AT LAST! I am another one of those persons who has been wondering for many years and occasionally asking why we allowed an open border, more or less, to the south. Since the first bombing of the Trade Towers in New York and the incident in which a man was caught bringing in explosives into Washington State. He, it was thought at the time, had plans to bomb the "Space Needle" in Seattle. He was was caught at the border by a more-or-less routine customs check. Had he tried to come into the country from Mexico, he may well have made it.
Millions of such "illegals" do so each year; some again and again. If apprehended , entire bus loads of the "immigrants" are shipped back to Mexico. Many simply take a week's forced vacation with the relatives; then, re-cross the border to their same boarding house rooms and job which have been kept open expecting their return.
This situation, to me, has been a major weakness in our National defense plans and it has made our Home and security a joke. I have not understood how it was ever thought it could be ignored. Had the nation along our southern border between a strong one, and an ally, a relaxed guard might be possible, but not in the present-day Mexico. President Vicente Fox, the present head of the government, is a friend and would curb the illegal flow of his people northward if he could do so. How so many Americans expect him to prevent alien infiltration of his country and ours is beyond my comprehension.
Our National Guard is stressed in many ways. It will continue to be so until such time as our leaders get enough nerve to set up an efficient draft system to provide more troops. The deployment of National Guard troops to the Mexican border, must be a temporary thing and they must be limited to policing duties, construction of roads and work stations etc. rather than rushed in to "gun' em down with assault weaponry" as TV news clips are showing them doing. Theirs is a strange role in strange moment of our history. Their presence is more valuable, perhaps, than their power as he enlarge the Immigration Regulations forces already deployed along the border but not to replace them.
President Bush's action was a first step. Further innovative steps are essential to solve the Immigration problems. Putting some real teeth in existing. No more blanket amnesty for employers who go along as if things are legal when they know full well the individual is here without authorization. They know his Social Security papers are faked, his health and criminal records glossed over, yet they hire him at a low wage anyway to make some business gains. He is not even chided for such dishonesty and duplicity. Let's clean up our own act - then worry about what needs to be done to help immigrants "come over" in a proper manner.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net May 17, 2006 [c509wds]
