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Bill O's Talking Points Memo & Top Story

     "Today President Obama went to El Paso to urge Americans to support his vision of immigration reform. Mr. Obama outlined his plan: Secure the border, fine businesses that hire illegals, fine the illegals themselves, and require them to learn English before they can apply for citizenship. It's a responsible plan with one huge flaw - the border. Here are the dreadful stats: There are approximately 11.2 million illegal aliens living in the USA; in 2010 authorities detained an astounding 445,000 people illegally crossing the Mexican border and seized more than 4 million pounds of drugs. But here's the worst part - almost ten years after 9/11, only 650 miles of the border are fenced, while 1,300 miles remain open and the feds don't seem to care. Also, there are only 1,200 National Guard backing up the Border Patrol, so of course you're going to have millions of people coming in every year. This is a colossal failure by the federal government, a disgrace. President Obama should know that immigration reform will not pass until the border is secure. Here's the solution: Complete the fence and put at least 7,000 National Guard on the border. But instead of pushing hard for border security, Mr. Obama is playing politics and criticizing plans like mine. Secure the border, Mr. President, and I'll back the reform."

Actually this is a good plan!  I applaud the President for sort of coming around on immigration.  However, O'Reilly is right too.  The border still needs to be secured.  If our president will commit to finishing the fence and put more manpower to enforce border laws, THEN he will be able to effectively and efficiently carry out the other parts of his plan.  And its a good plan I think.  

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The Obama admin has actually done a better job than past admins have done on illegal immigration.

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A fence would only do so much.  Take for instance the border between San Diego and Tijuana, where recent tunnels were discovered.  Thats a very heavily fortified border, however even in such well defended areas people still find ways to get through.

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this is just the latest stop on the obama re-election campaign. he knows nothing is going to get done about this, but it works as the latest distraction. he can hopefully use it to paint the republicans as racist, and use it to "win back" hispanic voters. and i just don't see how obama has done so much on border security. he's just carrying on the same bush policies. now we're not even arresting illegals, just turning them back. just watch a border enforcement show. things on the border are vastly different than washington would have you believe. we have a civil war going on just to the south, with drugs and money flowing acriss the border. we have americans already being targeted in mexico. we've already found jihadi pamphlets on the border, and we've had 59,000 illegal crossings of "other than mexicans." and that's just the ones that have been arrested. this represents our most critical national security issue, and we're not serious about it. and i can't believe two of my supposedly fellow conservatives have been dupped!

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
A fence would only do so much.  Take for instance the border between San Diego and Tijuana, where recent tunnels were discovered.  Thats a very heavily fortified border, however even in such well defended areas people still find ways to get through.

yeah, it's real fortified. i've seen the videos there with people shimmying up and over it, or through holes in a fence. such a serious fortification there. like jumping from one back yard to another.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
A fence would only do so much.  Take for instance the border between San Diego and Tijuana, where recent tunnels were discovered.  Thats a very heavily fortified border, however even in such well defended areas people still find ways to get through.

Agreed.  A fence alone will do very little to stop the invasion. It takes people (jobs?).  But imo, going after the employers is the best way to put a dent into illegal immigration.

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Originally Posted by Mark Simmons:
The Obama admin has actually done a better job than past admins have done on illegal immigration.

Honestly  Bush did next to nothing about Illegal immigration.  I mean NOTHING.  I often wondered if he had some sort of deal with the Mexican prez to look the other way.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:

Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
A fence would only do so much.  Take for instance the border between San Diego and Tijuana, where recent tunnels were discovered.  Thats a very heavily fortified border, however even in such well defended areas people still find ways to get through.

yeah, it's real fortified. i've seen the videos there with people shimmying up and over it, or through holes in a fence. such a serious fortification there. like jumping from one back yard to another.

Yeah, those videos are appalling.  I think if our govt would go after the employers of illegals, stop offering the children of illegals special scholarships to college, finish the fence (new jobs), then the influx of illegals would eventually dry up.  

I'm worried now about the violence along the border.  We also need better border control to stop the flow of guns leaving our country and drugs coming into our country.  The Mexican pres cannot fight the drug gangs as long as we are selling them guns.  And we cant do much about narcotics coming in here until the gangs are eliminated and we finish that fence and beef up security.

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We could hire more border agents and if we used American labor and American steel to build that fence and beef up our border...its a win win for our economy!  Puts a lot of Americans to work.  And the states are getting behind the idea and will do it if the Feds wont (until the courts stick their nose in it).

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We currently have more Patrol agents and military on the border with Mexico than at any other time in history.  Its become so difficult to smuggle drugs across that many cartels have invested in growing Marijuana in the United States (making many of our Forests and National Parks dangerous to visit and creating a situation most smaller parks and Forests don't have the resources to really handle).  I read a while back that we even have unmanned drones patrolling parts of our border.

A cheap migrant work force has been essential to many parts of our economy (mainly agriculture) since the first bracero program was launched during WWI.  Many of the descendants of those who became citizens are now respectable figures in the communities.  The threat posed by the illegal migration are not necessarily the migrants, but the lack of border control they represent.  I think the best approach would be to set up an efficient guest worker/work for citizenship program partnering the US and Mexican governments with private businesses.  We should allow a dramatically larger number of immigrants (we clean back grounds and at least the will to learn English) to legally enter the country, make the immigration bureaucracy cheap and efficient enough to be affordable, and set up a work-sponsor program with the companies that currently rely mainly on low cost unskilled labor (ie currently mainly illegals).  If someone can demonstrate that they have no criminal record, either have a job lined up through the work-sponsor system or already have enough money to make it through the term of their visa, and is willing to learn English (if they do not already know it) they should be allowed to legally enter.  Those who are willing to take the necessary classes, remain gainfully employed throughout their stay, become fluent in English, and have no offenses while here should be allowed to enter into citizenship programs.  Companies who continue to employ illegals would be more vigorously perused and face stiffer civil and legal repercussions.

The benefits of such a system would be that 1) we could better control who enters the country while filling industry needs, 2) it would increase the average pay of low skilled workers as immigrant employees would be on the books and as such subject to minimum wage enforcement (ie no more illegals depressing wages for others), 3) it would dramatically reduce the number of people trying to illegally cross the border, thus making it easier to apprehend drug smugglers and those who still try to enter illegally, 4) now the immigrants would all pay taxes as they would be officially on the books, 5) the government would save money on a) not having to increase spending on border patrol or possibly even b) save money by reducing the amount of border patrol due to fewer trying to cross illegally.

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just watch border wars and tell me the border is so safe.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
We currently have more Patrol agents and military on the border with Mexico than at any other time in history.  Its become so difficult to smuggle drugs across that many cartels have invested in growing Marijuana in the United States (making many of our Forests and National Parks dangerous to visit and creating a situation most smaller parks and Forests don't have the resources to really handle).  I read a while back that we even have unmanned drones patrolling parts of our border.

I read that too. So how are those drug cartels getting into our country  

Not picking on you in particular btw.  But why are some in our country so opposed to building that fence?  And why NOT hire more agents.  I've heard time and time again that sheriffs in Arizona say they desperately need more help because of just what you mentioned...problems in our National Parks.  They want 6-7000 National Guardsmen armed to help patrol the border.  May as well, since we're already paying them.  shouldnt they be put to work?  And wouldnt even more border agents mean more jobs?  And building that fence could mean more jobs too if they used American workers and American steel.

I still think its a win win situation.

As for the allowing migrant workers to come here, I think most in this group support that idea.  I certainly do...as long as they are documented.