How many of those 19 men came across the mexican border? I believe most of them come through Canada or new York. Republicans like to pin this immigration crap on national security, but the Mexican border is not the reason 9/11 occurred. You pointed out yourself, that 9/11 occurred because of incompetence in assuring legal visas and being too liberal with visas. Deal with the incompetence and you will have a safer country.
I could give a shit if someone comes from a country of concern. Half the poeple I work with in the hospital on a daily basis are from a country of concern...I want to know if the people are people of concern.
The answer to the illegal Mexican immigration, which is what everyone in DC is really concerned about, not national security, is fairly simple. You don't need walls and you don't need more national guard. You need to put it to the businessmen and corporations that hire illegals. If you stick them with huge fines and potential jail time if they cannot prove their employees are legal, they will be less likely to hire them. If there aren't jobs, the Mexicans aren't interested in coming over here to get money to send back to their families and Fox would quit encouraging it. Once that happened, then the border patrol could focus on keeping the drug runners and real people of concern that are threatening our security out.
The problem is I don't believe they really care about National security and keeping terrorists out. They only care about being able to spout off on the news about the terrible problem of illegal immigration.
I agree that the Mexican border is a problem, but lets not pretend that securing the Mexican border is going to make us any more secure that not letting my wife sit in the terminal with me when I am flying out somewhere if she doesn't have a ticket. That is just targeting the wrong people.
Oh, I absolutely agree that arresting, fining, and shutting down the businesses that HIRE illegals is part of the solution. However, I disagree that securing the Mexican border won't make us any more secure. While I'll admit that none of the 19 terrorists from 9/11 came across the Mexican border, they didn't come from Canada either. They came here from a broken immigration system that should have kept them out. I never said that had we secured the Mexican border that we would have prevented 9/11, and neither did I imply it.
However, securing it now, prevents a future 9/11. In addition, it prevents the various gang members from MS-13 and other folks bent on illegal activities from coming across the border and causing havoc and chaos.
Controlling immigration IS controlling national security. If you don't know who gets into your country, you don't know what can possibly happen.
Until it does.
My point is that you don't need a 700 mile fence and more forces to control illegal immigration and that 99% of the people coming across the border illegally are not a threat to national security.
If you set up a system that eliminates the number cause of illegal immigration, which is the surplus of employers willing to hire them, we could concentrate on the drug runners, arms runners, and potential terrorists. If there were no jobs here, the mexican immigrants wouldn't be trying so hard to get across the border.
If we didn't so mnay Mexicans trying to come across the border, we could focus oru energy on preventing the drug and gun runners and potential terrorists. We could also try to right the incompetence at the borders that let the 9/11 terrorist in with improper paperwork.
People can cry national security all they want, but a fence isn't going to change that. The terrorists that are coming across are coming across through customs with improper paperwork, not in the back of a truck or underground with dozens future berry pickers, housekeepers, and maintenance workers. The people that are out there crying about stopping terrorists with a fence are really worried about Mexicans, but know that crying national security is much less likely to be looked at as racism.
Use some common sense on this one. It is supply and demand. If there is demand for cheap labor, meaning companies are afraid to hire illegals because they fear the consequences, then the supply will dry up, meaning mexicans won't come across if they can't find work. If eliminate the issue of illegal mexican immigrants, which is what everyone in this country is really worried about, but too scared to admit, we can focus on prventing the terrorist from coming in with improper paperwork and stopping the drug and gun runners.
I agree with about half of your argument. However, you completely ignore two different groups of illegals who damage our economic security much worse than the berrypickers do.
Those who come here to compete with American companies performing services for half the cost, and those who come here to live off the social safety net in America.
The first aren't migrant farm workers. These are cement workers, roofers, lawn maintenance people, etc, who are freelancing, working for individuals and pushing small businesses in border states out of business. How does a small business compete with a business owned and staffed by illegal aliens? No taxes, no insurance, no problem.
And the second group are those that come here and get pregnant, or worse, come here already pregnant. The child is born here and thus automatically a citizen. Once that happens, the parents can petition for residency, since their child is a citizen here. While they are at that point legally here, our medical facilities have now donated their time and efforts to take care of this person who is not in our country legally.
Bottom line, it's not all about the various companies coming here to hire illegals. No one is saying a fence is going to stop terrorists. At least, no one with any sense. But what we all are saying is that we need an immigration policy and enforcement that makes sense. When you ALLOW 10 million people to live illegally in the country, even if one half of one percent of them are people who would want to cause the country harm, that would be 50,000 people.
I'm a gambler, but I don't like those odds, not one bit.
I am not ignoring the laborers. I mentioned housekeepers and maintenance workers. Like I said, we have to go after the employers, or private individuals that are hiring them for cash. If we eliminate the money by hitting the people that are providing it, we will drastically reduce the numbers coming across the border.
As for the pregnant women, a fence isn't the answer to that either. The answer to that is to ammend the law. A child born here illegally has not right to citizenship as far as I am concerned. I think am also 100% in favor of ammending the EMTALA laws that require hospitals to treat anyone that shows up at their doors. As far as I am concerned, you should have to prove citizenship, or legal status before getting the protection of free emergency medical care in this country.
I just don't see a fence or more guards as an answer. If there is a reason to come here, employment, they will figure out a way across the border. If we can eliminate the supply of jobs, the numbers of mexican immigrants would decrease drastically and we could focus our efforts on the real threats.
Trying to keep the illegals out with a fence is similar to the failed drug war. Like we are going to stop drug use by putting all the small time personal users in jail. How many millions of people do we have crowding the jails and letting rapists and murderers out early and how many billions have we wasted trying to fight drugs? We are goign to do the same thing immigration if we cat like a fence is the solution to all of our problems.
I wish that the President would get these illegal immigrants out of our country before we have no jobs here.
He should reinforce the laws so that no more illegal immigrants would step on our land. The MExicans have no bussiness being the the U.S. without the legal citizenship! You didn't see one goddamn Mexican beaten, hung or put in jail for no reason. The Blacks were the ones beaten, hung or put in jail for no reason, and they have legal citizenship! You know, the Mexicans are taking the jobs away from the Americans like lawn maiteneance, roofers, house cleaning, etc. Here is something else. There are some Mexicans stealing our SSN numbers. THAT'S FRUAD. DAMMIT!!!!!!! THAT'S FUCKING FRUAD!!!!!!!!!! President says he's going to strenghten the borders, but I don't belive him. He's such a liar!
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