I happen to agree with Congressman Ted Poe about the recent immigration raids here in Houston and around the country.

"Once again the federal government has it backwards," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, a former state judge and prosecutor. "It is a waste of time if we don't go after the business owners who are knowingly hiring illegals.

"If we eliminate the illegal job opportunities, we can start to eliminate the problem."

Unfortunately, only 75 owners and mangers were arrested in conjunction with these raids -- and prosecutions are much more difficult to undertake than they are for the illegal workers.

Seems to me that this is one more reason to require electronic verification of employability -- so that we can begin prosecuting the major players who take jobs from Americans to give them to illegal aliens.

Posted by: Greg at 04:48 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Why are we withdrawing needed support from our porous southern border?

Members of Congress are split on whether the National Guard should end its deployment along the U.S.-Mexico border in July, as planned.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted the border would not be secured until 2011.

* * *

The final withdrawal for the National Guard working in Operation Jump Start is planned for July 15.

The National Guard's Noller said that Operation Jump Start is winding down because of a presidential directive. As in all military operations, he said, about 150 guardsmen will remain for administrative duties after the mission ends.

As of June 11, 2,284 Guard members were on active duty at the border.

Git that? The border will be unsecured for three more years -- but we are pulling a couple of thousand bodies away from the task of securing it.

This is one of those things that leaves so many of us so pissed off at the Bush Administration -- its utter fecklessness when it comes to immigration and border policy. Even when the Administration has conceded a need to do more, it does so in such a half-hearted way as to be utterly useless.

And the notion that the Guard should remain deployed has bipartisan support.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch recommended keeping the troops along the border for another year or so.

"We can get a long way between now and 2011," Lynch said. "Make an assessment in 2009 or 2010 and see where we are, and if we can afford to move them off our border, then we can do that."

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) was also in favor of waiting.

"My advice would be to favor their continued deployment until the border's judged as secure," he said.

Mr. Bush -- don't undercut the enforcement efforts along our nation's southern border.

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Now they can't travel freely because their identification might be checked, leading to their deportation.

Pedro Perez has not left Orcas Island in more than four months. Not for weekend trips with his family, not for cheaper groceries on the mainland, not for medical care—not for anything.

He is afraid border agents will stop him and send him back to Mexico, wrecking the quiet life he has built on one of Washington's remote San Juan Islands.

"I had my eyes on this place for my kids to grow up in," Perez, who is married with two young children, said in Spanish. "There's no gangs here, no crime. It's the kids who suffer."

Perez—who does odd jobs, mostly landscaping—is one of perhaps dozens of illegal immigrants on the islands who have been essentially trapped since February, when the U.S. Border Patrol began checking IDs on ferry runs from the islands to the mainland.

Boo-frickin'-hoo! You are in this country in violation of the law. You ought to be afraid -- very afraid. Indeed, you ought to be so afraid that you go back home and wait in line to enter this country legally.

But there is some good news.

Others have taken the risk and paid the price: As of late May, 49 people had been arrested by the Border Patrol and face deportation. All but one were Latin American.

It is really very simple -- we don't need to deport all the illegal aliens in this country. We simply need to turn the heat up enough that they leave on their own.

Posted by: Greg at 02:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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