A Presidential Speech and RINO Window Dressing on Illegal Immigration

All I can say is read the whole thing, and this goes double for the Congress-critters trolling for votes south of the border. President Bush had a grand opportunity to lift his sagging poll numbers, re-energize the conservative base, cement the Congressional majority for the forseeable future, and lay out a plan for fixing illegal immigration, the next biggest problem after terrorism facing our nation...to use the baseball parlance, he went 0 for 4 with four very ugly strikeouts tonight.

I wish this prediction hadn't turned out to be correct:

"George Waffle Bush is going to go on the air tonight and make an announcement. I am going to make the following prediction:

It is going to be an underwhelming speach which leaves American citizens scratching their heads, thinking to themselves "He wanted prime time to announce that?" He is going to announce that troops in the form of guardsmen are going to be deployed along the southern border. Temporarily. He is also going to push for some sort of "earned citizenship" program which amounts to amnesty. In the end, he will basically have given the Left everything they want, and he will throw the conservatives a bone by deploying troops until the midterm elections are over."

For some real solutions and straight talk, via Kim at The Other Side of Kim:

"Allow me to explain, and let me confine myself to the biggest problem, illegal immigration from south of the U.S. border...we're not being submerged by illegals from Belarus or Canada.

1.) There has always been a simmering resentment among U.S. citizens about illegal immigration. They see that illegal immigrants have access to free medical care, to (fraudulent) welfare payments, who can escape paying taxes (by being paid in cash), and if they ever commit a crime, can in essence escape the consequences by just running back over the border (to re-enter later under a different name). The Powers That Be, however, have never really noticed this resentment before, and in any event, the resentment has been written off as nativism, racism and all the other PC buzzwords with which the transnationalists demonize people who feel this way.

2.) Illegal immigrants dont assimilate. Thanks to a supporting infrastructure of Spanish TV, radio, newspaper and magazines, there is no need for Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants to learn English. Even worse (from our point of view), government has acquiesced to their demands by printing official documents in Spanish, and employing Spanish-speaking officials to deal with people who, in essence, are not interested in learning the language of their adopted countryand this is as true for legal immigrants as for illegal immigrants, by the way.

So far, there's still nothing new about all this; these are problems which have existed for many decades. But now we come to the part which has catapulted this issue to the forefront of the nations consciousness.

3.) 9/11. Say what you will, part of the responsibility for 9/11 lies with the fact that the Muslim terrorists were able to gain access to the United States with relative ease, and were able to study towards their ghastly goal while in the country, thanks to a lenient and over-supportive education system. By extension, a porous southern border means that 9/11's terrorist descendants can gain access just as easily as before, which renders irrelevant all other new controls at access points like harbors and airports.

4.) Europe. While many in the U.S. might have experienced a frisson of schadenfreude (if you'll forgive the mixed languages) at the TV visuals of burning cars in Paris, the message nevertheless got through to the average American: this is what happens when immigrants don't assimilate. Add to that the continuing immigrant-related problems with which the rest of Europe is grappling, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Europe's policy of appeasement, accommodation and yet more appeasement isn't working. Now apply those same kinds of policies here (for which our state and local governments are as guilty as the FedGov), and the conclusion is equally plain: appeasement doesn't work, assimilation does. And if assimilation is rejected by the immigrant body, what's left is alienation...which brings me to my next point.

5.) Reconquista. Not only are Spanish-speaking immigrants refusing to assimilate, but now they're claiming that parts of the United States belong to Mexico, and in this, they are aided by the MexGov (more on this, below) which permits Mexican schoolchildren to be taught that the U.S. occupied part of Greater Aztlan, and that California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico are actually part of Mexico, not part of the United States. The recent protest marches didn't help either, with signs reading nonsense like We didn't come here, the border moved south. Try as pro-immigraiton apologists may, they cannot conceal this underlying chauvinism, and ordinary Americans have seen the movement exactly for what it is.

6.) MexGov interference. When a nation aids and abets its citizens in perpetrating criminal behavior inside its neighbors borders, there is bound to be a backlash. When the MexGov started issuing phony ID documents (consular matricular) to illegal immigrants, that was bad enough. When U.S. institutions like banks and even local governments started accepting these things, allowing illegals to have access to licences and documents of U.S. citizens, people were bound to notice, and resent it. As more and more of this kind of MexGov activity has come to light, the more resentment has grown towards Mexico, not the least when people realized that Mexico treats its illegal immigrants with far more hostility and brutality than the United States could ever do to Mexican illegal immigrants. So while the MexGov was decrying any efforts by the U.S. to control Mexican illegal immigration, they themselves were pursuing a harsh policy on their own southern border. If anything rankles with Americans, its hypocrisy.

7. The Minutemen. Despite all efforts by our own government to marginalize and demonize the Minutemen (and eternal shame on them for doing so), what escaped the notice of the government was the popularity of the organization among ordinary Americans. It's not like the Minutemen are lacking for volunteers: every time they need replacements or additional volunteers, they only have to ask, and the people respond.

8. The size of the problem. If there were only a few hundred thousand illegal immigrants, or even a million, this would not be an issue. But over twelve million? And the absolute worst response from any politician could be: The problems too big to solve! In a pig's ear it is. This is America. There is no problem too big for us to solve. We ended slavery; we built the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge and the interstate highway system; we defeated the Nazis; we overcame Communism in the Cold War, and we are defeating even as nebulous and difficult an enemy as terrorism. There is no problem we can't overcome: the only way we can be defeated is through a lack of will on the part of our government...which brings me to my final point.

9. Weak and vacillating government. If there is anything Americans despise, it is a flabby, irresolute government when faced with a crisis. In no small part, one of the primary reasons that the Democrats have a problem getting back into power, for instance, is that they are (rightly) perceived as being weak on terrorists and irresolute when facing blatant aggression. To this day, Jimmy Carter is excoriated for not acting with a firmer hand during the Iran hostage crisis. Lest we forget, those hostages were released within hours of Reagan becoming President, because he was perceived as a man who would brook no terrorism. Now, ordinary Americans perceive that the illegal immigration issue is also a crisis, not the least of which thinking is because, as I stated earlier, a flaccid response to border incursions means that terrorists can enter the country with relative ease, undetected and untraceable.

Could this country assimilate twelve million immigrants? Easily...we've done so before, with greater numbers of immigrants relative to the population of the country as a whole. But there is a huge caveat attached to that easily: the illegal immigrants have to prove that they are willing to assimilate into the fabric of the nation. This means, for example, learning English and forswearing the use of their native tongue, regardless of the difficulty; leaving behind the Mexican flag (with a pass given on, say, Cinco de Mayo, just as its okay for immigrant Micks to wave Irish flags on St. Patricks Day), and in short, becoming full citizens of this great nation, instead of part-timers who are here just for the money, and whose loyalties still lie with the Old Country.

But experience has shown Americans that Mexicans are not really willing to do any of that. Instead, we hear about cultural consciousness and other multi-culti buzzwords, all of which mean simply: well live here on our terms, not on yours.

To quote another immigrant (who managed to assimilate quite well): I don theenk so, Lucy.

In addition, the more the FedGov cozies up to this group of ingrates, the more ordinary Americans resistance is going to stiffen. And the longer this appeasement goes on, the firmer and harsher will be the popular response to any initiative which doesnt seem to be solving the problem.

Want an example?

Fifteen years ago, there would have been no support for erecting a fence or similar hard method of closing off the southern border. Too much like the Berlin Wall, too much like the East-West boundary across Europe, would have been the response. Today, popular opinion has forced Congress not only to consider it, but to appropriate funds to begin construction thereof. And if the fence is done in a haphazard, ineffective way, you had better believe that support will grow for stronger policing methods than a fence.

That's the problem: as Congress, and for that matter we as a people have allowed the illegal immigration issue to be ignored, or immigration laws enforced in only a token fashion, the time for gentle policing methods has passed. Now, instead of the couple million illegal immigrants of 1989, we now have an enormous sub-culture of over twelve million.

Of necessity, therefore, the means of deporting these illegal immigrants must be of a harsher and more general a nature, just as medical treatment for early cancer growth is milder than that for ignored cancer growth which requires drastic measures.

I don't want to hear from our politicians that we can't deport 12 million illegal immigrants.

Yes, we can. We just don't have to deport them all at once.

Lets start with closing off the border so that the dear-deported can't just stroll back the next day. Then let's start by deporting the ones we can get to easily: that, for the Clueless, would be those illegals already in prison for serious crimes. Let Mexico have them back. Then, as we catch more illegal aliens, through workplace inspections and other means, they can take the places of those who have just been deported, and thus we can set up a conveyor belt of deportation. I don't want to hear moans about how it's 'Crool & Hartless' to dump otherwise law-abiding workers into the feral jungle which has become our prison system...perhaps the prospect of that, as much as anything, might cause some illegals to do the best kind of relocation: voluntary.

Here's the amnesty I would offer illegal aliens: bus fare or train fare back to the Mexican border, with a small food allowance, after fingerprinting and DNA sampling. Then, if they are ever caught in the country again without legal papers, it's straight to jail, and involuntary deportation. In other words, illegals get one, and only one, chance to make things right.

Here's the final statement for our Elected Representatives, and for the business lobbyists who have supported their inaction on this issue: the illegal immigration gravy train is over.

And if you don't eliminate the gravy train, We The People will elect others who will, regardless of party affiliation.

I hope that this provides them with food for thought."