More on the Very Sore Subjects of Illegal Immigration and Immigration ”Reform”

More on the Very Sore Subjects of Illegal Immigration and Immigration ”Reform”

As much as President Bush is – despite, in my view, exceedingly poor advice from SECDEF Rumsfeld since the invasion – on the side of the angels regarding his determination to stand up to the terrorists, he is – quite paradoxically – a truly diabolical figure in the controversy surrounding the running domestic sore of illegal immigration and the need for border control and immigration reform.

First, there is the matter of the Bush Family’s close ties to leading (and exceedingly corrupt) Mexican figures, both past and present.  

Second, there is the unpleasant fact of Bush’s blatant and arrogant disregard for our country’s broken borders – not only during his entire Presidency (that is, until he – cough, cough – suddenly woke up to the issue a few weeks ago), but also during his tenure as Governor of Texas.  

Third, there is the ugly truth that employers love to hire illegals (because they will work for less and do not require health insurance) and President Bush owes a LOT of political favors to such employers for all their financial backing during his two hard-fought Presidential campaigns.  

Fourth, there is the appalling fact that Bush has done nothing to support – and much to hurt – the Minutemen, a grassroots organization dedicated to helping protect our borders until the Federal Government wakes up from its Rip Van Winkle snooze-time on the border.  (In fact, it is the Minutemen who have forced the President to begin mouthing things that he truly does not believe in his heart regarding the need to tighten border security.

In fact, when it has come to border security, Bush has been so derelict – derelict to the point that – that, were there not a war ongoing and were the majority party not in bed with Bush on this issue and were the opposing party in Congress not dedicated to weakening America, he would be ripe for impeachment proceedings.

Well, the only thing the Bush truly seems to believe on the matter of our broken borders and immigration reform is that – and he has made this asinine statement repeatedly – “family values don’t stop at the border,” as if “family values” trump the American Constitution and state and federal laws.

To translate: President Bush thinks that it is just peachy that we have upwards of some eleven million illegal immigrants living in this country – with the number increasing daily.  In fact, he wants to begin extending them amnesty, but using other terminology to do so in order to gain “deniability” (I am not in favor of “amnesty,” just in favor of legalizing the illegals, get it?)

However, the President faces one major problem, while the Washington leadership of both major parties is either blind to the problem of illegal immigration – or sees selfish advantages in leaving it unaddressed – the average man on the street is fed up with the problem.  So fed up are Americans with illegal immigration that it has become the number one domestic issue in this country for a significant number (if not a majority) of Americans.

The Congressional “voice in the wilderness” on the issue of illegal immigration over the past six year or so has been Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), whom Karl Rove has long-ago banned from the White House.  

I heard Tancredo a couple weeks back on a local talk radio show, the Carl Wiglsworth show, and he indicated that, whereas five-or-so years ago, most of his Congressional colleagues were oblivious to the issue of illegal immigration, it is now THE topic in conversations among members of Congress whenever they return to Washington from trips to their home districts.  Thus, Tom Tancredo – Hugh Hewitt to the contrary notwithstanding – has had a huge impact in Washington over the past five years, although he has largely flown under the media radar while so doing.

All this leads me to highlight two articles for your reading pleasure.  First, Pat Buchanan, takes President Bush to task for his “amnesty-under-another-name” approach to legalizing millions of lawbreakers.  (Illegal implies some law/s have either been broken or circumvented.)

Second, John Fund does an excellent analysis of the showing of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, in the recent special Congressional election held in Orange County, California.  Gilchrist lost.  In fact he came in third behind the Republican winner and the Democrat runner-up.  

However, as Fund points out – and do not miss this critical point – Gilchrist, running as a candidate for the unknown American Independence Party and on the strength of an amateurish campaign – garnered fully 25% of the vote while running as a “single-issue” candidate.  Do the math: If a party can get 25% of the vote (or even 10% of the vote) in the average Congressional election, that means it can be a deal-breaker.  This means that those members of Congress running for re-election in 2006 had better not tick off people on the illegal immigration issue – and they know it!

The bottom line is: The illegal immigrants broke the law to enter this country the way they did.  To grant them amnesty not only undermines the rule of law (how about amnesty for all first-time drug offenders?), it also sends the wrong message to the rest of the world:  America is easy; America will not even enforce its own borders; ally-ally-else-in-free.

President Bush, you are WRONG on amnesty.  And so is Senator McPain and Senator Kennedy and the MSM and all the others who want to cave on this issue.