The current immigation bill that President Bush is trying to revive misses the point. It's not about legitimizing the millions of illegals that are already here. They've already done that by having kids (American citizens) on our soil. They're de facto legitimized already. May it R.I.P. without being revived. The emphasis should be not on what to do with the illegals that are already here but how to prevent even more from coming! Do they think legitimizing the ones that are here in and of itself is going to prevent more from coming? That's fallacious logic. Instead of beefing up our borders, we need the equivalent of an Apollo plan, a Marshall plan, to beef up our borders. We need the equivalent of a war in Iraq to beef up our borders. Why not redeploy the finances of the war in Iraq to our borders? Instead of spending billions of dollars building permanent bases and an embassy (really an Occupation HQ) bigger than Vatican City in Iraq, why not spend the money building bases here...on our borders! Why not listen to Lou Dobbs? He's right on the money on this issue and, by the way, a resident of Wantage Township, NJ, where I grew up.
After 9/11 any sensible person would have transformed our military assets in such a way as to defend our borders, sea ports and airports. And I don't mean just the border with Mexico. I'm talking about the border with Canada and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well. All avenues whether by air, land or sea leading into this country must be monitored. Instead they left the borders wide open or allocated a financial pittance to building physical walls. Instead the Bush Administration started a pre-emptive war for oil against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and was one of the few secular and under control countries in the Middle East (not to mention a former ally whom we had supplied weapons to in the war with Iran). They hustled the bin Laden relatives onto a plane and out of the country without questioning them. George H. W. Bush watched the planes fly into the twin towers on TV while attending a meeting of the Carlyle Group with bin Laden's brother! Then they stir up the hornet's nest in the Middle East while leaving the Homeland essentially unprotected. Are they hoping for another attack so they can rally the countrymen around them in support of their military and oil adventurism abroad? Let the fearmongering begin because that's the only thing Republicans are really good at! They want the equivalent of another Cold War so they and their cronies can profit off the military-industrial complex. And Americans really do have something to fear since Bush and his team have practically invited another attack by not beefing up our borders, by not implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
So what needs to be done about the borders? For starters on the order of a hundred billion dollars needs to be allocated for border protection. The project should have a time scale of 3 years ... not 4 to 8 years. This hundred billlion dollars, by the way, is less than the current appropriation bill funding the war in Iraq for 3 months! In addition to a physical fence there needs to be an electronic fence using satellite and drone surveillance. There needs to be military installations or outposts every 100 miles or so with quick response teams that can get to any breach within minutes by plane, helicopter, land or sea vehicles. Coast Guard installations along the coast need to be numerous with 24 hour surveillance and faciltiies capable of intercepting the fastest boat approaching our shores. The Air Force should be patrolling the borders (not training in the desert!) in order to intercept any unauthorized approaching air traffic. Carrier groups should be positioned in the Gulf of Mexico, off of San Diego, Miami and New York City instead of off of Iran. The military should be used to defend the US (novel idea!) instead of engaging in military adventurism abroad.
The immigration bill gives lip service to defending the borders while giving amnesty to millions of people here illegally. Do they think that's really going to prevent more from coming illegally? Sure some will take advantage of the provisions for coming under some work program. Some will take advantage of the provisions for legitimizing their existence here. But others will continue to come illegally and others will continue to "live in the shadows." Do they really think they all want to become US citizens? No, they just want to work here and send the money back to Mexico with the dream of buying a rancho and retiring there some day. This immigration bill is just so much nonsense whose main goal is to get as much cheap labor into this country as possible and destroy as many middle class jobs as possible. If there are jobs that Americans really don't want to do, let the huge prison population do them instead of sitting on their asses planning the crimes they're going to do when they get out of jail. It would probably do more in terms of rehabilitation than anything they're doing in jail. And their wages (they should get at least minimum wage) could go to pay for their room and board thus lowering the burden on taxpayers and to pay back their victims. If they have anything left over, they could save for starting a business when they get out or for retirement. A prisoner with a 401K? Why not!
Do you think that illegals working for sub-minimum wages are going to jump through hoops, pay a $5000. fine, return to their country of origin and re-enter the US all in order to become American citizens? It's a joke. It's laughable. There's no urgency to legitimize these people. There's no urgency for more cheap labor. 20 million cheap laborers are already here taking jobs that used to be middle class American jobs. And by the way there's something to the notion "they're doing jobs Americans don't want to do." Why don't Americans want to do them? 1) They don't pay anything. Solution: let the price of labor be regulated by the law of supply and demand where the supply of labor is not increased by an influx of it. Ergo, the creation of higher paying jobs! 2) Americans are wasting their time running up debt attending college because they think they will be better off in the long run instead of starting their work life right out of high school. Instead they will pay dearly for buying into this mythology in the long run. Most of them (but not all) would be better off entering the work force right out of high school.
The urgency is to prevent more illegals from coming, not to legitimize the ones who are already here, and the only way to do that is to protect the borders, big time! There is no urgency to secure more cheap labor! The cheap labor is already here and performing very nicely, thank you! It's just that Republicans can never get enough cheap labor. Translation: lower labor costs or less middle class jobs! It's all in your perspective. And Democrats are being motivated by some misguided notion of compassion toward the illegals. Hey, they're not suffering that much. If they were worse off here than where they came from, they would go back! It's not as if they don't have their support systems here. In some areas the only persons lacking a support system are those who don't speak Spanish. In some areas of the southwest whole communities are Hispanic with Hispanic mayors and politicians. Look at LA, for example. So don't tell me they're "living in the shadows," afraid to go out in public, hunkering down lest anyone see them and report them to the authorities. Hey, increasingly, they are the authorities! I would be in favor, after the borders are fully protected, of a humane solution to the illegal problem but not until then!
The problem is that the US doesn't want to redeploy its resources both financial and military to defending the US. Instead those resources are being used to screw around in the rest of the world while practically inviting and provoking another attack on the Homeland. They want the American people to be afraid because fearmongering is what the Republicans do best. They sell it; they eat it for breakfast. It gets them elected so they have to have an attack every so often so they can say, "See, we were right. There are people out to get us." You bet there are, but your approach to dealing with them is sick! We don't have to go it alone in the world. We still have some allies (I hope) who can share the burdens and responsibilities of dealing with terrorists on a collective basis. The whole world was our friend and willing to help us after 9/11. Instead the Bush Administration's attitude was "We don't want to work with you on a cooperative basis. We want to be the boss. Get in line behind us. We're the leaders. Y'all shut your mouths and follow us. We're number one!" Human intelligence is the key for preventing attacks from happening before they even get off the ground. And that's relatively cheap compared to nuclear warheads, missiles and other military crap that they're spending billions on. But there's not as much profit in it! War is about profit and the current crop of politicians and their cronies are profiting from war. Whether it's Halliburton, Blackwater, the Carlyle Group or Lockheed Martin, they are all in the business not of protecting our country but of profiting from war and the fear of war.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that terrorism is a relatively cheap and low tech activity? And a rather cheap and effective response is all that is necessary. Certainly this hasn't occurred to the politicians who want to maximize the money spent on a response in order to line their own pockets when they trade their Congressional seat for a lobbyist position or a position on the Board of Directors of a military contractor. They want planes, missiles, armaments but not to protect our borders; only to stir up trouble in the rest of the world. Why aren't the other advanced countries sharing some of this burden? The US spends more on military expenditures than all other countries in the world combined! It's unnecessary and imprudent. It's the military-industrial complex run amok, out of control. They're bound and determined to bankrupt this country. We owe our soul to foreign debt. And what's more I predict that China will eventually take back Taikwan without a whimper of protest by the US. Why? Because we owe our assets lock, stock and barrel to China and in a few years they will be in a position to destroy our economy if we came to Taiwan's defense. All they would have to do is stop buying US debt, and start paying for oil in euros.
So R.I.P. immigration bill. Get control of the borders first ... all borders. As an added bonus this would eliminate the drug trade. Illegal persons and contraband can and should be stopped at the border. A trifecta is possible: stop illegal immigration, the drug trade and terrorists from entering the US! A national ID card wouldn't be a bad idea either. We have to be in the business of stopping ID theft both from the point of view of preventing illegals from stealing social security numbers and preventing real thievery out of our bank accounts. This could all be done, but instead we're wasting our resources on military adventurism in Iraq. This is so the "players," the Bushes and Cheneys of the world, can feel like big shots! Redeploy our finances!
And by the way, Native Americans have weighed in on the immigration bill. They are calling for the immediate deportation of all Mayflower descendents. They came here illegally, without work permits or visas, despoiled the land, spread their germs killing thousands and, worst of all, stole the Indians' identities for their sports teams, not to mention putting their images on their pennies before Lincoln. Speaking for the National Council of Indians, Chief Running Tab at Casino said, "There is some truth, however, to the statement that they came here to do jobs Native Americans would not do like managing hedge funds and investment banking."
