Do you ever wonder how we can conquer the Middle East but can’t close our own borders?
In the news just this past week was this small sampling of headlines: “Locals, Feds Prepare for Any Escalation of Mexican Border Violence”; “(New Mexico) delegation asks for border task force”; “Texas lawmakers angered by border security money being spent in other regions”; “U.S. Sues Railroad Over Smugglers”; “Border drain open for hours before 8 entered it.”
More than 7,000 lives have been lost in Mexico’s drug wars in just the past 14 months. Nine in 10 guns recovered from those crime scenes have come from the United States. Border towns are experiencing outrageous escalations in crime, including more than 300 drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix alone in 2008. (Most involved Mexican immigrants with ties to drug cartels.)
Isn’t it time we finally built a wall that works? Isn’t it time for us to quit restricting our border agents by granting illegals more rights than our citizens? Isn’t it time we post military personnel at particularly hot illegal crossings?
Instead of shifting tens of millions of dollars from investigating employers guilty of hiring illegal immigrants to fighting Mexican drug cartels, the Obama administration should leave that money alone and hunt down the $100 million-plus that AIG executives robbed from taxpayers for their bonuses.
We don’t need a government study on Mexican border safety conducted by newly installed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. We need action now!
Congress authorized a border fence in 2005. That was four long years ago, for anyone bad at basic math. It approved $2.6 billion for border enhancement, but we still have illegals and contraband crossing our borders like gnats through a screen.
I opposed the amnesty bill introduced in the Senate in 2007. But I supported Congress’ roughly $3 billion directed to building up border security — money used to train and deploy 23,000 more agents, build 700 miles of fence and 300 miles of vehicle barriers, add four drone airplanes, and erect 105 radar and camera towers.
Homeland Security has made some headway in securing our borders. But our nation’s boundaries, ports and airports remain largely open runways for illegal and terrorist transport. Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico reminded his constituents of that very fact when he described another type of illegal crossing: people going from the United States to Mexico. It appears drug cartels are again using revenue derived from their “free trade” to purchase weapons illegally in the United States and smuggle them back into Mexico. As a result, murder rates have shot up more than 100 percent in certain towns.
One of the aspects of illegal immigration often overlooked is the effect it has on the 30,000 street gangs, which have up to 1 million members, in the United States. The gang considered the most dangerous is the MS-13, which has ties to the Mexican Mafia. It is estimated at 10,000 members, many of whom are illegals. Seven hundred MS-13 members were arrested by law enforcement in 2005. According to The Washington Times, MS-13 is believed to have a major smuggling operation that transports drugs, firearms and people. What’s even more alarming is that in 2005, the Honduran security minister and the president of El Salvador warned that MS-13 was in talks with al-Qaida to transport terrorists into our country! With MS-13 currently in 44 states, we must secure the borders now. (Seventy percent of the kids in our martial arts public school program, KICKSTART (http://www.kick-start.org), are Latinos, and gangs constantly are trying to recruit them. But we will not allow anyone to participate in the program if he is a part of any gang. KICKSTART has provided young people with an alternative to and a safe haven from gangs, and that is one more reason I believe the KICKSTART program should be in every state across the nation.
Exacerbating the border crisis is the fact that there continues to be a shortage of Border Patrol agents and other government security officials. The Homeland Security Department still is trying to fill the 138 vacancies in high-level jobs it had in 2007 — an employment crisis that it calls “a critical homeland security issue that demands immediate attention.” And that crisis will continue until we increase the pay and benefits for border agents. I believe this so strongly that I have done public service announcements encouraging their enlisting.
I was reminded of their need for a salary increase when I was on the campaign trail with Mike Huckabee. We stopped in Laredo, Texas, and met with the Border Patrol. They gave us a tour of the area and explained to us what their operations were there. One of the Border Patrol agents and I struck up a conversation. As we were talking, I asked him whether his pay as a Border Patrol agent is adequate. He said that in certain states he gets by, but while stationed in California, he had to split rent with two other agents in order to afford the cost of living. I didn’t ask how much his salary was, but I always have felt that law enforcement officials from every branch are underpaid for the responsibility they have in protecting us. If we expect to attract and maintain quality personnel, then state and federal governments need to work together to make being a border agent more financially appealing.
Now more than ever, we must protect our borders and sovereignty. So far, our government has failed to produce suitable solutions to securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration. Amnesty is not the answer. And immigration laws aren’t effective if we continue to allow them to be dodged or ignored. Furthermore, globalization efforts have only confused security matters, further endangering our borders, as well as our national identity — our sovereignty.
And the question that keeps coming back to my mind is this: How is it that we can militarily overthrow a tyrant, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, yet we can’t keep illegals from crossing our borders? As Mike Huckabee says, “If the government can’t track illegals, then let’s outsource the job to UPS or FedEx.” It’s true. If they can track lost packages anywhere in the world within minutes, they certainly can track down and keep track of illegals.
Filed under: Immigration
President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of ALL illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work.
Harry Truman deported over two million Illegal’s after WWII to create jobs for returning veterans.
And then again in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 13 million Mexican nationals! The program was called ‘Operation Wetback’ so that American WWII and Korean veterans had a better
chance at jobs. It took 2 Years, but they deported them!
Now, if they could deport the illegal’s back then, they can sure do it today!! If you have doubts about the veracity of this information, enter Operation Wetback into your favorite search engine and confirm it for yourself.
**Reminder: Don’t forget to pay your taxes … 12 million Illegal Aliens will be needing welfare.
The U.S. is being infiltrated by illegals, sold to foreign powers, and abandoned by its government. But are Americans enabling the dissolution of our economy and country as well by continuing to buy foreign goods?
America literally is being sold out from underneath Americans. According to the 2008 Economic Report of the President: “The United States is both the single leading recipient and leading source of foreign direct investment in the world. In 2006, total cumulative FDI in the United States was almost $1.8 trillion, 15 percent of the world total.” In 2006, foreign-owned assets in the U.S. totaled roughly $16 trillion.
And where does all that foreign investment go?
As Paul Craig Roberts, who once was the assistant secretary of treasury under President Ronald Reagan and associate editor of The Wall Street Journal, wrote seven years ago: “Very little of the foreign money flowing into the United States is for the purpose of building Toyota and BMW plants. Eighty percent to 85 percent of direct investment by foreigners in the U.S. economy goes into mergers and acquisitions. In 2000, 97 percent of direct investment by foreigners went for the purchase of existing U.S. assets.” And those assets include U.S. government securities and liabilities, including our national debt, which is mounting into the teens of trillions.
We all know China serves as an example of this vicious cycle. American companies, from agribusinesses to Wal-Mart, have proliferated markets with so many “Made in China” labels that our nation has one big tag dangling from the toe of Florida — “Sold to China.” And do the Chinese mind their material and monetary dominance over America? Of course not. In turn, they take the money that we pay them for their goods and invest (lend) it back to us via our government as one of the groups of “foreign investors” in our national debt. And why? Lately, the reason has been so Congress can bail out more American industries and deepen our bondage (and ownership) to countries such as China.
In the same 2002 column, Roberts eerily predicted: “The United States is on its way to becoming a country whose corporations are foreign-owned and foreign-based. The United States will decline as a consumer market, as there will be no high-productivity jobs to support consumer demand. The United States is importing a new population that will help it on its way to Third World-ism. Every year, millions of poor and uneducated immigrants, both legal and illegal, pour into the United States from alien lands. … Today, 20 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born or children of foreign born. This massive influx drives up the demand for income-support programs, while driving down the taxable wages in retail- and service-sector jobs, where Americans are forced to seek employment as higher-paying automotive, electronic, textile and manufacturing jobs leave the country. The United States is still a superpower, but it is a country with very little, if any, control over its future and its destiny, a country whose time is running out.”
It’s time to realize that we’re all together in this boat called America, that the boat is sinking, and that government is not our salvation. Our hope is not in Congress or even a political-messianic deliverance through the presidency. The only economic stimulus plan they should be preparing is the one that rewards manufacturers and consumers who promote and purchase American-made products and services. Our government doesn’t need to dole out more bailouts and drown us deeper in debt. We don’t need more bad trade agreements, such as NAFTA, or to provide tax relief incentives for corporations that are outsourcing. We need fair trade, not free trade. And we need a fair tax, not a flowering system of taxes.
Let’s be honest. Justifications abound for purchasing foreign goods, and many of them make perfect sense. Reasons range from price to quality, but, as we have with gas prices, maybe we will continue to enable foreign dominance in commerce and beyond by paying the prices and not coming up with alternatives. We say we can’t afford to buy American, but maybe it’s time to say we can’t afford not to. By supporting our homeland, we not only are investing in America and boosting the economy but also are helping to reverse staggering unemployment rates and keeping companies from going under. We all can do our part to bail the water out of our sinking ship by buying American goods and services.
But be careful with labels, as there’s an obvious difference between “Made in USA” and “Assembled in USA.” And some labels lie, so do your homework. Take some time to understand what it means for a business to comply with the “Made in USA” standards (www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/adv/bus03.shtm). And check reputable consumer Web sites, such as MadeInUSAForever.com and StillMadeInUSA.com, to search for domestically manufactured goods and services.
The good news is that, according to a Gallup Poll, 72 percent of Americans today are more concerned with the geographical origins of products they purchase, and 50 percent even are willing to pay more for American-made products. For many, “Made in USA” labels represent an increased concern for work and environmental conditions, quality and consumer safety. Buying American is also a way to rekindle patriotism.
If you’re old enough, you’ll remember when “Made in USA” was a badge of honor. Well, I’m proposing a buyers’ revolution in which we all economically win that medal of valor. If the government isn’t going to help us by securing our borders, reducing outsourcing, or ceasing debt caused by bogus bailouts and out-of-control spending, then we the people have got to take back the financial future of our country. The buck stops here — in America. One resolution we all should make in 2009: Buy “Made in USA.” Don’t just go green; spend green — in homemade products and services. If just half the country followed suit, our downturned economy would turn around in half the time.
