Showing posts with label Illegal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Illegal. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Republican Mantra Needs to Change


There is a Republican mantra regarding illegal immigration that needs to change. It goes like this, “We need to build the fence, guard the border and crack down on companies that hire illegals.”

Hurray for the first two but not the third.

Democrats have their own convoluted mantra that translates into amnesty. Strangely, it also includes cracking down on companies that hire illegals – as if it is the fault of a business owner that our borders are porous. This goes along with their worn thin, politics-of-envy argument that blames everything on corporations (and President Bush).

Barack Hussein Obama’s website says that, “Obama will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s website says that she believes that we should have, “strict penalties for those who exploit undocumented workers.” Exploit here of course means “to hire.”

Thankfully John McCain’s website makes no comment on penalizing business, but rather puts the blame on Washington, “Border security and our failed immigration system are more examples of an ailing Washington culture in need of reform to regain the trust of Americans.

There is a stark contrast in the approaches taken. McCain wants to fix the problem while HRC and BHO want a police state that will nail Americans, while encouraging the illegal activity of Mexico, a foreign country.

There is a lot to love about Mexico – Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, oil, their hard working people down there and up here, but there is also a lot to despise – their government first and foremost. They enforce their Southern borders in a Gestapo-like fashion, but encourage the illegal crossing of ours.

The Mexican government has worked to make illegal immigration here a whole lot easier.

• It plans to produce 70,000 maps marking main roads and water tanks for people wanting to cross illegally into the US, while arguing that, "The only thing we are trying to do is warn them of the risks they face and where to get water, so they don't die," at least according to Mauricio Farah of Mexico's Human Rights Commission.

• the Yucatan government (a state of Mexico) also produces educational materials (a handbook and DVD) to instruct its citizens on how to cross the border and how to avoid notice as an illegal immigrant once the border has been crossed. This guide also tells immigrants where to find health care, how to get their kids into U.S. schools and how to send money home.

• They even distribute a comic book which instructs illegal immigrants on how to sneak across the border.

The only thing I am surprised about is that they do not pay coyotes with petro-dollars.

The argument on why illegals pour across the border is because that there is an economic incentive to do so. As if it’s our fault. Leaving aside that it’s easy, that many of them think a good chunk of the Southwestern United States is actually theirs, and that the Mexican government is hopelessly corrupt, how do you dis-incentivize the economic incentive? How about this, why not give American companies a $1,500 a head bounty for each illegal alien that they turn over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)?

How’s that for out-of-the-box thinking? The good news is that the “investment” is paltry compared to how much illegals are already costing in crime, social services, health care, education, law enforcement, military, environmental, etc. . . Speaking of that laundry list, why not also allow hospitals, schools and social services to turn away illegals? And, if we have gone that far, why not declare that the fruit of an illegal act is also illegal – in other words no grant of citizenship to children born of illegals.

The incentive to illegally come will evaporate in a few short nights, the blame will be taken off Americans and placed on the Federal and Federale Governments where it ought to be, and conservatives can have a new mantra, “Build the fence, guard the border and give a bounty.” Come to think of it, we could shorten the whole thing and switch from a mantra to a chant, “We want a bounty hunter! We want the Dog!” (That would be Bounty Hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman of television fame.)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Barack Obama: Fighting for the illegal Latino Community


I ran across something weird on Barack Hussein Obama’s campaign website. It has to do with immigration.

It should be no surprise that he is an open borders kind of guy, even though he says he is in favor of building a fence and even voted for it. After all, he is a Democrat and a Chicago politician. It should also be no surprise that he packages his immigration position as if he is tough on illegals. What is a surprise is that he didn’t do it originally. Nope, he didn’t. Originally, on his website he flat out said what he was all about.

If you go now to the immigration issue section of his website at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/ImmigrationFactSheet.pdf the headline for his position proclaims, “Barack Obama on Immigration.” But apparently that is not what it was originally coded to say. Originally, it was, “Barack Obama: Fighting for the Latino Community.”

Can you just imagine if he answered the question, “What are you going to do about illegal immigration?” and he said, “I am fighting for the Latino community!” I am sure his honesty would have gone over just grand in those Democrat debates – so grand that he may not have won the nomination.

For skeptics, do what I did.

I was helping my son with a research paper on illegal immigration. As part of the paper Ben needed to find out what the top three candidate’s positions are – McCain, Hill and Bill, and BHO. When we got to Barack we did a Copy and Paste Special (choosing unformatted text) of his immigration position, at the above mentioned url, into Word, and then much to our surprise, instead of the headline being, “Barack Obama on Immigration,” which is what it says on the website, it pasted as, “Barack Obama: Fighting for the Latino Community.”

Perhaps it’s all a mistake, perhaps it was just the work of an over zealous volunteer. Or maybe it’s a subliminal Jedi Mind Trick – an attempt to pander to both sides. Whatever it is I think the first hidden headline is more accurate than the second. After all, just look at his voting record:

• He voted YES on continuing federal funds for declared "sanctuary cities". (Mar 2008)
• He voted YES on comprehensive immigration reform. (Which was the amnesty bill.) (Jun 2007)
• He voted NO on declaring English as the official language of the US government. (Jun 2007)
• He voted YES on building a fence along the Mexican border. (I think this is a red herring. After all the fence isn’t even close to being built, and he hasn’t been pushing it.) (Sep 2006)
• He voted YES on establishing a Guest Worker program. (Did you know that South Africa had a guest worker program. . . first a guest, then comes the demand for citizenship.) (May 2006)
• He voted YES on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security. (May 2006)
• He voted YES on giving Guest Workers a path to citizenship. (May 2006)

Even though he voted wrong each time except once, he doesn’t want to publicize it. Rather, he puts a nice political spin on his positions, and makes it sound like he is as strong on the border as Tom Tancredo.

Here’s what he said on the Senate floor, May 23, 2007, “The time to fix our broken immigration system is now… We need stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace… But for reform to work, we also must respond to what pulls people to America… Where we can reunite families, we should. Where we can bring in more foreign-born workers with the skills our economy needs, we should.”

According to his sweet and syrupy website here’s his plan:

• Create Secure Borders

• Improve Our Immigration System

• Remove Incentives to Enter Illegally

• Bring People Out of the Shadows

• Work with Mexico

It all sounds good in Obamaspeak, but translated into English it means, “Barack Obama: Fighting for the illegal Latino Community.”