The will of the people trampled on

While time has failed me this week to comment on the immigration developments, now that I have a few moments words seem to fail me. Mere words cannot express how both political parties in this country have stabbed the people in the back concerning illegal immigration. I usually provide links for things, but nothing I say should be in dispute, so I will spend my time discussing it instead of chasing down the stories I read this week.

First, we had President Bush's speech. I did not see it or read it, so I am going off of post-commentary. Basically, I think it could be boiled down to - we are both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. To willingly participate in the media mixing immigration and illegal immigration is a poke in the eye for me. These are separate issues and the media's campaign to blend to two to muddy the waters of debate should be criticized, not joined. If the words of the speech were not enough to show that Bush is not really serious about completely fixing this issue, subsequent interviews with those in his administration reveal it with clarity. An interview between Hugh Hewitt and Julie Meyers (Deputy Director of Homeland Security or something like that) showed a clear abhorrence of building physical barriers.

Later in the week there was some discussion and even voting about putting up some fencing. I think the border is over 2000 miles and in rough numbers the house voted for 700 miles and the senate voted for 300+ miles. Somebody said later we were not building a fence but a funnel (I think Boortz). Look, some is better than none. Yes it will result in illegals going to the open areas where we can beef up with people. This is good. The problem is that in times past there has been some buzz about fixing the problem. This bone would have been appropriate then. Today there is a huge near revolt over fixing the problem and the solution should have fully stepped up to the plate.

Also, Bush committed to adding National Guardsmen to the patroling of the border. At first this seemed great, but the more it was criticized by the liberals the more the responses were timid instead of bold. It is only temporary. I even heard they will not be armed. They will not actually make arrests, but monitor and call in the border patrol.

Then Mexico began threatening lawsuits if we dared enforce our border. This is enough to blow my stack. At that time, Bush should have made a very bold statement to Vincente Fox. "You will not tell us how to enforce our laws. You will also stop being hypocritical as you work to enforce your immigration policies yet demand us to ignore ours." If there was any response it did not register on my radar.

While I am completely disgusted that Bush and the GOP are willing to thumb their nose at those who put them in office and throw away their majority to keep the free flow of illegals coming in, I would point out that the Democrats have not stepped up to the plate on this issue either. I posted months ago that they could take the majority back on this issue alone. While they have words of criticism to the GOP for not fixing the problem, they make it very clear they have no desire to seal the border. In fact they have their "race cards" in hand and ready to play if the GOP ever did get serious about this issue. No, both parties have either failed to listen to the will of the people OR they have purposefully turned a deaf ear and insist on trampling the will of the people.