George Rebane
Never accept effort for achievement.
No, we’re not going to deport 11 million illegal aliens. But we do have to solve the illegal alien problem by allowing those already here to become legal, and preventing those still there from becoming illegal. That requires that we put a cork into our border with Mexico, and knowing the population of inveterate liars and scumbags in Congress, we must ‘seal the border’ first before all those constructive amnesty provisions start kicking in for the 11 million. If we don’t do that, then we’ll be like the double dummy bailing the boat without plugging the leak. Now this is not rocket science, even the liberals understand the concept perfectly, perhaps too perfectly.
So how do we get an ‘immigration reform’ bill passed that solves the above described problem? Let’s put the politics on the back burner for a moment and just see how progress is made in Washington. Given the great flock of isheeple that dominate our landscape, the solution is easy – both sides volubly sign up for something called “border security”. And then both sides get busy selling it to their constituencies. The Repubs are saying, ‘See, we got the Dems to agree to secure the border with all kinds of high tech gizmos, lots of new fencing, and more regiments of Border Patrol boots on the ground. Once all these spiffy things are in place, the border will be harder than ever to cross illegally, and it will never have been more secure. OK? sign here, press hard, three copies.’
The Dems are saying to their people (wink-wink), ‘Relax, this legislation is a velvet amnesty sieve. Before you know it, everyone will become a citizen, and all of them will know the answer to ‘Who loves ya baby?’ The border? fuggettaboudit. Those rightwing schmucks are totally dazzled by all that Berlin Wall technical crap in the bill. But you know what? it’ll take years to put in place and there is a lot of enabling legislation and appropriations between here and there. In the meanwhile, things will be business as usual down Mexico way because those poor bastards will still be counting how many infra-red sensors they’ve installed instead of how many more of your friends and family have made it across.’
And there’s the point, both sides are in on the bamboozle with only the Dems having and working a sane plan to achieve their objectives. For example no one cares, or should care, that the Del Rio Texas sector will install between points of entry, (quoting the bill’s text):
“(I) 3 integrated fixed towers; (II) 74 fixed camera systems (with relocation capability), which include remote video surveillance systems; (III) 47 mobile surveillance systems, which include mobile video surveillance systems, agent-portable surveillance systems and mobile surveillance capability systems; (IV) 868 unattended ground sensors, including seismic, imaging and infrared; (V) 174 handheld equipment devices, including handheld thermal imaging systems and night vision goggles; (VI) 26 mobile/handheld inspection scopes and sensors for checkpoints; (VII) improved surveillance capabilities for existing aerostat; (VIII) 21 sensor repeaters; and (IX) 21 communications repeaters.”
When a high level delibearative body like Congress wants to procure a complex system such as the one that is to augment what we already have on the border, they should write into law system performance requirements, and not try to design the goddam thing within the thousands of pages of garbage that will certainly be obsolete with the advance of technology by the time they get around to building it. A smart, let alone sane, legislative body wanting to make a material contribution to this law would instead include something like –
‘Before the other provisions of this law are implemented, appropriate enhancements will be made to border security such that the demonstrated, unapprehended entry rate from Mexico is below 5,000 illegal entrants per year, and that such rates can be maintained in perpetuity.’
I have promoted the 5,000 number as a performance requirement (estimated by the Border Patrol using established methods) that for all intents and purposes defines a secure border for a nation the size of America. Perfection is unachievable and its pursuit ruinously costly. If you don’t like 5,000, then put in another number that reasonable people would accept as a secure border. But let’s not continue the practice of substituting and celebrating effort expended in place of achievement at the national level. Sadly, both sides know that this switch continues to work with the isheeple which today includes two generations of youth raised on Self-Esteem über Alles!
As a minimum, the Repubs should stick to principle, point out this error, and then go on to support the amnesty provisions of comprehensive immigration reform if they must. But the bill should specify that such provisions should kick in only after the border has been shown to be measurably secure.
