Wall Will Protect U.S. And Mexico

Wall Will Protect U.S. And Mexico

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President Bush is determined to stay the course in Iraq, but he is willing to change course on U.S. border security.

Sometimes flexibility is both rewarded and required.

The president has long been reluctant to address border security. That reluctance has been found in both parties. Republicans like the idea of cheap labor coming in. Democrats savor the prospect of more Democrats coming in. The bipartisan elite has been bewitched by the idea that America is an "open" nation where anyone can become a good American simply by coming here - legally or illegally.

The working and middle classes have been left out of this lofty view. Illegal immigration tears at the social contract, which is based on the idea that all Americans are legal participants in the civic life of the nation.

It is impossible, for example, to eliminate poverty in America if new poor people keep coming in from elsewhere.

Sept. 11 changed the naive view that all foreigners are automatically positive additions to the commonweal. But even after border control and homeland security became an obvious matter of life and death, Washington was little interested in safeguarding the frontier against unknown intruders.

It was left to activist groups, including the Minutemen in Arizona, to call attention to everyday acts of trespassing and property damage along the U.S.-Mexican border, as well as to the larger threat to American identity.

Eventually, Republicans in Congress, and Bush himself, have gotten the message, sort of. Earlier this week, the president was talking about a wall - part physical, part "virtual" - across the southern border.

But Bush still clings to a "guest worker" provision, which puts a huge hole in that new wall. Why? Perhaps "W" is trying to court Hispanic voters, perhaps he is appealing to business, perhaps he is simply stubborn.

The political current is running against him.

On Tuesday, reacting to Bush's proposal, Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado, the political spearhead of the grass-roots rebellion against open borders, likened the White House plan to "putting lipstick on a pig."

Bush's proposal would be "amnesty," a human spigot, Tancredo snapped.

Twisting the rhetorical knife, Tancredo accused his fellow Republican of being "Clintonesque" on immigration - that being the ultimate insult in the GOP lexicon.

Here's a prediction: Tancredo will win.

A wall will get built with none of Bush's holes. It will be part physical barrier, part electronic surveillance, part get-serious law enforcement.

And it will work, because while walls might not be politically correct, they are effective. Walls keep people and property secure, they keep nations secure.

Of course, walls work both ways, protecting folks on both sides.

The United States spent much of the last century crossing the border at will, as it actively interfered in Mexican politics.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to occupy parts of Mexico, as part of his larger goal of bringing democracy to the world.

Amid other invasions, too, of Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama the 28th president declared, "I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men."

What Uncle Sam got instead was a lesson in backlash across the region. Mexico, for example, nationalized American oil assets in 1938.

Today, America has abandoned its dreams of remaking Latin America by force.

The forthcoming wall symbolizes our new realization that Mexicans should keep to their side, and we to ours.

The border barrier is coming just in the nick of time; in recent years, Mexican politicians have openly proclaimed their goal of "reuniting" their country, through immigration, with the southwestern United States.

The larger point is that no nation can survive if its identity is indistinct. No politician, not even the famously proud and stubborn George W. Bush, can survive if he gets crosswise with nationalistic and patriotic common sense.

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The wall may become a fence.

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SanAntonioExpressNews

House OKs bill to build fences along border

Web Posted: 12/17/2005 12:00 AM CST
Gary Martin
Express-News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — House Republicans overcame deep divisions Friday to approve a sweeping border security bill that would crack down on undocumented immigrants by erecting fences and setting stiff fines for employers.

"Securing our nation's borders is an imperative, and this bill does it," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Democrats were angered at several measures in the bill, including one that would make felons of 11 million people in this country without papers and subject them to criminal, not civil, laws.

"This is driven more by partisan politics than sound policy," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, a former Border Patrol section chief.

The House passed the bill on a strict party line vote, 239-182.

President Bush backed the enforcement-only bill even though the White House repeatedly has called for comprehensive immigration reform legislation and a guest-worker program.

The fate of the bill remains in doubt with the Senate expected early next year to take up its version of the legislation, which leaves out fences but includes a temporary-worker program.

"Perhaps the time will come for a limited foreign worker program," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, "but that is only after we have secured our borders and put the interests of American workers first."

Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate would take up immigration reform in February.

The House bill would allocate funds for state and local law enforcement help in securing the border and send military technology to boost surveillance.

The bill was approved only after Republicans overcame divisions on a guest-worker program favored by business groups, but opposed by conservative lawmakers.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said a guest-worker program would address the 11 million undocumented people living in this country. Without a program, "we will continue to turn a blind eye to their existence."

But GOP leaders pulled from House consideration a Flake amendment to consider a guest-worker program.

Another contentious proposal, to deny birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants also was shelved by Republicans who sought to smooth over party differences that threatened final passage.

Several Democratic amendments, meanwhile, were rejected by the full House, including a proposal by Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, which would raise fines on employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, from about $2,200 to $50,000.

The bill stiffens penalties on employers hiring undocumented workers, but not to the level that Gonzalez sought.

"This is a bad piece of legislation, so this one amendment realistically deals with the illegally hired worker," Gonzalez said. "There is no enforcement effort being made."

Smith voted against the amendment and called the $50,000 fine excessive, but he said he agreed with Gonzalez that "we need to enforce employer sanctions."

Emotional debate was sparked by other provisions in the GOP bill, which Democrats denounced as "punitive and mean-spirited."

"Republicans have proposed a bill that is an abomination of the worst kind.

It calls upon the worst political and most craven impulses," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Republicans, however, said the bill was the first legislative crackdown on undocumented immigration in 10 years. Some members in the GOP, like Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said the bill didn't go far enough.

It includes a provision that would make undocumented immigrants living in the United States subject to felony criminal, rather than civil, prosecution.

It also calls for fences to be erected in Southwest border states, including Texas, in areas known for trafficking of narcotics and illegal immigration.

In Texas, those fences would be erected in El Paso, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Laredo and Brownsville.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, called the measure ill conceived.

"I'm a big believer in border security," Cuellar said. "But to put a fence that would go from California all the way to Brownsville, Texas, is not the most efficient way to protect our border."

Two immigration bills under consideration in the Senate do not include a border fence.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has proposed using cameras, drones and other high-technology sensors instead of construction of fences along the border.

"I don't think that building a wall or a fence along the 2,000-mile border is a practical solution, but it's clear that we have to dedicate more resources and federal agents there," Cornyn said.

Another measure in the House bill would require 7 million employers to forward Social Security numbers and personal information on employers to a national registry to validate citizenship and residency status.

That provision was opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Republican constituency, which urged GOP lawmakers to vote against the bill.

Immigrant rights groups lobbied lawmakers, and the White House, as well.

The National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights organization, called the legislation "the most harmful immigration bill in years" and urged lawmakers to vote against it.

In a letter to Bush, NCLR and four other Hispanic-rights groups said Latinos were "shocked and saddened" by White House support of the House bill in light of recent efforts by the GOP administration to reach out to minority voters.

Opposition to the bill also came from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Conference of State Legislatures for a measure that would call on state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws.

William Pound, the NCSL's executive director, said the bill "creates unfounded federal mandates on states, compromises state law enforcement activity and ignores state costs for incarcerating and detaining criminal aliens."

Republicans found support from groups that advocate tighter controls on legal and illegal immigration.

"House Republicans have largely ignored the affluent business lobby's screams of protest and have done the right thing by fighting for an enforcement bill," said Roy Beck with NumbersUSA.

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We already have fences. They had better mean WALL! What good does it do to pass a bill to build what we already have there? Dumb .govs, they should all be voted out of office.

At least the rest of the bill has some teeth to it. Even if its only a token amount. We really need to crack down on all this border crap.

Brian