Border crossings should go down now

Military at the border:

Iranians at the southern border? That checks

Iranians trying to illegally enter the United States through the open southern border, potentially (likely) with terrorism on their minds. That checks. Who knew that might happen? Well to start, president Trump, oh, and also pretty much everyone with common sense.

This is your border

This is happening at the border

 This is merely a tiny fraction of the problem:

America cannot be a nation if there are no borders. It will collapse, and maybe that's exactly why the left want open borders. 

The administration is anti-American and anti-humanitarian

These people are being used.  A good administration would not allow this to happen, let alone encourage it for political gain.

Ask yourself, if most of these illegal immigrants are Haitian, why are they at the Texas border?

The border crisis is worse than you know

 It's not a challenge, it's a crisis. Via Daily Wire:

Border security in Mexico is working

3:05 -- "...closed the crossing's large metal gates to keep them out."  Sounds a lot like walls and barriers work.

Bordering on Insanity

While Democrats favor sanctuary cities, no border wall, allowing illegal immigrants to vote and receive free health care, and even abolishing ICE, some sanity is perhaps starting to take hold. While American immigration and enforcement is bordering on insanity it may finally be starting to head in the right direction.  This as a result of a federal Appeals Court decision (via Gateway Pundit):

A panel of three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit cited many different reasons for allowing the migrants to stay in Mexico while they wait for an immigration judge to hear their cases.

...Last month Judge Richard Seeborg blocked President Trump’s policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico as they wait their turn for an immigration judge to hear their cases. 

Judge Seeborg, an Obama appointee in San Francisco, granted a request by a civil liberties group that sued the Trump Administration on behalf of 11 asylum seekers from Central America.

The lawsuit claims the Trump Administration violated US law by failing to properly evaluate the dangers that migrants face in Mexico — it also accuses DHS officials of depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum.

Tuesday’s ruling in favor of the Trump administration will stay in effect until the case continues before the appeals court.

This is a far cry from an all encompassing victory, but it does at least acknowledge the rule of law and coming from the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, it's a surprise.  With the New York Times recently recognizing that there is indeed a border crisis and that there is a need for a wall, perhaps the fog of the progressive liberal daze for more progressive voters, regardless of legality, is starting to lift.  But don't hold your breath.  Things may just have gotten so bad that they have merely decided to gear down their drive for a little while.

America - asinine preponderance of regulation, and Powerball

I'd love to play the Powerball lottery and win over a billion dollars.  Being Canadian I can play, I just could not collect the prize if I won it.  Why? Stupid regulation in a country that's top heavy with regulation and lawyers (no offense to William A. Jacobson intended) prevent it.

Here's the problem.  The Powerball lottery, which I completely understand I have no chance of winning, is not restricted to Americans.  Anyone can buy a ticket, and anyone in fact, can win it.  The problem is that while you can buy a ticket, and you can return to Canada with the ticket (or any other country for that matter), you are not legally allowed to bring the ticket back into the United States to collect your winnings.  The ticket can be confiscated at the border.

An obscure law prevents you from bringing the ticket back in.  It's immoral. Lottery tickets are specifically mentioned.  It's quite ironic since the ticket originated in the United States.

Border guards have been "nit-picky" about it;

At least one B.C. man has run into problems in the past for trying to take lottery tickets into the U.S.

Conda Reddy says he had nine B.C. lottery tickets confiscated while trying to cross the border in December. The agency has since returned the tickets, as well as his Nexus card, which was taken during the incident.

"...if (border crossing guards) want to be nitpicky, they could enforce that obscure law and take them," he said. "They have the right to."

Lottery officials are scrambling to  try and ensure Canadians can buy the tickets and not have to worry about confiscation if they return to collect winnings with the tickets.  Good on them.  They're seeing the bigger picture - free revenue from foreign suckers players.  They're also seeing more.

What some Americans don't realize is that the Powerball lottery is a big story outside of the United States too.  And the rules allowing foreigners to play but preventing them from winning - after having spent money in America to participate - makes America look petty and bureaucratic.  It's been allover the news up here. 

And it all comes down too to much overly intrusive regulation.  A rule that is overly specific and while perhaps even good intentioned, clearly unworkable identifies a gap.  A multi-state lottery that generates revenue for states at odds with border security which is with the idea of free commerce, and just being neighborly is a sign of over-regulation or at least poorly thought out regulation.

Fix it.  I want to give you a little bit of my money for a chance to dream, America.  It's free money for you.  True, the lotteries here are not taxed at all, but they don't ever get north of $60 million.  Plus, I can guarantee you that if I won a billion dollars (or more), I'd try my hardest to repatriate the money with America.  I'm sure with that kind of money your broken immigration system would let me in to become a citizen very quickly. I'd be totally happy with being an American. I bet I'm not alone in any of that thinking.

One other thought - if you want to sell more, particularly outside of America, consider making it possible to purchase tickets  online.  I get it, the buyers could be from ISIS, but all you have to do is add just one more law that lottery winners must be vetted by Homeland Security prior to collecting their winnings.... (see what I did there?)

Meanwhile - good luck to everyone with Powerball tickets for tonight, sincerely.

Turkey Rebuts Obama

Ha! Shut your mouth and shut your own border, then we'll talk.

Bizarro World America

Blame...Canada???

I've always said I wanted to become an American citizen.  The country is truly great.  Other than the Democratic party and it's destructive progressivist influence, what's not to love about the country? I've said that someday I will try to become an American citizen, and even joked that given the left's push for amnesty I might go illegally and end up voting against them once they grant me a path to citizenship.  I'd never do that.  But it seems like Canada is receiving the brunt of the U.S. government's border protection policy.  Mexican gangs are killing people along the U.S. border (apparently with weapons provided to them by the Department of Justice - no kidding), millions of Mexicans have streamed across the border to take jobs provided for illegal aliens, to draw welfare or to commit felonious crimes. Don't try to say they are streaming across the border illegally to engage in legal activities.  They by definition, can't.  Drugs pour across the southern U.S. border with a volume akin to Niagara Falls.  Iran is supposedly sending ships to patrol the Gulf of Mexico.  Clearly the Canadian border needs protection.

U.S. Border and Customs "Efficiency"

I'm sure being a customs agent is no picnic, especially in light of what has happened with terrorism over the last decade. But just like the TSA agents groping people, border security agents along the Canadian border don't seem to understand that people going to shop in the United States are not your enemies.

Conservative ju-jitsu

If we are required to look at the stimulus package as a fait accomplis then what could we do as a political movement to mitigate the dollar allocation? Firstly, there's the question of how would it be possible to make an impact. In short, if you know the money is gone and a filibuster is either not in the cards and/or of no consequence, then jump in with both feet on the details. Agree to the stimulus package and offer bi-partisan support in the spirit of co-operation and new found newness of the new political conviviality. You've played along with the change portion of the program. See, everybody wants change, even Republicans. We aren't obstructionist, now let's get to work, and work hard on the specifics.

That's where, having bought some goodwill we can make some suggestions that are more constructive (literally) than those of say Robert Reich. He doesn't want bailout money going to white male construction workers. As an aside does that mean all the infrastructure money going to roads would result in highway improvements being completed by women and/or ethnic minorities? I'm just asking, Robert.

So the infrastructure that needs to be built, might that not include the uncompleted 700 mile border fence project? It was only in the $10's of billions. Now that we are going to spend like drunken sailors, or rather, concerned paternalistic federal sponsors of America, let's just up the penny ante on that and build a full fledged 2100 mile wall big enough to secure America's southern border. Or don't we care about illegal immigration and the rule of law?

Speaking of law, what about spending some of it on law enforcement? Officers on the streets is jobs right away rather than in 24 months typical of infrastructure. What about spending some of it on the sciences that have supposedly withered under Bush, but in immediate payoff areas relative to jobs - the Center For Disease Control, NASA. Not wind farm subsidies. How about putting a bunch of that infrastructure money into nuclear power? Energy independence is not going to go away as an issue just because the price of oil has retreated. Or how about subsidizing off-shore drilling or ANWAR drilling? That one won't fly because it's ridiculous to Democrats, but it might be fun to throw out there to make a point about how ludicrous some of their ideas seem to be to us. And we might get another sore winner "I won" moment out of someone on the left, and get some good negative exposure of their better-than-you attitude.

Holistically, this would at least help minimize wasted spending in areas counter productive to conservatives and America. These aren't the ideal conservative solutions to the economy and government but they are legitimate alternatives to worse uses of the super-deficit Americans are all about to swallow. Of course of of this depends on Republicans not being shut out completely.

Border Security - Part 2

Part 2 - What to do about the border

Does America need a security fence? Something like this one (a portion of the actual fence)?

Honestly, I don't think one like this will do, if a fence is necessary. To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, "That's not a fence, this is a fence."

The Berlin Wall, now that's a fence.

The Great Wall of China, that's a fence.

The Spanish wall in Ceuta and Mellila. That's a fence.

Yes, there is illegal immigration in Europe. It comes from Africa, Muslim and non-Muslim Africa alike. Apparently no matter how much they hate your society they still want to come to the industrialized West.

So people with Mexican allegiances moving to the US and still considering themselves Mexican instead of American or even Mexican-American or are anti-American like La Raza are not a unique problem. And a border fence is not a unique solution.

Wanting to control the flow of illegal immigration while offering those attempting to immigrate legally a way to do so, is not inherently wrong. Offering those who have entered illegally amnesty at the expense of excluding those who have tried legal means to enter the country for work or to try to become citizens, is not only wrong it's immoral. It's rewarding illegal activity at the expense of those who follow the law. That's not just immoral it's also promoting the idea that skirting the law is fine because you can get away with it in the end. Any nation is a nation of laws. It's strength, it's rationale, it's raison d'etre, is shown through it's constitution and it's laws. If laws don't matter, what's left? By succumbing to the temptation of legalizing illegals for the sake of political gain, or simplicity or whatever other reason is a tacit endorsement of anarchy. Anarchy and a nation of laws cannot co-exist. They are polar opposites.

This is one of those weird instances where Democrats are beholden to those wanting to offer amnesty and therefore endorse a form of lawlessness but one of their major support groups is the legal profession because they so are in favor of stopping tort reform. It's one of those discrepancies you'd hope would blow up in the face of Democrats as the untenable deceit that it is. But not so. Their solution is to simply legalize the illegals and everyone is happy. Except of course the law abiding people of America, including legal Hispanic immigrants.

What's worse is that many Republicans fall in line with the amnesty crowd. Is it fatigue? Hopefully not. George Bush did reasonably well with Hispanics, so thinking that being inclusive he could turn part of the demographic to the GOP. But McCain supported amnesty initially and then as a second phase rather than immediate amnesty. He still fared poorer than Bush (if he'd maintained the level of Hispanic support Bush received, he could have won). But amnesty isn't THE issue with Hispanic voters. At least not for Republicans. There are far better ways to connect with that constituency and win their trust and support.

What about those who would argue that with globalization The American Dream has become a Global Dream and we are obligated to help our brothers to the south catch up with us? First off, that is no obligation. Other nations are not obligated to deal fairly with the US on trade issues and many blatantly avoid doing so. Why does the United States have some special obligation to bring everyone in the world up to the same bar level? We do not live in the United States of Earth. It's no obligation. Those who favor the international brotherhood approach suggest taking money for the fence and sending it to Mexico to build an infrastructure (better schools, roads, etc.)instead so that illegal immigrants will stay home and take advantage of opportunities there instead. In other words, they don't want illegals either, they'd just rather look more compassionate in their solution. Hypocrites. Besides, the amount of money it would take to bail out Mexico on top of bailing out the US economy would be crushing.

And then there are those who claim a fence is a potential environmental disaster. Where were these people when the Three Gorges Dam in China was built? Or the DMZ in Korea? Or for that matter the Berlin Wall or any office tower in any city in the world. They are either foolish Luddite hippies, or else uninformed or using that argument to mask their true reasons. It's not an environmental disaster. Chernobyl was an environmental disaster. Love Canal was an environmental disaster. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was an environmental disaster. And none were global in scale (though Chernobyl was pretty big). The Great Wall of China - does anyone think of it as an environmental disaster? Or a Wonder of the World? You don't hear about migrating pandas bouncing their heads off the Great Wall of China like lemmings in an inadvertent mass suicide. Is it because it was built thousands of years ago? The bar for avoiding the environmentalist hysteria apparently means that any construction must use stone and be built by hand. We're back to that whole hippie Luddite world view with that.

Democrats know that legalizing legals gives them a huge boost electorally. Republicans MUST NOT play into their hands. Move the fight for Hispanic voters to a smarter ground - education, legal immigration, businesses in the Latino communities, the basic tenets of conservative belief propound the opportunity for self-improvement. Sell the American Dream because it's an easy sell. The same people who want into America, legally or illegally obviously have the drive to improve their situation or they would not come. So they are prime candidates to believe that they can do it for themselves if they come legally.

What would a wall cost? Heck it's an infrastructure project. Maybe Obama and the Democrats could foot the bill. I bet it's not in their trillion dollar infrastructure plan. The cost, once regarded as steep, in light of the current budget numbers being tossed around like bean bags is quite inconsequential. If at the cost overrun price of $7 billion for the 700 miles of fence agreed upon, multiplied by 3 times to cover the entire border, and then doubled again for fun, would amount to $42 billion and more realistically it would probably be half that amount. Think about the job creation and think about the border security it would add. Not solve, but add. That's infrastructure Republicans could get behind.

In Part 3, I will discuss options for dealing with current illegals. It should be interesting because like everyone else, I have no clear and simple solution, so it may take a few posts before you finally see it turn up on this site.

Border Security basics

Let's start with the basics:

The United States of America, is a nation. Dictionary.com has as it's primary definition of nation, the following:

a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own

And according to the American Heritage Dictionary, sovereignty is defined as

A nation or state's supreme power within its borders. A government might respond, for example, to criticism from foreign governments of its treatment of its own citizens by citing its rights of sovereignty.

Dictionary.com, "sovereignty," in The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Source location: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sovereignty. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com. Accessed: January 06, 2009.

The United States, according to these definitions, has a sovereign right as a nation to take actions as a nation that are in the best interest of its citizens. By extension, it's 'legal' citizens. Furthermore, those actions will need to take many forms. National Security is an important aspect of the responsibilities of the U.S. government, which in itself covers a broad spectrum of things from National Defense to cryptography. But the security of the nation is also dependent on secure borders.

For example, it is necessary to ensure that drugs are not smuggled into the country. It is important to ensure terrorists cannot enter the country. It's important to ensure hazardous materials and spoiled food products and killer bees do not enter the country. There are myriad examples why control of one's own borders is imperative for national security, and of course, those things, as best as possible are all legitimately screened upon entry. So why not people?

Would it not be in the nation's sovereign interest to ensure that people enter legally, and those who enter legally are chosen for the right reasons? Whether those reasons are political asylum, needed labor skills or because of family ties, is a secondary issue (important, but for another time to discuss). And if it's true that the United States must act in it's sovereign interests as a nation, then it must control the flow of immigration and to a less direct extent, emigration at it's borders.

Whether someone arrived illegally today, or 6 years ago, the same underlying principle applies - the US must protect it's citizens in every way necessary, and illegal immigration can cause a number of problems for citizens (potential crime, potential cost burdens, employment displacement, and many others). Therefore the government MUST intercede at the border to ensure that those entering the country are on legitimate visitor visas (These include the B1, H1B, L1, E1, and E2 visas.) or are legally existing or becoming citizens or have Green Cards. It's the government's job to do this.

Border Security Temperature Check.

Having a porous border security system has allowed by some accounts 12 million illegal immigrants to be in the country. That's approximately 4% of the existing US Government census population. 1 in 25 people are in the country illegally, and roughly 57% of those illegal immigrants are from Mexico, and another 24% from Latin American countries. Combined that is about 9.7 million people. How many are in jobs illegally? How many are criminals? How many require medical attention annually, or subsidized schooling? Obviously if the US were connected by a common border with Asia, the demographics of the illegal immigrants would be vastly different. It's not about being xenophobic - it's about managing your national resources and your economy and enforcing your laws within the boundaries of your own sovereignty. There are obvious costs and there are hidden costs.

The national interest is not served by having them in the country simply because they want to be in America (yet still identify as Mexican/Chilean/Venezuelan/etc. in many cases). And this is a potentially gaping hidden cost. If you have an electrical engineer from Columbia who wants to get into America legally but cannot because of a quota, that quota is established based on what America believes it can handle in a given year. If 25,000 less illegals were here, another legitimate, skilled laborer could be in a job in America that might otherwise go unfilled.

Personally, I'd rather see a skilled tradesman with a Green Card working for Delta than an unskilled laborer working in an agriculture field making sub-minimum wage by an employer skirting the law in order to compete on price for his lettuce heads. And to argue that those lettuce heads will go unpicked otherwise is a misguided argument. The company will either use higher paid labor or find an American willing to work at below minimum wage to do the same job. We keep hearing they don't exist, but I'm sure they do. Alternately, the market-warping minimum wage could be abandoned or modified at least.

Immigration itself is not a bad thing, so long as the existing infrastructure can cope with the growth. Illegals make that growth harder to control and can only be offset by reducing the number of legitimate entrants.

Southern border security has been beefed up.

[Graphs below are from the Congressional Research Service Report For Congress - Border Security: The Role of the U.S. Border Patrol]

Border Patrol Appropriations have also risen dramatically.

Yet attacks on border patrol agents have gone up. Hopefully because of an increased presence and therefore increase exposure to illegal immigrants and not because of an increasingly violent migrant population.

And more importantly apprehensions have gone down.

The problem is that increasing border patrols isn't working. An estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants per year are entering the country, with no downturn in sight except for successful apprehensions. Money and bodies aren't the problem - the effectiveness of the methods being used is the problem. A better method exists for border security. One that works well with Obama's promised mega-super-duper-infrastructure-spending-pallooza.

Tomorrow I will continue with Part 2 - What to do about the border.