President George W. Bush will address the nation on Monday night to make the case for a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration law. As I see it, this will be his one chance to seriously address the crisis and give Republicans the advantage going into the mid term elections. To do that he must side with the majority of American people. He must also oppose a minority of Latin Americans who believe in amnesty for illegal aliens. Some in the Beltway believe he will sacrifice the Latino vote if he denies the millions of undocumented immigrants instant citizenship status. I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, a majority of legal immigrants in this country are opposed to the amnesty offer. They’ll surely stay with the president if he were to support existing laws.
On Monday night I’ll be looking for the president to announce an increase in border patrol enforcement, be it agents or the National Guard. He should announce unequivocal support for existing immigration law and security enforcement. He can give support to a future guest worker program, but he must require that the existing messy immigration system be cleaned up first. As such, he should announce that the army corp of engineers will immediately begin constructing a wall on the border to keep more illegals from entering the country.
If Bush does this a majority of Americans will be with him, his poll numbers will go up, the GOP will have a message for the mid terms and we’ll have a better chance of keeping our majority. It will be a pivotal moment in the Bush presidency and could shape the election outcome in 2008.
Mr. President, we’ll be watching.
Bush’s Monday speech is going to need to be stoutly in favor of stemming the flow of illegals & not offer amnesty to illgeal aliens under any guise to retain anything of my support.
Although I twice voted for him as President, given his failure to stem illegal immigration, if I had the opportunity to do so, I’d retract those votes, regardless I despise both Gore & Kerry.
And should the Democrats capture the House in November I’ll probably support the impeachment of Bush–on nearly any grounds whatsoever, so angry am I about his failures on the immigration situation.
This whole National Guard proposal that is being kicked around sounds like a big smokescreen.
A few things to consider:
1) A Need for a Barrier
We need a permanent solution to the illegal immigration problem. Like a wall (a real wall, not the frickin’ “virtual wall” I’ve heard kicked around, either).
Using the National Guard doesn’t provide a solution of this nature. The presence of the National Guard, will only lead to more arrests. Currently, a great number of those arrested are simply released into the US anyway and told to appear in court. Which, of course, they don’t.
Furthermore, the use of troops is completely dependant on whatever political leadership is in office at the time. This needs to be treated as a law enforcement problem, not a political football.
A real barrier is the only ‘concrete’ solution. National Guard troops could be used to supplement any efforts of this nature, but soldiers are not a solution in and of themselves.
2) A Guest Worker Program
A guest worker program, without drastically enhanced internal enforcement, is simply a way of allowing future illegal immigrants to circumvent border patrol agents altogether.
3) Amnesty
Any amnesty granted to this batch of illegal immigrants will lead to a) fraud and abuse, just as it did with the 1986 amnesty. There will be immigrants who will sneak in after the fact and claim they have been in our country all along; b) a huge increase in the immigrant population as relatives of amnestied illegals line up to get into the country; c) more illegal immigration from those who will see this amnesty as one more sign of the impotence of our laws and the meaninglessness of our borders.
So, when Bush gets on air and interrupts Jack Bauer to blow smoke in our faces, I hope none of us will be fooled. We deserve more than this crap, we need to continue to demand it.
Bush has been the last 16 months the Howard Dean of the Republicans. The MSM/DNC has used his lies a weapons to bludgeon the GOP in general with for the last 16 months. The worst of all was his shameless and egregious lie that his amnesty program was not an amnesty program. The MSD/DNC had this as their lead item for 5 weeks from late Mar to end of Apr. They did this not because they love the GOP or Bush but to show all what a liar the GOP has as a leader. It is no hapenstance that Bush’s approval rating fell from 36% in Mar to 27 or 28% 5/13/06. The MSM/DNC has used Bush’s own words to beat him and Republicans to bloody pulps. The RNC needs to tie him up and put him in the basement until 11/10/06.
It seems that Bush has set out to purify the GOP by driving all the Reagan men out. He seems to be succeeding. The amnsesty plan he and the other liberal Republicans in the Senate have fabricated is the final straw for Ronnie’s men. GOP is probably better off without those redneck conservatives!
He has for sure played into the hands of the DNC/MSM with his Reagan hate. They used his big lie on amnesty for six weeks not five. If Republicans have a death wish W is the killer. His Hillary Care light will cost us $trillions the next few years. Who needs Hillary when Bush will give us Hillary care?
Np. It was five. One week in Mar and 4 weeks in Apr that they ran Bush’s lie as the lead item on their news. Go back and check. Started last week in Mar ended 5/1/06. Five weeks of Bush’s lie amnesty is not amnesty!