The Amnesty Bandwagon Rides Again

[Jeanfromfillmore]

The Amnesty Bandwagon Rides Again
The public relations campaign for President Obama's latest revival of "immigration reform" makes one thing crystal clear: This is not, and never has been, about homeland security. This is not, and never has been, about economic security. It's about political security, plain and cynical.
In conjunction with Tuesday's renewed White House push in Texas for a "new pathway to citizenship" for millions of illegal immigrants, disgruntled Latino activists are ratcheting up their radical anti-enforcement rhetoric. Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez -- a persistent critic on Obama's left flank -- lambasted federal workplace enforcement raids this weekend. On Sunday, he repeated his hyperbolic attacks on homeland security agents "terrorizing" neighborhoods and ripping babies from the breasts of nursing moms. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made no public effort to defend her employees.
On campuses across the country, unhappy ethnic college student groups have turned up the heat on Democrats to resurrect the "DREAM Act" nightmare for the 12th time in a decade. The legislation -- persistently rejected by a bipartisan majority on Capitol Hill -- would provide illegal aliens (not just teenagers, but students up to age 35) federal education access and benefits, plus a conditional pass from deportation and a special path toward green cards and U.S. citizenship for themselves and unlimited relatives.
Obama argues that his comprehensive amnesty plan would boost America's bottom line. But the open-borders math doesn't add up. The Congressional Budget Office score of the last DREAM Act package estimates that "the bill would increase projected deficits by more than $5 billion in at least one of the four consecutive 10-year periods starting in 2021." And that doesn't include the costs of the unlimited family members the millions of DREAM Act beneficiaries would be able to bring to the U.S. A separate cost analysis by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies concluded that the illegal alien DREAM Act bailout would cost taxpayers $6.2 billion a year and "crowd out" U.S. students in the classroom.
To help gloss over those sobering realities and blur the lines between legal and illegal immigration, Obama summoned Latino celebrities such as actresses Eva Longoria and Rosario Dawson. The starlets -- deemed important "stakeholders" in the immigration policy debate by the celebrity in chief -- have served as glamorous distractions from the vocal complaints of Southwest governors, ranchers, farmers and other victims of continued border chaos. These are the real stakeholders whose lives and livelihoods are at risk. But none had a seat at the Hollywood-filled table.
While proudly emphasizing her ethnic loyalties, Dawson (an outspoken critic of Arizona's immigration enforcement law) insists immigration reform "isn't just a Mexican" or Latino issue. But for more candid liberal strategists, the illegal alien amnesty bandwagon is nothing more than a tool to motivate current and future Latinos to protect the Democrats' grip on power. Eliseo Medina, secretary treasurer of Obama's deep-pocketed backers at the Service Employees International Union, laid out the stakes in an interview with MSNBC:
"Clearly with immigration reform and any other kind of reform that would benefit the Latino community, we have to make sure that our voices are heard in the ballot box. There are approximately 23 million Latinos that are eligible to vote, yet only 10 million voted in 2008."
SEIU's goal: "If we increase the turnout from 10 million to anywhere between 12 and 15 million, we're going to have an outsized impact on the election in 2012."
If, as widely expected, Obama fails to deliver amnesty through the legislative process, there's always amnesty by executive fiat. White House insiders first floated the idea in June 2010 to unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States. This administration has accomplished its major policy agenda items through force, fiat and fraud. Immigration will be no different.
Unfortunately for the law-abiding, there is no Hollywood-Washington-Big Labor lobby to speak for them. While Obama's homeland security officials hang their "mission accomplished" banner over the border, the feds have barely made a dent in the three-year naturalization application backlog or the 400,000-deportation fugitive problem.
Meanwhile, law enforcement witnesses told a House subcommittee last month that border smuggling has grown so out of control that federal prosecutors are simply declining to pursue cases. Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Larry Dever testified about the feds' so-called "Turn Back South" policy -- which includes lowering thresholds for drug and smuggling prosecutions, and permitting border-crossers at least seven strikes before being charged with immigration misdemeanors. And just last week, the General Accounting Office reported another massive 1.6 million illegal visa overstayers backlog -- a problem exposed by five of the 19 September 11 hijackers who benefited from systemic failure to enforce visa regulations.
So much for "never forget."
http://townhall.com/columnists/miche...s_again/page/2

Where Obama's Border Lies
To President Barack Obama, securing the border is a laughing matter -- and a lying matter.
When Obama spoke in El Paso, Texas, yesterday, he claimed that (1) the federal government has now "basically" completed the border fence that security minded Republicans wanted built and (2) El Paso and other border communities are "among the safest in the nation."
"They wanted a fence. Well, the fence ... is now basically complete," said Obama.
"Maybe they'll need a moat," he added. "Maybe they want alligators in the moat."
"El Paso and other cities and towns along this border are consistently among the safest in the nation," said Obama. What are the facts?
In 2006, Congress passed -- and President George W. Bush signed -- the Secure Fence Act, sponsored by House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y.
King explained it on the House floor. "It provides over 700 miles of two-layered reinforced fencing," he said. "It also mandates that the Department of Homeland Security achieve and maintain operational control over the entire border through a virtual fence, deploying cameras, ground sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, integrated surveillance technology."
The original law left little to interpretation by the homeland security secretary. It said "'operational control' means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States."
It defined the type of fence to be built: The "secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for least 2 layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors."
So, did the secretary seek to gain operational control of the entire border? Did the secretary build over 700 miles of two-layered reinforced fencing?
The answers are: No and no.
As noted in this column last week, Richard Stana, director of homeland security issues for the Government Accountability Office, informed the Senate Homeland Security Committee in March that there are only 129 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border where the Border Patrol can prevent or stop an illegal entry from taking place at the border itself. There are another 744 miles where it can stop an illegal entry at "distances of up to 100 miles or more away from the immediate border."
That leaves at least 1,081 miles of border where Homeland Security has anything but "operational control."
In written testimony presented to the committee on May 4, 2010, Stana said Homeland Security had built 646 miles of border fence (of 652 miles it intended to build) as of April 2010. This generally was not the "2 layers of reinforced fencing" described in the Secure Border Act. Three hundred forty-seven miles was what the GAO described as "pedestrian" fencing, and 299 miles was "vehicle" fencing.
"Pedestrian fencing is designed to prevent people on foot from crossing the border and vehicle fencing consists of physical barriers meant to stop the entry of vehicles," Stana testified.
This March, Stana told the committee that Homeland Security had increased the total length of border fence to 649 miles -- an increase of 3 miles in a year.
Given that Stana also said there were only 129 miles of border where the Border Patrol could prevent or stop an illegal entry at the border, that means there must be at least 520 miles of fencing erected by Homeland Security that does not stop or prevent people from crossing the border.
How did Homeland Security get away with not building the type of double-fencing expressly mandated in the Secure Fence Act?
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, slipped language into the 614-page omnibus spending bill enacted at the end of 2007. This language essentially repealed the Secure Fence Act. It said: "Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location."
Are border cities like El Paso truly rated among the safest in the nation? President Obama did not say whose rating he was using. But they are not the safest, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
The latest annual statistical report of the Executive Office for the United States Attorneys -- which was published in 2010 and covers fiscal 2009 -- made a special point of highlighting violence on the border.
"Violence along the border of the United States and Mexico has increased dramatically during recent years," the report said. "The violence associated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations pose(s) a serious problem for law enforcement."
"Illegal immigration provides the initial foothold with which criminal elements, including organized crime syndicates, use to engage in a myriad of illicit activities ranging from immigration document fraud and migrant smuggling to human trafficking," said the report. "Federal prosecution of border crime is a critical part of our Nation's defense and federal jurisdiction over these offenses is exclusive."
As noted in this column last year, the report pointed out that when measured by the number of criminal defendants charged during fiscal 2009, the five most-crime-ridden U.S. judicial districts were all on the Mexican border. These included: Southern Texas, Western Texas, Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico.
According to Obama's Justice Department, there were more then two-and-a-half-times as many criminals (8,435) charged in federal court in Western Texas, where El Paso is, than in the combined districts of Southern New York (1,959), which includes Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Eastern New York (1,377), which includes Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.
http://townhall.com/columnists/terry...er_lies/page/2

Immigration Reform? It's a Trick
Immigration reform, huh? Well, President Obama did recently consult with Eva Longoria on this formidable policy conundrum. As goes Longoria, so goes the nation.
Then again, it certainly seems like a peculiar time to spring this divisive topic on the American people. Especially when we know full well that reform has a stimulus's chance of success.
And weren't we just talking about the $14 trillion debt? The budget you didn't pass? Thuggery against Boeing? Debt ceilings? Medicare? According to a new NBC News poll, 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy -- an all-time high. So perhaps the discussion wasn't helpful to the most vital imperative: electing Obama.
Remember that Obama promised to fight for reform legislation in his first year in office. Instead, Democrats used historic supremacy to cram through a number of legislative items that divided the nation -- but no immigration policy. Latinos are imperative to presidents when running for office, less so when in it. Now, in the middle of the most consequential fiscal debate the nation has faced in memory, the administration shifts to immigration reform? We can guess why.
Other than a superb distraction for average Americans, the debate doubtlessly ignites passion on the left. Immigration reform is also a useful cluster bomb to drop within a shaky right-center alliance cracking with libertarian-traditional-business splits on the matter. The right tends to turn on itself whenever immigration is at issue. At the Mexican border this week, Obama made sure to mention the support of Mel Martinez, Michael Chertoff, Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch. "He doesn't have an Obama sticker on his car," the president explained (speaking for others has become his routine), "but he agrees with me on this."
So what? A lot of us agree with you in principle. The timing and intent of the discussion, however, are what should make it irrelevant.
Tangentially, an immigration discussion also opens a door for the administration to, once again, tacitly accuse opponents of being racist swine. An administration official explained to ABC News, presumably without laughing, that the president was only attempting to elevate the debate. The same president who later went on to claim that Republicans may "need a moat, maybe they'll need alligators" to be satisfied on the border.
It is difficult to dispute the assertion that some Republicans may favor alligators and moats. Maybe some Democrats would, as well. According to numerous polls, Democrats favor tougher border enforcement in large numbers. But imagine if former President Bush bragged, as Obama did this week, about how he was responsible for larger levels of deportations and more boots on the ground at the border than any other administration in history?
"One way to strengthen the middle class in America is to reform the immigration system," Obama went on to claim, "so that there is no longer a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor while depressing wages for everybody else."
Does illegal immigration depress wages? Arguable. There are those of us who believe that increased immigration creates increased wealth and raises the average wages of all Americans. If you don't subscribe to that view, and most do not, how is a pathway to citizenship for millions more going to help anyone -- other than the unions Obama envisions these immigrants joining?
According to a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll, immigration policy is only a midlevel concern of voters. In another poll by Pew, 42 percent (the highest number) say the nation's priority should be to tighten border security (nothing on alligators), strictly enforce immigration laws and create a way for people here illegally to become citizens.
So there is room for some common ground. But Republicans would be nuts to engage in any good-faith effort on the matter until there is some closure on entitlement reform and spending cuts.
http://townhall.com/columnists/david...a_trick/page/2