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Uncle Sam's Unfenced Swimming Pool
Townhall.com ^ | July 16, 2014 | Terry Jeffrey

Posted on 07/16/2014 8:04:22 AM PDT by Kaslin

Sam, the wealthiest man in his neighborhood, lives in a big beautiful house with a massive backyard punctuated by a large, deep swimming pool.

While Sam is personally not very fond of children -- he supports abortion on demand and believes the government should force all employers to offer female workers free sterilizations -- he nonetheless lives in a neighborhood that teems with little ones.

The children are particularly attracted to Sam's beautiful pool -- and, on those rare occasions when Sam is actually in his backyard, he frequently finds himself shooing these children away.

Worried relatives have repeatedly warned Sam that he ought to build a fence around his yard -- or at least around his pool -- to guard against the awful possibility that a neighborhood child might otherwise drown.

But Sam does not want a fence. He objects that it would mar the aesthetics of his yard, and that if some kid really wanted to get into the pool he could climb over the fence. So, should Sam build one? If he went out one morning and found a boy had drowned in his pool, would he have some culpability for that child's unnecessary death?

The answers are yes and yes.

And, although it is not a perfect analogy, Sam's pool is a little like Uncle Sam's territory near our border with Mexico.

There is no doubt people are tempted to enter U.S. property without the permission of the U.S. government.

There is also no doubt this can be a dangerous, even deadly, thing to do.

The Associated Press reported over the weekend on the funeral of 15-year-old Gilberto Francisco Ramos Juarez. The funeral took place in Guatemala, but Gilberto died in Texas.

"The boy's decomposed body was discovered on June 15 in the Rio Grande Valley, not far inside Texas from the border with Mexico," AP reported. "Around his neck was a rosary he had received as a gift for his first communion as a Roman Catholic. Scribbled inside his belt buckle was the phone number of an older brother in Chicago he had hoped to reach. He apparently got lost on his way north and likely died from exposure in hot, dry brush country of South Texas."

This boy obviously believed he could illegally enter the United States and live here.

How did he get that idea? Did U.S. politicians send him that message? Yes, they did.

For years, elected and unelected officials in Washington, D.C., have refused to do their duty to enforce our immigration laws and secure our border.

They have sent a clear message to our southern neighbors: You need not respect our border. You need not obey our immigration laws. You can enter our territorial surreptitiously and stay here and work illegally. We will not prosecute you for the crimes illegal aliens routinely commit in the United States -- such as stealing Social Security Numbers and using false documents -- and we may well grant you amnesty and put you on a "path to citizenship."

In 2006, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act. It ordered the Department of Homeland Security to build "two layers of reinforced fencing" as well as "additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors" along approximately 700 specific miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Among these miles were those "extending 15 miles northwest of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry to the Brownsville, Texas, port of entry." This is precisely where large numbers of unaccompanied alien children are crossing today.

These children are not stopped by the double fence Congress mandated 8 years ago; that fence was never built. Then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) later slipped an amendment into a government funding bill that gave the secretary of Homeland Security discretionary authority not to build it.

In 2011, PolitiFact reported that DHS had built 649 miles of fence along the nearly 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. But only a fraction of that was the double fencing envisioned by the Secure Fence Act. "DHS reports there are currently 36.3 miles of double-layered fencing, the kind with enough gap that you can drive a vehicle between the layers," said PolitiFact. "But the majority of the fencing erected has been vehicle barriers, which are designed to stop vehicles rather than people ... and single-layer pedestrian fencing." If you were building a fence around your pool, would you make the fence so it stopped people, or only cars and trucks? Would you leave two-thirds of the pool unfenced?

The Guatemalan boy who died in South Texas is not the only victim of the willful negligence that the Washington political elite has shown toward securing our border. American workers who have lost their jobs or seen their wages diminished because of competition from illegal alien laborers are victims, too.

So, too, are those who have been victimized by drug smugglers and other criminals who have entered our country illegally.

So, too, are law-abiding aliens from distant lands who would love to immigrate to the United States, but must stand in line behind lawbreakers.

And so, too, our own children, who are likely to pay even a steeper price than we have for our political elite's growing contempt for the rule of law.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: borderfence; borderpatrol; borderstates; congress; illegalimmigration
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1 posted on 07/16/2014 8:04:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
Don't let the USA be an attractive nuisance.


2 posted on 07/16/2014 8:09:31 AM PDT by Paine in the Neck (Socialism consumes EVERYTHING)
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To: Kaslin

Stupid article. No mention of Obama’s backdoor Dreamer amnesty that started in 2012. And the fence isn’t the problem. These illegal aliens are running to the Border Patrol eager to be taken into custody knowing full well they will be allowed to stay. How is a fence going to help?


3 posted on 07/16/2014 8:13:50 AM PDT by kabar
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To: Kaslin

The US is no different than a pedophile who offers a candy bar to lure a child into his car or home to exploit


4 posted on 07/16/2014 8:16:14 AM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: kabar

And the fed agents are handing out floaties and tubes and bathing suits and balls and hotdogs burgers and buns so they can get right into the fun of swimming in Sam’s pool. What’s that? They want suntan lotion? no problem...


5 posted on 07/16/2014 8:18:43 AM PDT by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty)
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Mass grave discovered in Texas ‘contains bodies of immigrants who died crossing border into U.S.’


6 posted on 07/16/2014 8:19:33 AM PDT by deport
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To: Paine in the Neck

That’s a reasonable list. We need to start with a list of unreasonable demands so that we have room to negotiate to the reasonable list.


7 posted on 07/16/2014 8:28:15 AM PDT by Prolixus (We feed; they breed.)
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To: elpadre

What is called an “attractive hazard” may subject the person who offers or possesses it to a great deal of scorn and harassment. And in law, also liability.

These children who died while riding the “death train” or expired in the heat, or drowned while crossing the Rio Grande, will all be regarded to be “America’s fault” for luring the children and the other attendant adults to and across the now non-existent national boundary.

Perhaps 100,000 or so persons displaced by joblessness here in the US should swarm back across the border to Mexico and become a burden on THEIR social support systems. Hazardous, but not much worse than what people are facing now.


8 posted on 07/16/2014 8:35:16 AM PDT by alloysteel (Most people become who they promised they would never be.)
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To: Paine in the Neck
Mr. Paine...You are obviously a racist and a bigot. While these steps you have outlined seem reasonable to you and your dirty, filthy, sub-human conservative friends, they are completely impractical. I hope you have to cross that desert someday in desperation, and have your dead, desiccated body discovered by hikers.

/S

9 posted on 07/16/2014 8:37:01 AM PDT by rlmorel ("A nation, despicable by it"s weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." A. Hamilton)
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To: rlmorel
Mr. Paine...You are obviously a racist and a bigot.

I think the term you are looking for is "heartless". That's what my Governor called me.

10 posted on 07/16/2014 8:46:02 AM PDT by Paine in the Neck (Socialism consumes EVERYTHING)
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To: Paine in the Neck

11 posted on 07/16/2014 9:01:01 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Kaslin
Resort being opened in Weslaco, TX...for illegals....


12 posted on 07/16/2014 9:08:20 AM PDT by Jane Long ("And when thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek")
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To: Jane Long
They'll have that trashed out in less than a week.
13 posted on 07/16/2014 9:14:55 AM PDT by The Cajun (Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert....Nuff said.)
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To: The Cajun
They'll have that trashed out in less than a week.

Yes. But, why is this even being allowed to open for illegals?

14 posted on 07/16/2014 9:17:53 AM PDT by Jane Long ("And when thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek")
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To: Jane Long
Yes. But, why is this even being allowed to open for illegals?

Simple explanation, if you get into the United States, this is where you'll live.
Think about what those pictures will do south of the border and whose pushing that impression.

15 posted on 07/16/2014 9:23:19 AM PDT by The Cajun (Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert....Nuff said.)
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To: Jane Long

Is there a FReeper who lives near this place? If so, maybe you can save this pic posted by Jane (thank you!) and go there in December after the kids have had three months to trash the place, take a similar pic and post it with the original pic.

This assumes you can get into the place.


16 posted on 07/16/2014 9:35:18 AM PDT by upchuck (The country is being billed for its own execution. ~ h/t: SpaceBar)
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To: Paine in the Neck

save


17 posted on 07/16/2014 9:40:27 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ( "1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - Schlemiel! - Schlemazel! - Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!")
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To: Jane Long

Are you serious?! Oh, my gosh, that needs to go viral.


18 posted on 07/16/2014 9:49:50 AM PDT by Nea Wood (When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.-Sowell)
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To: Jane Long

paid for by the taxpayers of Weslaco, I am sure


19 posted on 07/16/2014 10:33:42 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: upchuck

A “follow up” report would be interesting, indeed.

They shouldn’t even be allowed to set foot inside, to begin with, though :(


20 posted on 07/16/2014 11:07:14 AM PDT by Jane Long ("And when thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek")
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