The “wall” is the barrier the public is demanding be placed across the entire U.S.-Mexican border. Only a physical structure of substantial proportions will stop the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who now slip into the United States, unhindered, every year. The 12 to 20 million illegal aliens presently in the United States arrived in the same manner.
The public has at last spoken with the “bi-partisan” defeat of Senate Bill 1639. Republicans, 37 in number, separating themselves from President Bush, joined with 15 Democrats and one Independent in a procedural vote that killed what was essentially an amnesty bill. Many Senators reported their offices were overwhelmed by the e-mails, faxes, telegrams and phone calls from constituents who opposed it.
Some Senators blamed radio talk show hosts with encouragement to flood Congressional offices with phone calls, faxes and emails. This activity caught the attention of U.S. Senator Trent Lott, R-Miss., who suggested some sort of measures may be needed in the future to control talk radio.
Senator Lott during the original heated debate sessions repeatedly admonished fellow Senators with the comment “Are we mice or men?” On leaving the Senate Chamber on one occasion, he called to the press, “We are a bunch of rodents.”
The illegal immigration issue has been identified by the American public and many lawmakers, as well, as the most critical domestic issue in the nation.
And yet, it languishes before the American public for want of a leader strong enough to guide Congress through the minefield of vested interests that effectively are blocking a solution. Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith is desperately needed back in Washington.
“Secure the Border First” was part of the comprehensive legislation just defeated. The bill would require installation of 370 miles of border fence, about half the 700 miles of border fence that had been “mandated” the year before, but left unfunded and never built. This fence, when completed, was designed to close some 2,000 miles of open border between Mexico and the United States.
Associated Press writer Charles Babbington reports a range of comments by leaders of both Houses of Congress following the defeat of the immigration bill on Thursday, June 28.
“¢ U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a supporter of the immigration bill, discounted the U.S. border enforcement: “This idea of ‘Just do the enforcement…’ There are no votes for that.”
“¢ “The American people believe that until we’re able to secure our borders and enforce our laws, taking additional steps is really not in the best interests of the country,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after Thursday’s crucial Senate vote that derailed the bill.
“¢ There should be “a very strong sense of urgency in this country to simply carry out the law, the mandate for 854 miles (a new figure) of fence that we passed” in the 109th Congress, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told reporters Thursday. “They’ve only built 13 miles of the fence so far.”
“¢ House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., stated, “The concern that House Republicans have had for some time now is the order in which these things are accomplished. You have securing the border, being sure that workers who are here appropriately are here with ID that is verifiable, that’s reasonably hard to duplicate.”
“¢ “Americans feel that they are losing their country … to a government that has seemed to not have the competence or the ability to carry out the things that it says it will do,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
The highly regarded Economist reports: “Both the Bush Administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress misread the depth of hostility to the reform.”
“Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said that elites had simply ignored mass uneasiness with immigration. He called the debate “a war between the American people and their government.””
The Economist report said, “Mr. Bush is looking terribly lame…” (In truth, Mr. Bush’s lameness results from wearing his right shoe on his left foot too long.
The Economist report concludes: “Most important, the immigration problem remains unsolved. The border enforcement system remains overwhelmed.”
A major disconnect exists between the American people and those who were elected to provide a government to protect the health, welfare and security of its citizens.
The nation finds itself in a state of confusion.
The simple job of constructing a 2,000-mile border fence to protect U.S. citizens from an invasion of illegal aliens seems to overwhelm the once-proud nation that defeated two of the world’s most powerful enemies in World War II. In the next half century, America sent a man to the moon and returned him safely and developed the most powerful satellite communications system in the world with its accompanying Internet.
Have Americans permitted the self-interests of its elected officials and self-serving politicians to lead the nation down a blind path to self-destruction?
Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and agricultural publisher, also is a national and local award-winning columnist. He welcomes email comments at eralphhostetter@yahoo.com.
]]>Family reunification permits a newly naturalized citizen to bring members of his extended family to the host country. For each naturalization chain immigration gives us a bonus of three. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
This policy was brought to the United States through the Immigration Act of 1965, authored by Senator Edward M.(Ted) Kennedy (D-MA) and his late brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY). Senator Ted Kennedy floor- managed the bill through the United States Senate.
Coincidentally, Senator Kennedy is co-author of the present “comprehensive” immigration bill now before the > Senate. He is floor-managing the present bill as well.
Family reunification was the Pandora’s Box of the Immigration Act of 1965. Once opened, it permitted immediate relatives (that is, spouses, minor children and parents) of a newly naturalized citizen to enter the United States and qualify as Legal Permanent Residents permitted to live out their lives in America and receive its bounty of benefits. Bona fide Legal Permanent Residents after four years are permitted to bring their relatives in, thus creating an endless chain.
Both Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) reportedly are moving to broaden the present family-reunification provisions of the newly introduced “Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007.” Family reunification provisions in immigration laws of many other nations have led to chain immigration, the present nemesis of the Western World.
We have only to look to Europe, now openly referred to as Eurabia. Reports out of socially liberal Norway identify immigrant family reunification as “out of control” with its lack of assimilation into the Scandinavian nation’s population. A moratorium on immigrant family reunification policies is being called for.
In England both the Liberal and Conservative Parties are calling for reform of the policy of family reunification. The key non-Western immigrant populations in both Norway and England are Pakistani Muslims. Ethnic and religious customs of arranged cousin-marriages are inhibiting assimilation into local societies. As cousins marry cousins, there is an endless family relationship throughout the entire Muslim society.
It is reported that Muslim cousin-marriage also has facilitated a process of “reverse colonization,” in which large, culturally intact sections of Pakistani Muslim society have been effectively transferred to British soil.
Holland has been particularly hard hit. A New York Times report in February 2005 carried the headline, “More Dutch Plan to Emigrate as Muslim Influx Tips Scales.” The report noted that foreign born are 10% of the population of the Netherlands, that immigrant youths make up half the prison population, and that more than 40% of immigrants receive some form of governmental assistance. In addition, the Muslims are threatening and intimidating Dutch citizens who criticize Islam in Holland.
The anti-Dutch attitude of the Muslim community came to the surface with the assassination of Dutch film maker
Theo Van Gogh by a 26-year-old Muslim, Mohammed Bouyeri, on November 2, 2004. Van Gogh had produced a film that exposed “violence against women in Muslim societies.”
Loosely formulated immigration policies that lack adequate enforcement are creating mass confusion in America. Chain migration is making itself ever more obvious in the United States. An article in the Raleigh News & Observer reports the story of one man, Pablo Baltazar, legalized in the 1986 amnesty. Baltazar was able to bring over the entire, extended Baltazar Family by importing all nine of his siblings, followed by their spouses and children. More disturbing—and in a clear echoing of the European pattern—the article notes, “Chain migration has cleared out an entire village in Mexico. And it has turned areas of rural North Carolina into places where Spanish is the dominant language and ‘tiendas’ replace country stores.”
To place new and questionable immigration laws on the books will only complicate the present problems. America needs a breather. Start with a moratorium on all aspects of family reunification; repeal the infamous 1965Immigration Act with its provisions that favor Asian immigrants five to one over Anglo-Europeans; build a fence along the Mexican> Border—and begin constructing viable immigration programs that protect the culture of America.
As painful as it may be, we must begin a deportation of all illegal immigrants, regardless of the country of origin. This will both occupy the liberals, who will do everything possible to prevent deportation, and at the same time energize the conservatives.
There is no simple answer to our massive immigration problems. Any solution will be painful to someone. But what could be more painful than the once most-powerful nation in the world, both militarily and economically, waking up one morning and finding itself in the Third World?
—A Free Congress Foundation Commentary. E. Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and publisher, also is an award-winning columnist and Vice Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation Board of Directors. He welcomes email comments at eralphhostetter @ yahoo.com
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