California Conservative

That’s the opinion of former Reagan AG Ed Meese III in this Human Events Online op-ed:

So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same debate and being offered much the same deal. What would President Reagan do? For one thing, he would not repeat the mistakes of the past, including those of his own administration. He knew that secure borders are vital, and would now insist on meeting that priority first. He would seek to strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration laws. He would employ new tools, like biometric technology for identification, and cameras, sensors and satellites to monitor the border, that make enforcement and verification less onerous and more effective.

This op-ed should be sent to Sens. McCain and Kennedy, as well as to any senator who thinks that the bill passed in the Senate last year is anything close to adequate. It isn’t. That heap of trash needs to be scrapped entirely and rewritten without the ‘It’s not amnesty Amnesty provisions’ in it. The truth is that we shouldn’t have granted amnesty then nor should we grant it now.

This is why taking a historical perspective on things matters. Thank God for Ed Meese’s looking back to the greatest president of the last half century, Ronald Reagan. Mr. Meese’s opinion shouldn’t be that difficult to believe for several reasons. If there’s anything that we should know about Ronald Reagan, it’s that he wouldn’t tolerate anything that he thought would weaken America’s sovereignty. We also know that he wouldn’t tolerate a border where terrorists could infiltrate America in the hopes of committing violent terrorist attacks against innocent law-abiding men, women and children. That would be the ultimate anti-Reagan.

If you’re asking how I explain why Reagan signed Simpson-Mazzoli, I can only offer this opinion:

I’m guessing that he envisioned a beefed-up INS that would enforce the borders, a Justice Department that would prosecute employers that ignored Simpson-Mazzoli and a beefed-up Border Patrol staff that would (a) prevent the illegal immigrants from reaching American soil and (b) stop the drug smugglers.

It’s pretty easy to read about Border Patrol agents who are overmatched against the firepower of the coyotes smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants across the Mexican-US border. With Reagan’s hawkish nature, it’s a safe bet that that wouldn’t last long.

Here’s another salient Meese observation:

And what about those already here? Today it seems to me that the fair policy, one that will not encourage further illegal immigration, is to give those here illegally the opportunity to correct their status by returning to their country of origin and getting in line with everyone else. This, along with serious enforcement and control of the illegal inflow at the border, a combination of incentives and disincentives, will significantly reduce over time our population of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Meese appears to be saying that the people who say we can’t ship all the illegal aliens back to their native countries don’t believe in the power of America’s law enforcement abilities. As we’re seeing with the raid on the Swift plants in Nebraska, a nation with the will to enforce its borders, can enforce its borders.

Technorati Tags: Reagan,
Ed Meese, Sovereignty,
Illegal Immigration, Simpson-Mazzoli, McCain, Kennedy

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Crime, Homeland Security, Immigration, Law, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.