"No more border games"

Lou Dobbs:

resident Bush has again vowed to spend his political capital to grant legal status to the millions of illegal aliens who live and work in this country. The president rationalizes his guest-worker program by constantly referring to the nation's need to match willing workers with willing employers. The president's "proposed reform" has already met stiff resistance from the 109th Congress, which is apparently ready to finally take on the critically important issue of illegal immigration.

Many from the president's own party say they'll fight his guest-worker proposal, and many of our elected officials are finally grasping the importance of representing the views of working Americans--which, after all, is their responsibility. The latest USA Today /CNN/Gallup poll shows only 34 percent of those surveyed approve of President Bush's immigration policies...

After ignoring the realities of illegal immigration for nearly all of his long tenure in Congress, Republican [David] Dreier [R-CA] now says he will introduce legislation to stop American businesses from hiring illegal aliens, using a photo-embedded Social Security card, which employers would be required to check with a national database to determine whether the job applicant is legal or illegal.

It is unclear to me just why Dreier believes that any one of the 3 million illegal aliens who entered this country last year, or the people in businesses who hire many of them, would turn law-abiding. At this point, while we should welcome Dreier's conversion, his proposal amounts to nothing more than a diversion from the profoundly important reforms that must be enacted. We must take control of our borders, enforce our immigration laws, and ultimately take responsibility for our first line of defense in the war on terrorism, specifically our borders and ports...

FYI: Dobbs had a recent testy interview with Dreier on his show.

Immigration2005a · Mon, 01/24/2005 - 19:57 · · Importance: 1