millions daily? That may be a bit of an exaggeration.
Bush: "To defend our border we've got to enforce our borders. When our borders are not secure, terrorists and drug dealers and criminals find it easier to come to America."
Absolutely right. Too bad W proposes to give them a new loophole to enter the country with his Guest Worker Program nonsense.
You can't have it both ways George, secure borders are not possible with millions of non-citizens allowed to enter the country for extended periods as 'guests'.
We should outsource the Border Wall building to China. They've got more experience in such things.
sigh.....better late than never, I suppose.
Or maybe the French. They built one too.
Lot's of Mexicans here in Texas that are real good at masonry work. We could hire them to build the wall.
Bush is fast destroying everything Reagan built in the Republican Party. If we can't get the authorities to do their plain duty we need to find people who will. In '08, I'm voting Libertarian. I know they won't win but if enough of us vote against this inaction, the GOP may come to see it can't take its base for granted.
Just make sure they are all on the other side of it when they put those last few bricks in place.
Exactly
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