| ...And our politicians have none. President Bush
has little and for the first time in recent memory Washington is not
reacting to the polls. They are in fact reacting 500,000 illegal aliens,
high school students and your usual collection of bleeding heart liberals.
No one is buying any of it. The first question everyone has is how will you enforce your plan. The second is why should we believe you? The Simpson-Mazzoli bill (1986) was, in essence a reforming of the Hart-Celler Bill (1965). And today we are attempting to reform Simpson-Mazzoli. In other words these bills, however sound or flawed were never enforced. They each included the language "illegal immigration and 40 years on we are inundated with them. Any plan which calls for guest workers to return home after a certain time period is getting scoffed at because no one believes these guest workers would be forced to comply and return to their native country. When an illegal is caught he is given a date for an immigration hearing and then released. they don't show up and continue to drain the economy. What makes the politicians think these guest workers will leave on the date given to them? Now you may ask yourself why are the politicians reacting to the protesters? Because Latinos are the fastest growing voter group in the nation and neither party wants to alienate them. Remember Goldwater failed to back civil rights in 1964 and Republicans have only recently begun attracting the black vote. This is could be a no win situation for Conservatives. Sacrificing the majority in November for tough immigration legislation is a viable trade. however another 10-20 years of liberal rule would cripple the country in so many ways. However so would the continued influx of illegal immigrants. We are paying for their services and they in turn send half their pay back to Mexico because Presidente Fox can't get a handle on his country. So what is the answer? Sadly this is a black and white situation. We cannot continue to allow these people in our country undocumented. Presidente Fox claims he cannot prevent his people spilling over the border however he does when it comes to his southern borders. Double standard? We know it is not viable to remove those already here illegally. Each case takes on average six months from arrest to deportation. And we cannot nor do I advocate simply rounding them up and treating the like a herd of cattle. I fear the guest worker program is the only way. however it has to be enforced or in another twenty years we will see another plan to enforce whatever we pass. If we simply enforced the laws previously passed we would not be in the current situation. Stronger boarder control would have been sufficient. Now we have a no win situation for all. -Bert |