Wrong, Wrong Bush has been focused on making his self and the government look so good that he was not been focused on what the main point of the immigration policy should be. His stands are mediocre and his plan for immigration should all be re-thought out.

        IT HURTS

Wrong, Wrong: Bush has been focused on making him and the government looks so good that he has not been focusing on what the main point of the immigration policy should be. His stands are mediocre and his plan for immigration should all be re-thought out.

Immigration is an issue that could split BOTH parties, if not handled very carefully…being mindful that the last time both major parties split at the same time we had a Civil War.

I am going to say something heretical here…maybe we should compromise, maybe the ideas and frustrations of the wingnuts have a little validity, just a bit mind you…

First, you gotta give, if you are to receive.

1. A national ID, which we already have anyway so what the hay…We give a little.

2. Verified Voting, paper ballots counted and verified by your nieghbors…We recieve a little

3. A one time only cull of the voter rolls, ONCE, in public with strict procedures and ample time for voter response. If you fail to vote every four years, you must reregister, sorry. Oh, and bring your new ID with you to the polls, you will need it…We give a little…

4. Strong employer sanctions for illegal employment…easy verification of status, penalties and jail for violations, and not just the little guys, CEO’s and Board members will go to jail also…the Nuremburg defense will not apply, won’t matter if you were following orders, you hire illegally…YOU go to jail along with all your bosses…We get a little…

5. Earned Citizenship, but not an amnesty. It has to mean something to become an American and in fairness to those who played by the rules the process cannot be automatic, sorry…we give a little…

6. No guest worker program…This is corporatist BS, an attempt to create a two tiered labor market, the lower tier being the club by which the labor movement and the middle class can be further mauled and beaten to submission…Rather a register of those who are applicants for Earned Citizenship, and are currently employed. Those who can demonstrate legal illegal employment (Kerryesque, eh?) as in not of the “underground” variety and who have been paying witholding taxes, will be allowed to work for one year. All applicants will have to hearings within one year of the date of application or lose the ability to legally work. We get a little…

7. A living wage, raise the minimum, to $8.50 or better…we all get a little… 

Now we could go on in this vein, and this could become a habit…seeking the common good before political advantage, finding consensus before seeking confrontation. But it doesn’t sell newspapers or incite anyone’s base to pony up to save us from the very bad people who are the other guys…

Like I said, it could become a habit, a good one.

What a concept, the Common Good…

RG Johnson/Dallas112263

Al Gore will be elected President in 2008…
Not because he is running…
But because he is LEADING!
Lead, follow or get outta the way…

Read your immigration column and thought it to be quite perceptive. However, a random thought intruded on my musings, and insisted upon being heard. There is a serious flaw in the program. For every incremental increase in wage or working conditions in this country, there will be a commensurate increase in the number of people that would want to take the risk of getting here. What is desperately needed is for these changes to be made by the Mexican businesses, so there would be less reason to want to cross over. We can not solve this problem here, it must be done in Mexico. With NAFTA, many of these businesses are US sponsored,
and should be changeable. It’s about time these greedy Americans started paying the real price of
the goods they buy. Think about it. 1/2d.

I reject anything that comes from the Bush administration they are all liars and treat Americans as dumb asses that will belive the crack pot shite they spew. Perhaps the issues with the latino’s in America is that a good many countries are taking back there lives from the greedy few that have had the masses under their boot heels for ever. Taking back their oil, mineral, forests, and agriculture. Fuck NAFTA….Now Bushie and his henchmen will soon be marching into war with Colombia, Venezuela, Equator and Bolivia !!mark my words This is why they are shitting their trousers as they will have “Latino Terrorists in the streets” They are becoming Rome.

Mexican issue this is so simple why does the government make such a big deal about it? Well that’s another store all together.
Granted there are a lot of good decent hard working tax paying law abiding Mexican people here, however We are being bum rushed by the criminal element in the Mexican society from south of the border in fact Mexico has recently released prisoners from there jails and put them on busses and sent them to the American border and assisted them in crossing and if we don’t do something and soon this will run our country in the ground I see the crime so prevalent here in Las Vegas.
Here’s all that needs to be done and it wouldn’t cost any money.
1. Close the border and don’t let anyone across that’s not legal. Anyone that is caught crossing the border that’s not legal to cross should be charged with a felony and sent back to Mexico or what ever country they are from because they are not only coming from Mexico, disqualifying them from ever becoming a US citizens. This would help to insure that only honest people who are willing to work and pay tax come to the US
2. Start with the people who are doing criminal activities as they are caught send them back, starting with the most serious like drugs, prostitution, grand larceny, traffic violations, auto theft, murder, assault, tax evasion, Identity fraud and theft. Then get the INS or Home Land Security to start doing there jobs that we the tax payers are paying for. And if they can’t do the job then fire them and start doing it ourselves using such as the minute man operation that seems to be doing such a good job for a group that has absolute zero funding, just think what they could do with the millions of taxpayers dollars that are being paid to the government that is squandering our money on who knows what by the criminals that call themselves our representatives and government agencies that are running this country into the ground and we all will suffer. After about five years then think about amnesty
4. Impose stiff fines and jail for employer that knowingly hires illegal maybe charge them with accessory to tax evasion and sentence them to twenty years at hard labor. 
5. Start enforcing the currant laws and using the program that has worked in the past, this is America and we have spoken English for two hundred years that was the language chosen when this country was founded. We speak English here and anyone coming here looking to be a citizen needs to know how to speak English and have a basic knowledge of the construction and laws of the land in general.
There was that so hard.

Enforce the law- convict Bush & Cheney and put the minutemen (kkk)on the front line.

‘If you can’t convince them confuse them’
http://www.bitpuddle.com/images/2004/08/experience2.jpg

This president has not done a single thing right or for the right reasons since taking office.  He has not earned the benefit of the doubt.  If fact, has has lost that benefit, which he once had in spades.  I am convinced that any appearance of sensibility from this president is an artifact of his inversely-proportionate actual level of sincerity.
Taking anything he says at face value or evaluating his proposals as though they would be implemented competently or in line with his rhetoric is a mistake, like walking into a brick wall with a door painted on it for the dozenth time.

True, Bush knows a thing or two about immigrants. Halliburton, and their $385M contract to construct emergency immigrant detention centers will concur. 

But if BushCo truly knew anything about immigration policy, gave a lick about the lives of Mexicans or were seeking a true solution, they would repeal NAFTA and give the Mexican farmers back the 10 million hectares that the treaty stole from them.

75% of rural Mexico is living in extreme poverty and 15 million peasants—and mostly young people—have been forced to move to the cities, either in Mexico or in the United States
(UNAM).

NAFTA destroyed the Mexican peasant farmer in order to boost US corporate profit. BushCo refuse to acknowledge this core issue of undocumented aliens. Ultimately, he is not more right than wrong.

Right now, until the gods of democracy have pity on us and send us a better president the only thing I hope for is that this administration will not again squander billions of the people’s money on a failed proposition. Building a fence is a failed proposition. Sending the guards is a band-aid, I agree, (or something much worse if you count the danger and the ill-will it can create). A guest worker program will only create another bureaucratic monster that we will then have to feed, just as we are now feeding homeland security and the military. Not to mention that it’s going to make immigration lawyers filthy rich. To me, much as I understand the worry that an amnesty would create a “magnet”, an amnesty is the only straightforward and cheap solution. After that, pour the millions into enforcing labor laws and helping Latin America with real programs that don’t cater to the endemic corruption. These people would like to stay in their countries, but their governments are mostly smug hypocrites who have no interest in changing the statu quo, since the emigration brings demographic relief and billions in real money.
Unfortunately I suspect that Bush’s friends also have a vested interest in this statu quo. The constant flow of labor keeps their costs low and the workers obedient. That is why this will go and on and we will keep pouring millions into failed propositions and half-truths, Bush style.

Bush doesn’t care about walls. national guard units, or border security. He would support any legislation on immigration, even guard the border with the Raging Grannies, if it supplied a substandard work force. He said that is the one item he will not bend on, having a huge under payed work force at the ready.

Thanks for the comments on Bush’s immigration plan.  It went along way toward untangling the mess for me—not all of the way, but a fair distance all the same.

Jim Piper

Let’s enforce employer laws.  Without that, no wall will stop those wanting jobs and a better life..

If arming/fencing our border would solve our illegal immigration problem, then why has it not been done? Simple=big/small business! Behind the political curtain, they are the ones that pull the puppets strings.

It saddens me that that “Big-Business” has not stepped to the forefront and thanked the “illegals” for filling their pocketbooks with millions. Even Wal-Mart, for all its wealth, does not come out and say that they were guilty of hiring illegal labor.

It is much easier to blame the illegals for all our nation’s ills, than, to look ourselves honestly in the mirror, and ask, “are we at all responsible for this mess?”

The illegal immigration phenomenon is what it is, a phenomenon that is unprecedented in history.

I am a son of an illegal immigrant. However, I have a question to ask those of you who are against illegal immigration. If you are so convinced that illegal immigration needs to stop, then why not convince your political leaders to have the border patrol shoot first and ask questions later. That will solve the problem, because dead illegals do not speak.

Such barbaric logic does not happen because it is not the Latino demonstrations that are preventing the politicians from doing this, it is the politicians along with big-business who want the illegal flow of immigrants.

Thus, be mad at your politicians/business not at the human beings who are in search of a better life. How I would love to see the minuteman protesting at Wal-Mart. By god, they should go to New Orleans where “W” said it was ok to use illegal labor. What?

May the Great Spirit in the Sky have mercy on our hateful human race.

Maybe the Native Americans should rise up and tell the Right-Wing Republicans and the Minute-Idiots to go home!

A few platitudes by the commander-in-cheat doesn’t make for an immigration policy that’s good for America.  What would such a policy be?
Guaranteeing immigrants their labor rights including a living wage and the right to organize. That’ll take care of the “But they drive down wages and take our jobs” argument and focus our attention where it belongs - on the outsourcing of jobs (whole insdustries, actually) to China and other cheap labor nations.  Then there’s the matter of amnesty and an open path to full citizenship.  What about the “They broke the law” anti-immigrant mantra?  So did Rosa Parks when she refused to move to the back of the bus.  Some laws are meant to be broken, like right now when the powers that be are shredding our Constitution, the better to wage their immoral and illigitimate wars upon humanity, including the 5% of us who reside in the U.S.A.
Tired of the same old same old business as usual status quo.  Then join the immigration liberation movement, make history and change the world.  Anything less is siding with one’s oppressor.

No Mr. Scheer complexity does not sell but it most sure as hell breeds complacency; and it is complacency that has now produced a situation that is to my mind, irreconcilable. Here are your options: Deportation? Even Ol’Arbusto is intelligent enough to see the resulting insurrection. Another Simpson-Mazzoli Amnesty and a continuation of a porous border? Well, do you consider Media co-ordinated mass demonstrations on a Nationwide basis indicative of a people “living in the shadows?” No hell no. It is again, a people making unilateral demands. Demands that will over time, become demands for limited autonomy and then union with Mexico… I’ve already alluded to French Algeria in 1954 and again the situations, and history are not dissimilar…in fact they’re Goddamned near identical. I’m sure you realize what happened there…So again, Borders, Mr. Scheer, are not Geographic. They are Political, Cultural, Economic and in the final analysis: They are Ethnic. If you don’t believe me? Ask any Israeli. Go to Sri Lanka. Look at Ireland. Chechnya, Africa, witness the neo-Con provoked Suni-Shia blood bath in Iraq.
  But more to the domestic point: Take a drive from “The People’s Republic of Santa Monica” up PCH and ask any multi-millionaire Film Producer executive etc., who as a member of the human family feels the pain of the oppressed, who stands in solidarity with the poor brutalized minorities, who shares the dream of equality and economic justice and on and on and on…They just don’t seem to want the same people on their private beaches in Malibu. Ask them. You’ll hear some masterful equivocation; in public anyway…In private?...well, ‘nuff said.
  In the end the only way to suppress ethic rivalries, and the conflicts they inevitably produce is a Police State and I get the idea they’re working on one right now: You will recall what transpired in the former Yugoslavia when Communist regime fell? Of course you do. It was just one vicious, internecine war ago.

That’s about as plain as I can make it. You’re a smart guy Mr. Scheer. As I like I say, go figure.

Please educate me on the issue of undocumented workers not paying taxes. Am I missing something? I thought that a large portion of these workers worked for miniumum wage and would have taxes taxen out of their paychecks like everyone else.  Since they are illegal they would not file a tax return, therefore any funds they have coming to them in the form of a tax refund would be kept by the government. if they are working “under the table”, the employer is equally guilty of tax evasion. Truly, I’d like to better understand this issue.

1) NPR just did a story about how difficult it already is to recruit and train Border Patrol Officers.  They also included some remarks indicating that Border Patrol personnel often make less money than local police.  So, how does Bush propose that he can actually get more Border Patrol, an increase of 50%?

2) Isn’t the immigrant issue really one of failed incentives since the US offers better economic opportunities than our southern neighbors.  When Bush came into office he seemed to promise that he would work to improve the economies of Mexico and other southern neighbors, but then he got distracted.  It seems to me that a giant part of the immigration problem has got to be helping immigrants find jobs in their own countries while also making US jobs more attractive to US workers.

Please pardon the length of this, but this a subject that has lived with me for over five decades.

I was raised in a farm family in the Central Valley of California.  I worked alongside Mexican field workers (whether illegal or braceros, I don’t know) when I was a kid in the 50’s, doing the same work they did, so I have some perspective on this situation.  They used to give me flour tortillas cooked over a wood stove when I was smaller, the slightly burnt smell of the tortillas being one of my earliest memories.
1) I seriously doubt that any of today’s US citizens, no matter how poor they may be, could be lured into doing field work today, at any reasonable living wage.  None of them face the poverty the Mexicans do.  To the illegals or braceros, it is a huge advance over what they could make at home, if they could even get work.  It’s el dorado del norte for them. 

2) The illegals that do this, also from Central America but still mostly Mexicans, constitute the largest foreign aid program in the world.  The money that Mexicans send back to families in Mexico alone amounts to almost as much as the income from Mexico’s biggest export, oil. Even if it is not considered by us gringos as a living wage, it means a better life to them and their families. Cutting them off from work in the US would greatly worsen the plight of the people of Mexico.

3) There is a bracero program in force now.  The LA Times ran an article on it just a few days ago, citing a farmer in Idaho that has them working for him, at several dollars per hour more than the illegals work.  They also got papers and entry passes to the US, and a paid bus trip to Idaho.  This is a lower priced version of what has been going on in the software industry, with Indian and Pakistani programmers coming here on H1B permits. The farmer figures that the difference in wages is made up for in efficiencies, such as not worrying about la migra scooping up your labor force while your crops rot.  The bracero program is understaffed and, hence, slow to approve workers wanting to come legally to the US.  Making this more efficient for the worker and the farmer would do wonders for all.  Cracking down on illegals without an effective bracero alternative would mean a huge rise in food cost for US consumers and a huge loss of money flowing back to Mexico.

4) The human “fall out” from illegal immigrants will not go away until this country, like most other countries, does not recognize people born here of foreign parents as citizens.  Deporting illegals who have US-citizen children is a Dickensonian heart-wrench.  This whole thing is a repeat of the last half-hearted attempt to deal with the “problem”; it did nothing to stem illegal immigration, but got a lot of undocumented people their citizenship, as would Bush’s plan.

5)  I have felt since the 60’s that the only way people in Mexico/Central America would stop coming here any way they can is if they could earn a reasonable living where they are.  Most I have known want to return to their families in Mexico, unless their families are here also.  That’s human nature.  So the call for a Marshall Plan in Mexico is a step in the right direction. The devil is in the details; who pays?

6) Sending the National Guard, even in a support role, is dumber than dirt.  The two-week training they get is to make them better at their military specialties, not in playing second fiddle to an overstretched border patrol.  Bush’s cuts in that funding can’t be washed over by further over-tasking the National Guard.  If Bush had ever really served in the armed forces and trained to do something militarily effective, rather than fly obsolete jets and go AWOL, he would know that is a non-starter. (I served four years as a communication officer in the navy, during the Vietnam era. Real ships, real navy.)

7) Bush may call for a few of the right things, but rest assured that his real reason lies in paragraph 3) above: making sure that agribusiness has access to enough (cheap) workers to harvest the crops, and to keep food the best bargain we have, outside of. Chinese widgets (the Chinese would love to make what a farm worker makes here).  With George, follow the money to get the answer.

Adios, amigos.

They would not publish this reply on the Huffington Post so Hope you will allow it and think about it.
The problem is never going to be solved until the Catholic Church changes it’s No Birth Control policy is the main cause of the problem.
As long as people will contine to procreate like
rabbits because they will not use birth control, we will be asked to pay the penalty for the Catholic Churc’s policy.
Start sending the bills to the nearest diocese and a c opy to the Vatican, why should we pay for the foolishness of others?
As for not being able to expel 12 million, why Not Mexico did it.
We won’t because business wants cheap labor so we are all screwed by business and the Catholic Church.

It is very inspiring to see such meaningful dialouge in response to Scheer’s thoughtful article. It is good to see the readers of truthdig do believe a nation does (and should) have the right to control its own borders. Unfortunately our current president is looking for the politically expedient thing to do, as opposed to getting to the myriad facts of the matter.

Some salient points to this issue the have received little or no coverage;

Since the passage of NAFTA, some 7 million farmers have been driven from their lands (to become urban slum dwellers or to illegally come here).
Every person who resides here in the US will leave a larger “ecological footprint”, impacting our planet still further.

Large enclaves of peoples who have their own language, newspapers, radio and television stations will have little motivation to become enculturated (not that we should not embrace diversity). This could have some adverse effects on a nation. (I know of many people raised in SoCal who don’t/won’t speak English).

The “pressure relief valve” effect that the US provides is perhaps preventing the necessary social changes that the Mexican people deserve. (Mexico is very rich in natural resources and obviuosly has a strong labor force and work ethic).

Real global economic justice will not be as profitable for the few ultra wealthy people, but ultimately is the only sustainable way that humanity will survive.

And that’s MY two cents.

My opinion of the speech can be covered with two words I will not use here, but there is a lot of it laying around in the feed lots in Texas and else where.

The flood of illegals is depressing wages.  The fact that they have no insurance is wrecking the already messed up health care system.

The proposals are a loose loose situation.

Believe not an evil man even when he speaks the truth!  I don’t remember where this comes from but it is a propos here.

When I heard Bush talk about not deporting those already here, it sounded weird.  He sounded compassionate and it seemed to make some sense.  What’s the catch?  Perhaps some republican supporter is going to get the contract to print the identity cards for $250 a piece.  Well, $50 to print them and $200 to trim the edges. 

No, I suspect he understands the impossible task of identifying and removing those already here.  Its one thing to catch someone walking through a field adjacent to the border; it becomes more difficult when someone has a fake green card and works at a Del Taco or as a live-in nanny in Irvine.  He also knows that, while undocumented workers may not pay taxes, they do contribute to society and their mass exodus would be an economic disaster. 

With gas at $3.50 a gallon, I could not afford to fill both my tank and a shopping cart with fresh produce if not for the cheap labor that toils in this country.  Amnesty may not dramatically improve the wages undocumented workers receive, but it would remove the fear of being caught and recognize and legitimize a crucial component to our society.

Raising the minimum wage might also make options like joining the National Guard less appealing for those folks struggling to raise families; though as far as they are concerned, I’m sure duty in Arizona or New Mexico looks a hell of a lot better than Iraq or Afghanistan.

Not to settle the issue, but…#1) There are no jobs “Americans just won’t do”. Think of coal miners, prostitutes, bobyguards, nuclear plant ‘jumpers’. We will do any job THAT PAYS. #2)There already is a “path to citizenship”. It simply doesn’t favor cheaters. #3) No one will have to “round up” undocumented workers. Denied employment they will filter back as seamlessly as they once filtered in.

I agree only in part with Scheer’s essay today.  Yes, they should have a living wage and decent living conditons, “guest worker” or illegal and here for many years.  That will not happen, this is still just another bone thrown to corporate interests.  Non-citizens of this country have paid billions in taxes already and have served in the military!!  Oh, and perhaps they’ll be granted citizenship if they die in this outrageous attack on the Middle East.  Utilize the National Guard for our borders?  Federalize them for this onerous task when they are already overstretched?  WHY?  Oh, because he cut billions from the Border Patrol a year ago, when apparently he did not need this issue to deflect from all the other debacles..the war, the economy, health care, NSA spying, the indictments snowing down, planning to bomb bomb bomb Iran, etc.  Well, bird flu didn’t do it, did it?  Support Mexico as much as possible to provide adequately for their citizens ala comment Fern, 9687.  This is a “brown” problem, the only terrorists they have stopped have come in through Canada.  I understand people’s anger at “illegals” or non-citizens getting free health care when many of us cannot, and having their children here to be automatic citizens.  You can bet, however, that if a living wage were given these folks, and the collusion between the Mexican govt. oligarchy and ours stopped, and we had a Border Patrol funded to do it’s job at both borders and checks at the ports….you may stop the flow to an extent.  People would rather stay home with their families, after all. As for the ones (the millions) who have been here for a long time….let’s see, pay back taxes (they should be paid in back wages), pay fines and learn English. Yeah, that sounds workable for people who are putting in 12-16 hr. days. Didja see that they DO pay taxes?  Just 2-5 yrs. here?  No problem, “just go to a point of entry and file an application to return.”  Yah, that’ll happen.  Let’s just use that dread word “UNION” which could organize these workers and ensure a decent wage and living conditions.  A guest worker program circumvents that doesn’t it?        But they are so POOR they will come anyway, through the desert (brown people, remember), and risk dying, being caught, deported and trying all over again….well, I guess it’s just because they can’t get enough ice in their cokes at home.  And nothing is said about OVERSIGHT of their workplaces, oh yes, that would require UNIONS!  Let us remember, Cesar Chavez did not support illegal immigration, but a legal entry into the country and a reasonable chance to become citizens if that’s what was desired…....and a living wage and decent accomodations whether or not they intended to stay.  Neeeeeds oversight.  Let’s see…..who would do that?  For real?

Well, well, well, so Bush would send our National Guard in essence, to hold the hands of “illegal” aliens coming in from Mexico!  Not that they’re needed elsewhere, such as keeping watch on our nuclear facilities, examining crates delivered to our shores by steamers; ah, the list it endless.

If “illegals” be the case, reckon it’s time for the Indian nations to take up their bows and arrows and drive out lily white asses back to Europe!  It’s a bit in the sickening spectrum to even listen to the rhetoric about “aliens”.  The white man is the biggest, greediest and cruelest of them all!

Of course, Robert is correct in that the prez should know more about those who sneak into the country than any othe single aspect of government.  I didn’t listen to his address simply because I cannot bear the sight of him nor the sound of his voice.  When I see his face all that comes to mind are the 3,000 dead soldiers from his Iraqi fiasco and the thousand of dead and disinfranchised innocent Iraqis.  I’m also reminded of the speedy downslide our own country experiences because of his inability to lead.

Recently there was a story in the local paper about an hispanic man who lost his leg when a backhoe fell and collapsed part of the hole he was in. The outfit he was working for has been penalized in the past over safety issues.

It brought to mind another local news story a couple of years ago about a fourteen year old Mexican who fell to his death in a construction site. It was illegal for a worker his age to be doing the work he was doing.

It’s high time that the contractors who place workers in unsafe conditions pay a price that will deter such practices. Maybe the white collar criminals who are responsible should do a little jail time.

Safety and wage regulations should not be ignored merely because a worker is here as a “guest.”

This is how we stop digging the hole, Scheer is right on target:

“The jobs that draw the immigrants will continue to exist, and it is in his failure to deal forthrightly with that magnet that Bush’s immigration proposal dramatically fails. In fact, the best way to stem the flow of cheap immigrant labor is to substantially increase the minimum wage requirement to a living wage, and to deploy sufficient U.S. Labor Department inspectors to enforce it. At the very least, existing laws protecting workers must not continue to be ignored — but Bush’s speech contained no reference to enforcing the wage, working conditions and occupational safety laws on the books that might make those jobs more attractive to workers here legally.”

And Ruben Navarrette Jr. writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/navarrette/20060517-9999-lz1e17navarre.html

“It’s dumb because, though this may come as a shock to the television personalities who parachuted into the San Diego area this week for live shots in front of barbed wire fences, the front line in the immigration battle isn’t the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s the parking lot of the mega-hardware store in Indianapolis where people pick up day laborers. It’s in the restaurant in Las Vegas, and the hotel in Denver, and the construction site in Atlanta. And it is in American households where easy access to cheap labor lets middle-class families have nannies and housekeepers, and other luxuries that were once the sole province of the upper class.”
Molly Ivins also nailed the solution again with her deft voice (use of the language) and her insights to reality. Even Chris Matthews agrees with her this time around:

IVINS: “You want to shut down illegal immigration? You want to use the military as police? Make it illegal to hire undocumented workers and put the National Guard into enforcing that. Then rewrite NAFTA and invest in Mexico.”

Well, Chris agrees with the crackdown on employers at least ... from Hardball with Chris Matthews for Monday, May 15, 2006:

MATTHEWS: “Do you know what my critique is, one observation.  When the average American is convinced that someone can‘t be hired here illegally, they‘ll believe we‘re protecting the border.  All the gendarmes at the border, all the national defense people, all the border patrol in the world are not going to stop a person from getting here if they note in Los Angeles, there‘s a job that pays well.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12817615/

I agree. Start by busting the employers, then secure the borders as best we can, and THEN deal with the humanitarian issues of the folks already here illegally ... which does NOT mean letting them cut in line ahead of the folks who have been waiting patiently ... or we will have the same problem all over again with even MORE folks crossing the border illegally. Didn’t we learn anything from 1986?

You know, there is an old saying ... if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Thanks Bob, for a clear non-doctrinaire analysis of Bushes proposals.  Unfortunately we are also aware that Bush has some very good speechwriters and there can be a cavernous gap between the speech and the reality at the other end of the shovel.  With an intransigent “right” block in the House, the actual Bush ideas might shift considerably in the negotiations to come.

Complicating everything at this point is that Bush now bankrupt of whatever “capital” he thought he had a year and a half ago and with the November elections looming ahead is beginning to look pretty impotent and lame duckish what with his own righ bridling and the left pointing fingers.  The road ahead looks like a white knuckle ride until a new administration comes to power and tries to bail us out of one hellova deluge!

Two elements missing from Bush’s plan—or any plan I’ve heard—that would stem the tide without harming anyone: some arrangement whereby people here illegally could return home South of the border and return without hiring human smugglers.  I realize this isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, but it needs to be discussed because many people who come here wouldn’t stay or stay as long if going home wasn’t a one-way trip.  The other is, perhaps we should re-examine the notion that any child born here is automatically a citizen.  I know that’s a hot-button issue and I’m not sure myself where I would come down on it if there were an open discussion of all points of view.  I’m only suggesting that it needs to be on the table.  There is an argument to be made that high-fertility illegals are like a Trojan horse.

That’s my two cents.

I couldn’t agree more with Robert Scheer’s column on immigration. I thought Bush’s speech on Monday could have come from a democratic leader, it’s one of the few times I’ve agreed with the president. Deploying the National Guard to the border won’t help. As Mencia said on the “Countdown” on Monday, it would only make the cayotes (the people smugglers) more creative and and make them ask for more monies for their service.

Amnesty by another name is still amnesty. I think we need to send a clear message to anyone thinking of entering America illegally. Right now, the message we’re sending is “If you show up in large numbers, we’ll have no choice but to let you stay and we’ll put you on the path to citizenship.” I’m not suggesting we deport 12 million people. However, putting these people on the path to citizenship not only rewards illegal behavior, but also encourages further illegal immigration. People love to say the illegal immigration problem is complex. That’s a convenient way of not having to really address the problem. But the root cause is a very simple one. Too many American employers are hiring illegal immigrants while the government looks the other way. Crack down on employers who hire illegals and you stop illegal immigration. You also make it harder for the illegals who are already here. Over time, they’ll leave when it becomes clear that their are no jobs in America for them.

There has been a law and when anyone is hired you must prove who you are and are you a citizen. Hiring illegals is off limits. There are fines, etc. Enforcement will stop the flow. Now who is a friend, defends and gives to businesses? King George. Does anyone believe King George will enforce this?

6,000 troops for a 2,000 mile stretch of border, running from California, through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, that’s three National Guardsmen for every mile!  To pull off this stunt, Bush is diverting the funds to train the Guardsmen to the states to pay for the border patrols.  So we are diverting the money dedicated to
National Guard training, and then shipping off these weekend warriors to Iraq, after their border stints—without even a modicum of training.  How sick is that?

There are many otherwise very important crises going on in the world, so it is a big mistake to focus on any one of them as a singularity, because the whole system is disintegrating.  That is a breathtaking dynamic.  Perhaps Sheer could attempt a look at this systemic global collapse; if a series of reports could be arranged for his column his readers could get a look at the big picture.

Please TLB - don’t you know that if America is unwilling to allow half of Mexico to enter our country then we are nothing but a bunch of white bigots.  You only imagined that there was such a thing as nations and borders.

We should send the message around the globe that everyone is welcome here. 

They could load themselves on containers and enter our ports.  They may pour across our border with Canada as well as Mexico.

Perhaps you never heard the news but borders have been done away with entirely as long as you are entering the United States of America.  They exist only if one is going back across borders into everyone else’s countries.

Have you not noticed how Christians and white people are second class citizens in our own country?  Do you not see the attacks upon our traditions, religion, culture and history that happen everyday on the internet at places like Truth Dig?

Have we not been invaded and our history and culture destroyed as surely as Iraq’s.  Never trust a liberal any more than you would trust a neo-con.  They are flip sides of the same coin and they both worm their way into our government and represent the needs of everyone but us.

Bush knows that he’s got a plethera of detention facilities in his nation’s back pocket to help keep this immigrant problem controled.  He says what people want to hear while building more detention centers across the nation.  Ironically the U.S. has contributed to keeping Mexico impoverished and now we complain when citizens there come up here to feed their families.  Mothers and fathers will always do what is necessary to feed their children, will YOU not?  Yes you will.  If a Marshall Plan was offered to Mexico zero Mexicans would choose to leave their beautiful homeland.  The U.S. Corps of Engineers has for years had a water plan on file for that area in conjunction with the water supply plan for Arizona and other arid places near Mexico.  We either do the right thing for every mother’s child or we give them weapons and tell them to shoot each other.

Don’t be afraid to love and read Pope Benedict’s first encyclical @ http://www.vatican.va

...Specto Nullus Mallum, Audite Nullus Mallum, Loquor Nullus Mallum

I automatically reject Bush’s proposals because I’m actually familiar with them.

Bush’s “de facto amnesty” will be seen as a complete amnesty and capitulation around the world. Millions upon millions more illegal aliens will try to enter the U.S. in order to take part in Bush’s amnesty or in future amnesties.

And, they’ll know that all they need to do is march in the streets and the government will surrender to their demands.

The GAO says that the USCIS - the agency which would administer the “guest” worker and amnesty programs - won’t have a fraud management system in place until 2010.

So, hundreds of thousands of people who have not in fact been here before the amnesty cut-off date will try to take advantage of the overburdened USCIS. Word about that will get around too.

Bush offered - and Scheer repeats - a false choice. An alternative to amnesty or mass deportations is to simply enforce our laws.

Why didn’t Bush mention that? By simply enforcing our laws across the board, we’ll encourage large numbers of illegal aliens to leave and we’ll discourage millions from coming here.