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BORDER PATROL PREPARING FOR MINUTEMAN PROJECT IN NEW MEXICO |
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Hey President Bush, we the people took care of a job you don’t want to take! Can we get a cut of your paycheck?
Volunteers with Civil Homeland Defense found only 18 people during the past week of patrols who slipped past the department of homeland defense. Border Patrol responded quickly to both calls for assistance and agents were again courteous and thankful for the assistance.
Intelligence reports from volunteers along the border report that Border Patrol is preparing for the Minuteman Project by strengthening its forces in areas outside the locations targeted for Minuteman patrols. Two reports from friends in New Mexico say a Border Patrol presence is being seen like never before. “I asked Border Patrol agents in New Mexico if they knew about the Minuteman Project. They said they did and that they were preparing for the illegal traffic diverting to their area during the month of April,” reported friends who recently returned from a trip to the New Mexico/Mexico border region.
Border Patrol may also be gearing up for something else along the border. Drug cartels are waging war with law enforcement on both sides of the international boundary –a result of growing frustration over tighter security along our borders and it’s about time.
But could it be because of concern by outspoken government employees and experts?
Al-Qaida and associated groups top the list of threats to the United States, leading government intelligence officials told Congress on Wednesday in a grim assessment that also highlighted Iran’s emergence as a major threat to American interests in the Middle East. Iranians and Syrians have been caught on the U.S. border with Mexico.
In 2004, Border Patrol Caught 650 Suspected Terrorists Crossing the Border. The agents admit that they catch only one in five border intruders that means between about 2,000 – 6,500 suspected terrorists crossed undetected from a recent press release of the Committee on Homeland Security: “Border agents have reported an increased number of individuals from countries of national security interest - countries known to harbor terrorists - who have been smuggled recently across our borders. In 2004, border patrol agents arrested over 650 suspected terrorists from countries of national security interest trying to cross the southern border, and they expect the number will rise this year.
“We will face this reality and this growing reality year after year unless we take the steps outlined in this legislation to deal with those border security gaps. Remarks of Homeland Security Committee Chairman Cox during the REAL ID Act News Conference Wednesday February 9, It took less the 20 to cause the 9/11 assault.
Despite gains made against al-Qaida and other affiliates, CIA Director Porter Goss, said on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 in an unusually blunt statement before the mostly secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, said the terror group is intent on finding ways to circumvent U.S. security enhancements to attack the homeland.
“It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that,” Goss said. FBI Director Robert Mueller cautioned of the risk posed by radicalized Muslim converts inside the United States and said he worries about a sleeper operative who may have been in place for years, awaiting orders launch an attack. “I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing,” Mueller said.
What Mueller and others are not seeing are the thousands of potential terrorists that cross our borders each day right under the undermanned noses of the department of homeland security.
President Bush should be held personally responsible for the next terrorist attack on the United States as well as held accountable for every crime committed by illegals who are allowed to walk in under the guise of being a poor migrant worker.
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MANY ILLEGAL ALIENS CROSS THE BORDER MORE THAN ONCE – UNTIL THEY SUCCEED; I.E., IT PAYS TO BREAK THE LAW
Under federal law, crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor that can land first-time offenders in jail for up to six months.
But because federal prosecutors are overwhelmed by the number of illegal immigrants, the Border Patrol releases more than 90% of people they catch.
One of the most commonly cited Border Patrol statistics - apprehensions - can distort perceptions of how many illegal immigrants try to enter the country.
The agency tracks and widely reports the number of arrests along the border. But that number includes many Illegals caught more than once.
During fiscal 2004, which ended Sept. 30, the Border Patrol reported nearly half a million apprehensions in its Tucson sector, which stretches from the Yuma County line to New Mexico. The number of individuals was about 325,000, according to Border Patrol statistics obtained by the Tucson Citizen.
And since the Border Patrol resets its apprehension count each year, it is unclear how many of those individuals had been arrested in previous years.
Nationwide, Border Patrol agents arrested more than 740,000 individuals in fiscal 2004 among nearly 1.2 million apprehensions.
The Border Patrol releases more than 90% of people they catch. The process is called voluntary repatriation. By signing a form, most illegal immigrants caught along the border can opt to immediately return to their home countries - usually at the nearest port of entry in Mexico - rather than plead their cases before a judge.
After returning to Mexico, many Illegals cross the border again and again until they succeed.
Authorities say they would like to prosecute every offender, but that it would overwhelm the legal system.
Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton said his office has just 30 prosecutors to review the more than 588,000 apprehensions along the Arizona border in fiscal 2004.
And there are plenty of court cases to go around without prosecuting relatively minor offenders.
In fiscal 2004, Tucson sector agents caught 14,506 illegal aliens with criminal records – 27% of criminal illegal aliens arrested by agents nationwide. All of those became court cases.
Of the criminals arrested, 7,681 were charged with immigration offenses, meaning they had been deported then caught entering the U.S. illegally again. In fiscal 2003, Tucson sector agents arrested 4,025 for immigration offenses.
Part of the increase in arrests in 2004 is the result of a fingerprint ID system that became available to more federal agents in southern Arizona in May 2004.
Also, an increase in the number of agents in Arizona means more illegal aliens - and consequently more criminals - are being caught.
Prosecutors set a threshold number of apprehensions illegal immigrants must reach before facing charges. The agency won’t release the number.
The system’s result is that the Border Patrol devotes vast resources to catching illegal immigrants who might have been in their custody before.
The Tucson sector has led the nation in apprehensions each of the past seven years.
The sector’s 490,000 apprehensions during fiscal 2004 accounted for 43% of arrests along the Mexico border, the highest share in the sector’s history.
Including apprehensions from the Yuma sector, Arizona accounted for more than half of all arrests made along the nation’s southern border, also a record for the state.
The Border Patrol began using automated fingerprint technology to track illegal immigrants in 1994. But not until 2002 did every station in the Tucson sector get machines that tapped into the agency database. The statistics obtained from the Border Patrol came from the agency’s Enforcement Integrated Database and cover each fiscal year since 2002. By comparing the totals of individuals to apprehensions, the figures show that the percentage of illegal aliens who are caught more than once has risen in the past three years.
In the Tucson sector during fiscal 2002, roughly 1 in 4 apprehensions was an illegal alien arrested earlier in the year. By 2004, the number had grown to 1 in 3.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0206border-crossers06-ON.html
This is all a really good deal for Mexico.
Mexico does not want to take care of its people and desperately wants them to just go away — to prevent social unrest and a revolution —— which incidentally would be very good for Mexico.
Mexico makes life so miserable for the low-end of the Mexican population that they flee north.
Bush Administration and Congress become willing co-conspirators in accordance with wishes of both political parties who want either cheap labor or cheap votes.
Bush Administration under-funds and under-mans Border Patrol so that Illegals have a better chance of getting across the border. Also, lets every Mexican Illegal have several chances to try and re-try until they succeed.
Bush Administration also takes Mexican criminals off of Mexico’s hands by putting them in U.S. detention facilities - free room and board. More than a quarter of the inmates in our federal prisons are illegal aliens who committed crimes. Mexico thus avoids imprisoning its own criminals and saves lots of money.
American taxpayers get hosed and lose jobs.
Insane and unbelievable — but, absolutely TRUE.
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DISEASE, UNWANTED IMPORT
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Special Report
Contagious diseases are entering the United States because of immigrants, illegal aliens, refugees and travelers, and World Health Organization officials say the worst could be yet to come.
In addition to a list of imported diseases that includes tuberculosis, sickle cell anemia, hepatitis B, measles and the potentially deadly parasitic disease Chagas, officials fear what could happen if the avian flu, which is flourishing among poultry in Southeast Asia, mutates so that it is capable of human-to-human transmission through casual contact.
The bird flu has killed at least eight Asians since early January. Several of those deaths — in Vietnam and Thailand — were believed to have been caused when the virus passed between people who had sustained contact. If the avian flu mutates so that it can be transmitted with only casual contact, WHO authorities predict at least 7 million and as many as 100 million would die in a worldwide pandemic.
Another concern with Asian immigrants in this country is the link between Asians and hepatitis B, said Jordan Su, program manager for the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University. She said the link is alarming enough to warrant action on its own.
Hepatitis B is a “very common epidemic in Asia” and more than half of the 1.3 million cases in this country are among Asians, who make up only 4 percent of the U.S. population, she said.
“We hope the government will pass a bill that requires every immigrant to be tested for hepatitis B,” Ms. Su said.
“People, in general, bring in diseases from their home countries. But I don’t want to say all immigrants are carrying diseases,” said Dr. Walter Tsou, president of the American Public Health Association.
Dr. Kenneth Castro, director of the Division of TB Elimination at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the job of preventing these diseases must extend beyond the United States.
“Many diseases know no borders, but all policies to prevent the importation of disease need to be reasonable and implementable, and our efforts to improve disease control cannot be restricted to our borders,” he said.
Concerns about imported disease prompted the State Department on Jan. 21 to temporarily suspend travel to this country by Hmong refugees from the Wat Tham Krabok camp in Thailand. The order came after federal health officials learned of at least 25 confirmed cases of TB among refugees from that camp who had resettled in California, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Enhanced medical screening and treatment of the refugees are under way both in Thailand and this country, and State Department officials say it could be six months before the travel ban is lifted.
TB a growing threat
According to international health officials, about a third of the world’s population is infected with the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. TB that is resistant to multiple drugs is rampant in many parts of the world, including Peru, Russia, the Baltic nations, Hunan province in China, the Dominican Republic and parts of South Africa, according to Dr. Castro. Some of the cases of TB diagnosed among Hmong refugees resettled in this country are drug-resistant, which makes them far more difficult and costly to treat.
Personnel with the CDC’s Division of TB Elimination have said in various reports that “immigration is a major force that sustains the incidence of tuberculosis” in the United States and other developed countries.
“TB cases among foreign-born individuals remain disproportionately high, at nearly nine times the rate of U.S.-born persons,” researchers said in a 2004 report in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The report found that people from outside the United States accounted for 53.3 percent of all new tuberculosis cases in this country in 2003. That was up from fewer than 30 percent in 1993. In 2003, nearly 26 percent of foreign-born TB patients in the United States were from Mexico. Another third of the foreign-born cases were among those from the Philippines, Vietnam, India and China, the CDC report said.
But Dr. Tsou says TB data are “misleading.” He points out that an immigrant might be in this country for years with “inactive” tuberculosis. “But now, after being here for a long time, that person’s immunity wanes,” and he or she develops active TB, which can become contagious, he said.
The fear of imported disease has led to a push by Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, for a moratorium on immigration.
In a recent statement, Mr. Tancredo, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, cited the “serious consequences” associated with the “smuggling” of illegals into the United States without proper medical screening.
“Among them are the possibilities of the spread of diseases for which we have few, if any, antidotes,” he said.
Mr. Tancredo’s worries were prompted, in part, by the rising migration of Hispanics to the United States and a potential increase in the number of cases of Chagas disease, which is spread by insect bites in South America and which can be spread through blood transfusions. It is curable in its early stages, but kills about a third of the people infected if it is not caught in time.
The American Red Cross estimates that nationally, the risk of a blood donor having antibodies to Chagas or being infected with the disease is 1 in 25,000. The risk is 1 in 5,400 in Los Angeles and 1 in 9,000 in Miami. The Red Cross says it will begin screening donors for Chagas, once a suitable test is found.
Blood supply at risk
“An estimated 15 million South Americans [plus Mexicans and Central Americans] are suffering from Chagas,” said Dr. Arthur C. Aufderheide of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. “I’m amazed” that only five cases have turned up in the U.S. blood supply since 1986.
Federal data suggest that as many as 10 percent of the approximately 1,000 Mexicans who emigrate to the United States daily probably are infected with Chagas, said Dr. Louis V. Kirchhoff, a Chagas specialist and a professor at the University of Iowa’s medical school.
Other researchers say immigration is resulting in population shifts that are contributing to a rise in sickle cell anemia.
While many incorrectly believe the disease is a condition that afflicts only blacks or it has been eradicated, one in every 16 Hispanics — the fastest-growing U.S. immigrant group — also carry the genetic trait that can cause the painful and incurable blood disorder.
The number of Hispanic sickle cell cases in the United States has risen rapidly, and one in every 900 Hispanic infants in this country is born with the disease, said Gil Pena, outreach director for the American Sickle Cell Anemia Association, based at the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Samuel L. Katz, one of the world’s foremost authorities on measles and a professor of pediatrics at Duke University, says the childhood illness is another contagious disease linked to immigration. In the 1960s, he was part of a team that developed an effective vaccine against the disease.
“Instead of having millions of measles cases, as we did in the old days, in the last 10 years, there have been less than 100 cases of measles per year in this country,” Dr. Katz said. “We’re able to study the genes of the virus to learn where it came from, and almost all of the measles cases that have been found in the United States [in recent years] were imported from a variety of different countries,” he said.
The pediatrician noted that many of the imported measles cases have come from Japan, Germany and Italy. Those developed nations “have not been as aggressive about measles immunization” as some other countries, he said.
While acknowledging that certain illnesses occur predominantly in foreign-born people, Dr. Alfred DeMaria, director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control of the Massachusetts Health Department, said foreign travel, not immigration, is the real culprit.
Dr. DeMaria cited a case in his state last fall in which a Haitian-born woman was diagnosed with diphtheria. The throat infection is common in places such as Haiti and other countries in South and Central America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Turkey and Albania, but it is extremely rare in this country because of mass immunization.
Dr. DeMaria said it is believed the 60-year-old woman got diphtheria from her husband, who recently had traveled to Haiti. Although he had no symptoms, health officials found evidence of the infection in his throat.
“If I vacationed in Tanzania, I could bring any number” of tropical diseases back home to this country, as could a globe-trotting businessman, he said. But “there’s very limited risk of transmission in this country,” Dr. DeMaria said, concluding that “refugees and immigrants don’t account for major problems” in terms of public health.
Despite the risks, the CDC’s Dr. Castro said the “facility of movement” between countries must be preserved.
“If everyone is required to have a chest X-ray before getting on a plane, it’s not going to work,” he said.
But immigration opponents contend immigrants are carrying Third World diseases — some of which had been virtually eradicated here — to the United States.
“Mass immigration is a threat to our nation’s health. Diseases nearly eradicated are breaking out again,” the U.S. Immigration Reform Political Action Committee says at its Web site.
The cost of care
Immigrants, particularly illegals, also impose “huge costs” on the U.S. health care system, especially in states bordering Mexico, says Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
According to a survey by the American Hospital Association (AHA), hospitals in 24 Southwest border counties in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico reported uncompensated care totaling nearly $832 million in 2000.
A subsequent report prepared for the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition determined that about 25 percent of those nonreimbursed costs resulted from emergency medical treatment provided to undocumented immigrants.
Ray Borane, mayor of Douglas, Ariz., says he knows about those financial burdens firsthand.
“The city of Douglas is the major crossing point for illegals ... and there have been some people who have come over here specifically to get dialysis or complicated eye surgery. They’ve established illegal residency in this country in order to thrive off the health care system,” he said, adding, “Illegals and undocumented immigrants don’t have any health insurance. We’ve never been reimbursed for their care, and the federal government has looked the other way, so they are not held responsible.”
However, Mr. Borane, a Democrat, said medical services available for illegals have been “drastically” reduced since Arizona voters enacted Proposition 200 last November, which requires proof of U.S. citizenship for those seeking medical treatment or other public services in that state.
For the most part, however, “hospitals treat first and bill later, and they aren’t required to ask about a person’s citizenship before providing treatment,” said Tiffany Himmelreich, spokeswoman for the Ohio Hospital Association.
She said hospitals in that state treat their share of immigrants, particularly Somalis in Columbus and “many Latin farm workers in the Cleveland and Toledo areas.” She was unable to say how many lack health insurance.
Under new federal Medicare rules that took effect Oct. 1, medical workers are required to “make a good-faith effort to obtain citizenship information” from patients who receive emergency care in hospitals or doctors’ offices. The rules were issued in July after Congress established a $1 billion immigrant health program under the 2003 Medicare law to assist those who provide emergency care to undocumented aliens.
Advocates for illegals fear the new rules will drive those without papers underground, and they will not get the health services they need. They are seeking legislation that would prohibit health care providers from informing immigration officials about people who are in this country illegally.
A report by CIS, using 2004 data, “found that 35 percent of [all] immigrants don’t have health insurance, and an estimated 65 percent of illegals don’t have it,” Mr. Camarota said. In contrast, fewer than 13 percent of U.S. natives and their children lack health insurance, the analysis showed. In 2002, he said, the federal government spent $2.5 billion to provide families of illegal immigrants with Medicaid and another $2.2 billion to provide medical treatment for uninsured illegals.
“State and local governments probably spent another $1.6 billion on top of that providing health insurance for illegal aliens,” said Mr. Camarota, whose group analyzes Census Bureau data.
The health system of Los Angeles County, Calif., has been described as the largest safety net for the uninsured in the nation.
“We have 2.5 million uninsured people in Los Angeles County out of a population of 9.6 million,” said Dr. Brian Johnston, a trustee of the Los Angeles County Medical Association.
California state law requires that counties provide medical care for the uninsured. “But we have the lowest rates of reimbursement for Medicaid of any program in the United States,” he said.
Dr. Johnston said the situation has been bleak for health providers and patients alike.
“In 2002, [emergency rooms] and trauma centers in California provided $520 million worth of medical care for which they received no reimbursement. About $150 million was lost in Los Angeles County alone,” he said. Those losses were 18 percent higher than in 2001, and those in 2001 were 16 percent ahead of 2000. “So this puts the entire system at risk,” Dr. Johnston said.
He noted that Los Angeles County experienced the closings of seven emergency rooms last year and 16 clinics the year before.
Although many of the uninsured people flooding emergency rooms and clinics in Los Angeles are illegal immigrants, Dr. Johnston doesn’t think most are trying to rip off the system.
“Illegals come here to work, and they do work. But they can’t get health insurance,” he said.
Screening at home
Some see stepped-up health screening in immigrants’ home countries or immigration bans as methods to attack imported health crises.
“I’m sympathetic to the plights of many states that are spending lots of resources for services for immigrants. But to deny people health care is counterproductive,” Dr. Tsou said.
He says it’s “necessary to detect these diseases early” in the foreign-born. But this country’s health care system makes that difficult, “since Medicaid is denied to legal immigrants for five years.”
“Pregnant immigrant women are examples of how this health care system is dysfunctional, since they are denied prenatal care. But their babies do receive Medicaid. We should give people medical care, regardless of their citizenship status,” Dr. Tsou said.
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CITIZENS TELL BUSH THEY ARE WILLING TO DO JOB HE WON’T TAKE
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The number of volunteers preparing to form a monthlong blockade on part of the Arizona-Mexico border in protest of the Bush administration’s failure to increase Border Patrol manpower has doubled to more than 400, a protest organizer said yesterday.
Noting that President Bush this week proposed in his 2006 budget the hiring of only 210 new Border Patrol agents, protest organizer Chris Simcox said the decision “clarified our message” that Mr. Bush has “once again ignored the will of the people.” The intelligence overhaul bill, signed into law by Mr. Bush, had authorized 2,000 new agents for each of the next five years.
“In trying to get this border secured, we have sent hundreds of e-mails and letters attempting to get Mr. Bush’s attention in every possible way,” said Mr. Simcox, publisher, owner and editor of the Tombstone Tumbleweed and a protest organizer. “But he has left us no choice but to do the job he refuses to do.”
Protest organizers have gathered an army of volunteers ready to spend 30 days on the Arizona-Mexico border beginning April 1 as part of the “Minuteman Project” - to highlight what they call America’s failure to control illegal immigration. The list of volunteers has nearly doubled in the past two weeks, with 444 men and women from 41 states set to man observation posts in the rugged Arizona desert.
“We demand that he gives the Border Patrol the resources it needs to secure our borders. Failing that, we are only doing what the president and the Department of Homeland Security have asked Americans to do: be vigilant, observant and report suspicious activity to the proper authorities,” Mr. Simcox said.
The number of assaults against agents assigned along the Arizona border is increasing. Agents on a 260-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, known as the Tucson sector, are experiencing two assaults every three days. More than 40 percent of the 1.15 million illegal aliens apprehended nationwide last year were caught in that sector.
Focusing on a 20-mile stretch of border lowlands in the San Pedro River Valley, near Naco, Ariz., 90 miles southeast of Tucson, the volunteers will be assigned to ground observation posts, aerial surveillance from 16 aircraft and a communications center to report illegal aliens crossing into the country.
The targeted area has become a high-traffic corridor for illegals headed north because it has water, fairly level ground, places to camp and wood to burn.
“Currently, about 5,000 ‘unapprehended’ illegal aliens trespass the
Arizona-Mexico border daily, and another 5,000 invade the United States from the Texas, California and New Mexico borders. That’s 10,000 a day ... over 3 million a year,” said James Gilchrist, another project organizer.
The event “will tune the American people into the shameful fact that 21st century minutemen/women have to help secure U.S. borders because the U.S. government refuses to provide our dutiful Border Patrol with the manpower and funding required to do so,” said Mr. Gilchrist, a retired certified public accountant in California.
Mr. Gilchrist said no plans exist for volunteers to confront the aliens, although federal and state law-enforcement authorities are concerned about their safety.
“We are always concerned about civilians who put themselves in danger,” said Border Patrol chief Michael Nicely, who heads the Tucson sector. “It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to picture what could happen.”
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, whose jurisdiction includes the targeted border area, also warned of violence against the volunteers, saying alien and drug smugglers violently challenge law-enforcement personnel on the border, “so I assure you they’ll take on anybody.”
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DISASTER RESOLUTION SENT TO IDAHO GOVERNOR
From Commissioner Vasquez: Disaster Resolution sent to Idaho Governor
Resolution No. 05-008
The Canyon County Board of Commissioners considered and adopted the following Resolution which shall be effective on the 18th day of January, 2005.
Upon the motion of Commissioner Vasquez and the second by Commissioner Ferdinand, the Board resolves as follows:
WHEREAS; Idaho Code 31-801 grants general powers and duties, subject to the restrictions of law, to the boards of county commissioners in their respective counties; and
WHEREAS; Idaho code 31-828, Confers upon the Canyon County Board of Commissioners the authority to do and perform all other acts and things required by law not in this title enumerated, or which may be necessary to the full discharge of the duties of chief executive authority of the County government, and
WHEREAS; Idaho Code 46-1011, Authorizes the declaration of a Local Disaster by the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners within their respective political subdivisions, and
WHEREAS; Idaho Code 46-1002 (3) provides, in part, that a “disaster” includes the imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury or loss of life or property resulting from, but not limited to explosion, riot, or hostile military or paramilitary action, and
WHEREAS; Canyon County has endured an increase of criminal activity through hostile acts of illegal aliens presently in Canyon County, which acts resulted in the discharge of firearms in the commission of violent acts upon American Citizens in Canyon County, bringing about the deaths of said citizens, and
WHEREAS, Canyon County in conjunction with the Idaho Southwest Heath District Health Department, have witnessed the infection of, or exposure to infection of Tuberculosis by and from the presence of illegal aliens detained by the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office, which exposure lead to the direct endangerment of Canyon County Sheriff’s Department Deputies, Detention Center, and Medical Staff, and
WHEREAS; One illegal alien detained by the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office was required to be released into Quarantine status, which Quarantine was declared by Idaho Southwest District Health Department, and
WHEREAS; Said Quarantine incurred expenses were, in part, provided for through Canyon County Taxpayer funds, and
WHEREAS; Federal law prohibits the expenditure of Federal funds on behalf of, or in the provision for any services to illegal aliens, which prohibition creates a non-funded mandate upon the counties in seeking to comply with conflicting state and federal law, and
WHEREAS; unfunded mandates, an estimated population of 34,000 illegal aliens in Idaho resulting in a 20% increase over the past five years of county welfare applications from illegal aliens, and proposed federal legislation drafted to grant amnesty to illegal aliens in the form of Agricultural Jobs, and
WHEREAS; The Board of County Commissioners has a duty to defend and protect the citizens of Canyon County from the threat of crime, foreign borne disease, sedition, invasion from armed or unarmed illegal aliens and other threats of natural and manmade disaster,
NOW THEREFORE; good cause having been shown, the Chairman of the Canyon County Board of County Commissioners hereby orders and declares that a disaster emergency in the form of imminent threat of invasion by armed or unarmed illegal aliens exists in Canyon County and the Board of County Commissioners hereby consents to said declaration and orders and ratifies the same. The Board further orders that this declaration of imminent threat of invasion by armed or unarmed illegal aliens disaster shall remain in effect until such time as the federal and state governments regain control of Idaho’s immigration population, both legal and illegal, or until otherwise terminated by the Board, whichever may occur first.
Motion Carried Unanimously.
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NO ILLEGAL LEFT BEHIND
By Diane M. Grassi
Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security nominee, will most likely be sworn in after an expected full Senate confirmation within the next week. He will still have much of an uphill climb ahead of him in overseeing the relatively new agency created in 2002. Former Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, was given few guidelines in merging the INS as well as 22 other agencies including the Secret Service and the Coast Guard, in an effort to implement better border security, port security, protecting our railroads, highways, waterways and energy plants with great haste.
The HSA also works in concert with the Transportation Security Agency, also newly created in November of 2001 shortly after the 9/11 attacks. And as communities and cities nationwide still struggle with absorbing the added expenses of security and oversight, the proper allocation of funds for first responders in high risk areas is still being deliberated on Capitol Hill.
Although the public is no longer bombarded with the color code alert system, phased out by Secretary Ridge prior to his departure, there is no question that holes remain in our homeland security with our national sovereignty at risk. All too often it comes down to an overactive political pendulum in the name of party expediency, leaving the public to suffer.
Recently we learned the Mexican Foreign Consulate issued a comic book style “how to manual” for illegal “immigrants” titled “A Guide for the Mexican Immigrant” with blow-by-blow advice on circumventing the U.S. Border Patrol on our southern border and U.S. authorities within our interior. Added to that is the acceptance by counties in California of the ‘matricula consular’ as legitimate IDs in the U.S., only needed by people who are not legally in the U.S. in the first place. Relying on the Mexican Consular ID for purposes of identification is tantamount to admitting that the bearer is in the U.S. illegally, as it is not recognized as a legal instrument in the U.S. Every non-citizen other than an illegal alien, which is the proper legal term, is required to possess identity documents issued by the U.S. government such as a valid visa.
The effective enforcement of our laws already on the books is critical to our security and survival, especially as we prosecute the on-going War On Terror. We seem intent on shoring up the borders of Iraq and spend billions of dollars on airport security, yet our government seems to have a blind spot when it comes to the sanctity of our own borders. As such we are more vulnerable to the terrorists we are fighting in the Middle East if we do not defend our nation’s borders.
Alien smugglers compromise the security of our borders by facilitating the illegal movement of aliens across them without being inspected as required by law. The smugglers are often violent, employing snipers to take out Border Patrol agents and endanger the lives of the aliens they smuggle in and for that reason alone our border requires beefed up security.
Such illegal aliens who gain entry into the U.S. who are not lawfully admitted nevertheless wind up on the streets of our cities and towns. They are not screened as they enter the U.S. and thus we have no record of their entry nor do we have a record of their presence here. While the majority of the illegal aliens who gain access to the U.S. in this fashion do so with the intention of simply gaining illegal employment, unfortunately our porous border is a sieve allowing drug dealers, terrorists and assorted felons into the U.S. as well, evading the inspections process.
The public needs to be informed about the efforts being made or not being made to apprehend the people who violate these laws and to enhance the enforcement of our borders not to diminish such security while forfeiting the lives of our Border Patrol agents. We are long past the point of recognizing the enormous cost to our social services, healthcare, schools, jobs, infrastructure and prisons we all must collectively bear brought by our unenforced laws. An unaccountable Congress and presidential administration barely addressed the topic during the past presidential and Congressional election cycle.
But as recently as the president’s State of the Union address, he once again used the misguided phrase, “jobs that Americans don’t want,” to justify his looking the other way when upwards of 5,000 illegal aliens enter our southern border each day. His ideology is a fallacy and only helps to jeopardize the health of our economy as well as the health of our national security. His Guest Worker Program proposal will only exacerbate the problem.
While the unenforcement of immigration laws is a big part of the problem, employers as well as small businesses and individuals also continue to evade the law. The phrase, “jobs that Americans don’t want,” is a travesty and is more about cooking the books than one actually not wanting to stand behind a hot stove. Many landscapers, for example, pay a decent wage for work once predominantly held by legal residents, but many avoid the law by not paying the proper Social Security or payroll taxes to the government. Therefore, they can afford to pay a $10.00 an hour wage to an illegal alien, which for a U.S. student or young person is almost twice the minimum wage, and is not a bad wage or a bad job to hold. Americans competing with illegals for unskilled labor jobs do not have a chance if a small businessman is looking to obfuscate paying into the system. It has nothing to do with “lazy Americans” but is rather about greed and unaccountability. And after all, who supposedly did these “low paying” jobs prior to just ten years ago when the illegal invasion started to reach its peak?
The recently passed overhauled intelligence bill known as the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act was signed into law on 12/17/04 by President Bush. It called for adding 2,000 Border Patrol agents each year for a period of five years beginning in fiscal year 2006 but will now not be funded by the president’s budget proposal just given to the Congress. Therefore instead of adding 2,000 agents per year it will total no more than 200 agents per year.
The bill was passed in response to the 9/11 Commission Report’s recommendations and the Senate hearings which followed the issuing of the report. Sadly, before Tom Ridge left office on 2/01/05 he stated, “It would be an insufficient use of homeland security funds,” when referring to adding the 2,000 agents. Much like with his No Child Left Behind Act, the president received much criticism by many members of both the House and the Senate, fearing his own mandate lacks the proper funding for his keynote legislation in order to be effective.
House Judiciary Chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (WI-R), introduced the Real ID Act of 2005 or H.R. 418, which was successfully passed by the House of Representatives on 2/10/05. It readdresses the use of a driver’s license as a valid form of identification for a federal official. Sensenbrenner and Rep. Duncan Hunter (CA-R) were fighting for such language in the 2004 intelligence bill but it was eventually yanked. “It will establish tough rules for confirming identity before temporary driver’s licenses are issued” according to Sensenbrenner. In addition the bill calls for the rebuilding of a 3-mile border fence at Imperial Beach bordering San Diego County which had been torn down. Environmentalists are now opposing reestablishment of the fence for their own reasons. The bill also provides for a mechanism for the deportation of illegal aliens seeking asylum, if proven necessary. Although this added legislation looks like a real effort to right perceived oversights in the 2004 Act, it will have difficulty passing in the Senate, and still does little in the way of securing our borders.
And while a lot of glad handing continues on Capitol Hill, the president’s new budget proposal also would require the security of our ports to compete with other transit systems for security grants in contrast to the Maritime Security Act of 2004, which would have supplied the necessary funding for port security on its own through 2009, but was tabled by the Congress at the end of 2004.
Neither grandiose promises by the president or the Congress will fulfill priority funding for our nation’s security. It should not come down to what sells at the moment with promises of funding legislation without serious intent. Our security policy is a national issue first and one of the few areas where partisanship was to be checked at the door. Especially while still at war, while still hunting down the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks, our security laws should be immune to the conflicts imposed by political correctness, pork barreling legislation and back-pedaling justice.
And as the Republican Party fondly looks upon illegal aliens as a reservoir for cheap labor, and the Democratic Party looks to them as a future voting block, neither will take a stand, as party self-interests sadly take precedence over the best interests of the American people once again. Not until that seriously changes, our border policies and security will continue to be compromised and leaving us at unnecessary risk.
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