Redstate

You forgot about the demand-for-cheap-labor side, ie, penalties for evading labor laws.

Steep ones.  $10,000 per day per violation to start.

The border security issue needs to be de-politicised.  I look to the NTSB/FAA model.  Airlines are not allowed to use cheaply made aftermarket repair parts b/c crash investigations would out their treacherousness(sic).  If the politicians would confer power and decision making ability to a National Security Board the border States could share the burden with the Fed gov't and shut the borders down.  Not by edict but by management of the resources to catch criminal border jumpers.  Of course the politicians won't let go and will keep people who hire illegal aliens beholding to the pols for re-election purposes.

I really believe this is more a reactionary speech on his part.  He can come out and say all he wants to, and what he's going to do about it, but unless he puts those statements into action, it will be a waste of time.

I said it another comment, but the point is the same:

A wall, or nothing.

Any bill that fails to include a real wall component is not a serious bill.

(And any bill that fails to include a wall will lose half, or more, of the Republican base...)

It's one of the great untold ironies in modern politics today. The American Left, long purporting to stand in defense of the economic interests of the average working man, has undermined those interests by gleefully supporting open borders and opposing tough enforcement of our immigration laws.

George J. Borjas spells this out indirectly with his National Review article, Immigrants In, Wages Down. (NR, May 8, 2006)

Interestingly, Borjas does this without making a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.

"My results suggest that wages fall by 3 to 4 percent for every 10 percent increase in the number of workers in a particular skill group."

Logic dictates that any negative impact on wages from legal immigration would only be made worse by illegal immigration. Borjas does not need to spell it out - it is self evident.

Borjas sums up his article with a conclusion that points to a serious political opportunity for the GOP, if it chooses to seize it.

Borjas clearly identifies who wins and who loses on a net basis during a period when low-skilled workers are flooding into the US economy:

"...increasing immigration is approximately a wash for the US Economy. But increasing immigration would split the pie differently, with gains concentrated among those who hire immigrants or use a lot of immigrant-provided services, and LOSSES CONCENTRATED AMONG LOW SKILLED WORKERS (emphasis mine, not Borjas')."

Let's see: cheering on the illegals leads to a slicing of the pie in ways that hurt the working man. In their zealous search for new voters, the Democrats are betraying the very people they claim as their base. This shapes up as huge potential blunder.

The Democrats most likely to bolt to the GOP in November over the issue of illegal immigration are the same people who bolted in 1980 when taxes and high inflation were dissolving the purchasing power of every dollar earned by the "working man."

Any GOP challenger candidate at the state or federal level who needs to attract crossover working class voters should seize upon this issue.

Are the Senate Republicans capable of making the Democrats pay a price for committing a gross political blunder?

Are the Senate Republicans capable of making the Democrats pay a price for committing a gross political blunder?

In a word, "no".

As I've debated this issue and submitted articles concerning it, I find my position hardening rather than softening on its solution. This has surprised me, since I was already dead serious about it and understood my position well. I also understood the multitude of aspects surrounding the debate, and was ready to compromise on certain aspects in order to attain two things; a fence and real enforcement of law.

Although I see the need for some labor, the bigger issue is ensuring we let in those who want to give their loyalty to America, and in the numbers that we can effectively assimilate in a manner that will maintain our society's understanding of American history, law, and founding philosophy. In other words, maintain the integrity of American culture.

What has hardened me is this. As we've debated, many are focused on the need for labor, or the need to appear benificent, while relegating the issue of border security as draconian, and assimilation and loyalty as unimportant or something that they assume will "happen naturally". In other words, not a priority that rises to the level of debate. Some even snort at the notion of an American culture as nothing more than a fluid identity that has no connection to our founding priorities.

So, while we are willing to look at all the issues and support reform so long as Congress first agrees to secure the border and rigorously enforce the law, they are demanding unlimited immigration while assuming the benign intent of the mass of illegals, and are unwilling to consider real measures for closing the border to illegals. They claim the problem is a purely economic issue. And these are supposed conservatives.

I have come to the conclusion that we have lost our way when we are concerned only with economics and alien rights but have little concern for our border sovereignty and disdain for the superiority of the American culture and ideals.

I believe the Administration and Congress are no different.

Thus, my new approach:

1. Fence the border.
   
2. Refer to #1.
   
3. Refer to #1.
   
4. Refer to...well, you get the picture.

The temporary National Guard fix is the wrong way to go.  They should be building fences along the border, then relocating bases from other parts of the country to points all along the border.  Our troops could use those bases for training in a variety of combat circumstances, from desert combat in the South to winter conditions in the North.  We could use the border to test all the latest surveillance and UAV technology, and we could have troops do rotating assignments inspecting cargo shipments coming in from both Mexico and Canada.

If President Bush thinks a temporary National Guard assignment is going to rescue the Republicans from defeat in November, he had better think again.  We've already drawn a much clearer line in the sand.

Right on. A wall is will help, but will be futile if we don't also fine illegal employers into bankruptcy. Without serious employer enforcement to remove the incentive for illegal immigration, a wall will just lead to a thriving shuttle boat industry dumping illegals on the beaches of California and Texas.

If Bush just hypes heavy fines for "employers who hire illegals," we'll know he's playing us for fools. You can almost never prove that an employer knew he was hiring an illegal, so that provision of the Senate bill is just a nice piece of symbolism. We need to improve Social Security identification so it can't be cheaply forged, with national database verification of every hire; and then heavy fines for any employer who fails to keep records proving he complied with the verification requirements for every employee.

Sadly I share the OldLine's pessimism about whether Bush will deliver. Given the sorry alternatives in 2000 & 2004, I won't say I made a mistake voting for Bush, but this has been one of my biggest disappointments about his performance.

It's obvious why Democrats want to drive down the wages of the working class with a flood of low-skill immigrants (as long as the working class doesn't see the Democrats did it to them). The more people there are who fall behind in our economy, the more receptive audience there is for the Democrats' campaign snake-oil pushing welfare state policies and using the tax system to punish the rich.

Unfortunately some Republicans also benefit from increasing the proportion of poor people in America's population. Businesses (including farms) that use a lot of low-skill labor want to increase the supply of low skill labor to drive down the price of low skill labor (Econ 101), so the employer doesn't have to offer high wages to fill those jobs. Some of those businessmen and farmers are a Republican constituency that some of our GOP elected officials want to keep happy.

Borjas wrote of low-skill immigrants depressing the wages of low-skill Americans, without distinguishing between legal and illegal immigrants. He is correct on that point, but legal immigrants on average have far higher skills than illegal immigrants. Thus removing the illegals from the immigrant flow means the remaining legal immigrants are generally higher skilled who don't compete in the same labor market, thus removing most of the downward pressure on low-skill Americans' wages.

But wait, there's a catch. Bush wants to replace the flood of low-skill illegal immigrants with a flood of legal low-skill "guest workers". Joe 6-pack will continue to get shafted, and it will be a bipartisan shafting.

P.S. I support high immigration, but tilted toward high-skill people because (1) they pay their own way (i.e. earn enough to pay more taxes than they consume in government services), and (2) they don't depress the wages of low-skill Americans who already have a low enough standard of living. Since my preferred immigration policy doesn't result in America having more poor people, I suppose that makes me anti-immigrant and/or nativist.

Putting the National Guard on the border is probably long overdue. For those who listen to Fox News, Bill "Bloviator" O'Reilly has been repeating for years that the National Guard should be sent to the border. Maybe O'Reilly has finally gotten President Bush's attention.

Of course, there are lots of questions about what the National Guard troops will do along the border. Maybe some illegals planning to cross the border will be frightened by their presence, and decide not to cross, and the Guard would be a deterrent.

But still, even if President Bush sends 5,000 or 10,000 National Guardsmen along the border, that's only a few men per mile, and some people might try to slip between them, especially at night. What will the Guard's orders be--under what circumstances will they be allowed to shoot?

If they never shoot, they would be a paper tiger, but if they shoot an unarmed Mexican civilian, it would be a PR nightmare in the press. Their mission and "rules of engagement" need to be clearly defined by the President himself, and also communicated to the Mexican press, so that those trying to slip through are fully aware of the risks, and those that get caught or killed have only themselves to blame.  

We've heard a lot of rumors that sending the National Guard is a "temporary" solution. But what then is the permanent solution? If the Guard goes down there for six months and then leaves, the illegals will hide out in barrios on the Mexican side and wait until the Guard leaves, then come over the border, and putting the Guard down there would be "kicking the can down the road" into the future. That might get us past an election, but the problem will remain.

What is the permanent solution? A wall or fence? More Border Patrol agents? Lots more Border Patrol agents? Hopefully, the President will tell us tonight what he has in mind...

I agree absolutely with the author's premise. This will be smoke and mirrors, we could have used the military long before now to seal the border, but have not. W is feeling the heat and is giving us a head fake, rather than serious enforcement of the existing law.

This is the area in which the President disappoints me most - and I do not believe he will back any serious change.

"apprehension" will play a part in the mission of the National Guard, just as the Border Agents.

But I'm like you, the proposal sounds like a PR band-aid. We'll all listen.

Realistically, it will take more than just 5-10 thousand troops to close the border.  They will be weekend warriors  riding around in trucks and helicopters, for good photo ops.  They won't apprehend or deport anybody.  They will radio the undermanned border guards, who cannot chase down and arrest everybody.

The  Bush  spinsters know a good   P.R. gimmick. They make Bush look tougher  on the border to the public. relieve some pressure on his Republican base, and get a better deal from the Congress. He might even go up in ther ratings.

The next phase will be to announce some budgetary  increases for handling the illegal immigration problem.   It will end up being  spent primarily on bureaucracy and paperwork, not fences or agents.

Bush believes that massive immigration is  good for this country.  He just wants to make it look " legal."  Joe Six Pack has the votes, but Big Business and Wall Street has the campaign contributions.

 

you are right.

There will be some window dressing "show of force" with the Guard, but Bush has already told his buddy Fox that none of this stuff means anything so "not-to-worry-Vincente."

The question will be will enough of the truth get through the MSM filter that Joe SixPack will recognize that he's been sold a bill of goods? Frankly I doubt it and my kids will have to deal with an even bigger problem 20 years from now.

...this is a multi-problematic issue from the standpoint of solving it.

However, individual states should not be allowed to set extra-territorial policy, as they so often do.

My solution to the illegal immigrants already here is simple, and can't be any less efficient than the status quo.  One agent, one truck, one illegal, to the border, "thank you for leaving."  

Obviously, after that, you'd need ....darnit.... some kind of fencing (it's what really tamed the Wild West)...

...and the aforementioned fines for disrespecting the laws of this country.

So that's ...

1.  "Fence" -- Comprehensive Border Integrity Initiative: a combination of physical and observational security, done efficiently in the taxpayer's interest.
   
2.  "Bounce" -- Persons who aren't legally inside the territory of the United States cannot legitimately become citizens of any of the several states without superceding the territorial jurisdiction of the federal branches.  Therefore, all contracts entered into during such time, including verbal cash per diem employment, rental and property agreements, utilities bills, auto installment plans, ad infinitum, are fraudulent, and legally void, if anybody bothered to prosecute stuff like that...

appear to be being deployed to serve a political end.

Even if it isn't truly the case, the perception is there. Nothing could be more demoralizing to our service members than to feel that they are being deployed as a means of paying lip service to angry voters.

Frankly, this sounds like something Clinton would do. Bush should be ashamed.

If you are going to deploy troops, they need to have a clear, defined, achieveable mission and be given the means and authority to complete it.

I didn't think my opinion of Bush and the GOP could get any worse on this issue, but it has.

Build a fence, give the Guard some real power to help until the fence is built.

Agree jsteel. I shudder to think what sort of society our children and grandchildren are inheriting from us.  

Well, then the National Guard can keep the Minutemen away.

The last thing the government needs is a group of people with guns who think that they need to fill in the gaps where the government fails.

That'll just lead to people not seeing the point of the government!

Immigration, like abortion, is simply too good of an issue for the Republican party to give up. Just watch, all the candidates in 06 are going to run on immigration reform and the second the polls close they'll forget it until 08 when they dust it off again to make us vote for them. It's a simple carrot/stick tactic. WE supposedly control the house, senate, SC and WH and abortion is still legal and easy. What have these people actually done for US? Immigration is just another election year issue that will never be dealt with, ever.

we'll see...