http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592942,00.html
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, now, I know that your past as governor of Alaska didn’t — was not the same time that Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has gotten into office, but I assume that sort of governor to governor...
PALIN: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: What’s your thought on the heat that she’s taking over this statute?
PALIN: I’m proud of Jan Brewer for standing up for the constituents in her state, sending a message to Washington, sending a message to President Obama saying, Hey, you need to do your job, sir. And if you’re not going to do it, OK, then we are compelled to do the job for you until you get it right.
President Obama has been suspiciously silent on this issue, hasn’t he? We don’t even know where he stands on immigration reform or securing our borders. He doesn’t talk about it. He gets to punt on that one. And that’s unfortunate because this is a big issue. It’s all about national security. It’s about our sister border states that are inundated with violence and with crime because people illegally crossing the border, engaging in illegal activities for too long now. And some of these border states are saying, Now we’ve had enough. I admire Jan Brewer for taking a stand.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why do you think — I mean, for 20-some years, maybe even longer, even going back to President Reagan — everyone has always said, We’re going to secure the borders.
PALIN: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: Nobody has done anything. I mean, or almost nothing.
PALIN: Because they’ve made it political and they haven’t understood that unsecure borders isn’t fair to anybody. It’s not fair to American citizens who ware here legally, paying taxes, following the rules, doing all the things that an American citizen is expected to do. It’s not fair to them. But it’s not fair to the illegal aliens, either, here. They want to come pursue an American dream. Some of them do want to be here to work. But they’re forever going to have to hide because, you know, government’s going to crack down on them when (INAUDIBLE)
So they need to follow that path of legal citizenship, obviously. But these politicians, presidents in the past who have not secured the border, they’ve made it a political issue. They haven’t wanted to tick off a potential base of Hispanic voters, so they haven’t made the tough decisions. And that’s no way to solve the problem. That’s no way to solve any challenge in America, by ducking and hiding and creating division and making these partisan issues out of it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, we have still more with Governor Sarah Palin. Governor Palin is blunt about what she would do about illegal immigration. She’s going to tell you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Continuing with former governor Sarah Palin on illegal immigration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Both parties have made promises. I mean, we pull up sound bites where, you know, both sides, you know, Democrat, Republicans, say, you know, Secure the border, secure the border. And then once in office, we certainly don’t see a whole lot of action. Had the election gone another way, or even if you were president, what would you do about immigration?
PALIN: The very first thing is literally secure the border!
VAN SUSTEREN: How?
PALIN: People mock the idea of a fence. What’s wrong with building a fence? Yes, let’s physically secure the border. Let’s ramp up border control. Let’s provide the tools for those who are putting their lives on the line in order to stop illegal immigration of these aliens. Those are a couple of things.
And then you don’t start talking about amnesty, either, kind of as this last-minute, Oh, anybody who’s here in the country right now, we’re going to provide you amnesty, and even though you’ve broken the law and we are a nation of laws, you’ve broken that, we’ll still give you — because then there’s going to be a huge influx of those wanting kind of at the last minute to come over the border because they know that they will forever then receive that amnesty.
So you don’t start talking about that, but the very first thing you do is physically, literally secure those borders. It baffles me and most Americans why for all these years presidents, administrations have spoken about it but never done it.
She is speaking like a woman who hadn't thought it out very well or maybe just someone who has no border experience and governed a secure sparsely populated state that receives federal welfare and oil profit taxes to run her state. Big difference than running a state with a 1,200 mile border with Mexico and 25 million citizens that also is a net donor state (as opposed the 3rd largest recipient of federal welfare like Alaska is).
By the way no disrespect for Alaska, I worked a season on a crab boat back in the nineties.
I'm still waiting for some reporter to ask the President why he doesn't tear down the White House fence and replace it with a "virtual fence," since a physical fence acts as a barrier between people and is unnecessary. It would provide a much more "open" feeling and it would be easier to cut the grass.