Mr. Moderate

The politicians in Washington are now preaching that, because the American people persuaded their elected representatives to kill the “grand compromise” bill (which was neither grand nor a broad compromise, having been hammered out in secret by a small group of senators) we must now accept that nothing will be done about illegal immigration until 2009.

Says who?

Secretary Chertoff said that “some necessary tools … were left on the floor of the Senate” when the Senate killed that bill. Who says that those tools cannot be enacted one by one? Who declares that it is “all or nothing” with respect to the bill that was just killed (for the second time)? Can’t the people demand that Secretary Chertoff receive all of the “necessary tools” without enacting any of the highly-objectionable aspects of this huge piece of legislation?

There was just another set of terror attacks in the United Kingdom. It is estimated that thousands of terrorists have snuck across our porous border with Mexico since September 11, 2001. It is just a matter of time before there is another significant terror attack here in the United States. Are we ever going to take the so-called “war on terror” seriously enough to close down our border with Mexico? Apparently not so long as big business in the United States continues to get wealthy by exploiting illegal immigrant workers!!! So you see, it is big business that has paid off our elected representatives in Washington DC to hold all of us hostage to their economic interests! If the voters had their way, the border would be closed already, as a result of prior laws. Laws which, I might add, the Bush Administration refuses to enforce or abide by in various ways.

So, what is next? In my view, we can’t stop here just because that horrid bill was killed (for the second time). We must continue to lobby our Congress members and Senators to enact meaningful border enforcement provisions, including meaningful employment verification provisions with meaningful employer penalties for violating those provisions.

We must give Secretary Chertoff all of his “necessary tools” for border and employment enforcement. We can’t just sit back and bask in the good feelings that come from killing the atrocity that Congress and President Bush were ready to foist upon us. We need to move forward towards obtaining actually secure borders that keep out terrorists and drug traffickers as well as illegal workers. If we fail to do this, we might not have a United States of America two decades into the future.