President Bush’s Tough Talk on Immigration Falls Flat
Wednesday, May 24th, 2006President Bush may have addressed the nation last week to assure Americans that his administration is doing something “comprehensive†about the growing illegal immigration crisis, but no one was buying it. Least of all those who support true immigration reform instead of lip service.
Predictably, Bush used the fig leaf of temporarily deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to the border to push his guest worker and amnesty proposals, which he continues to insist aren’t amnesty. Whether earned or not, everyone knows that enforcing such programs is currently untenable, particularly while the border remains unsecured. For those National Guard troops, it turns out, won’t be allowed to actually do anything. Largely unarmed and limited to a supporting role, the troops will only be able to report sightings to an already overburdened and in some cases compromised Border Patrol.
I say compromised because the news emerged a week before the president’s speech that higher ups in the U.S. Border Patrol had been reporting the whereabouts of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps members to the Mexican Government. The Minutemen are comprised of volunteers who simply observe and report illegal border crossings to the appropriate authorities. But they are of course a thorn in the side of those who wish to maintain the status quo at the porous border.
The Mexican Government tops that list, seeing as its economy would likely collapse were the remittances sent home by illegal immigrants in the U.S. to dry up. Then there would be the matter of all those citizens actually who might actually demand reform in their own country if access to U.S. dollars was not forthcoming. The future of Mexico’s ruling elite hangs in the balance and they’re not giving it up without a fight.
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