Border-control Democrats & President Bush

[Tigermike 3,065]

Border-control Democrats and President Bush

TODAY'S EDITORIAL

August 16, 2005

Democratic hopefuls for 2008 are sensing how vulnerable President Bush is on border control. The latest sign: New Mexico's politically shrewd governor, Bill Richardson, has made a partial about-face on the issue -- at least in words -- and is throwing money and attention at his state's southern border. If he makes a national comeback from the Energy Department security scandals that all but ruined his reputation in the final years of the Clinton administration, it will owe in part to a seeming shift on border control that mirrors the one that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made in December and then reneged upon.

  Mr. Richardson's record on the subject is the near antithesis of toughness. In 1996, as a New Mexico congressman, he voted against increases in border-control expenditures and against a work-verification program to discourage the hiring of illegals. His last few years as New Mexico governor have been more of the same. Responding to President Bush's 2004 State of the Union address, Mr. Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, criticized the president's guest-worker plan for "not help[ing] immigrant workers to obtain the golden dream: legalization and residency without impunity." That's one way of saying President Bush's guest-worker proposal, which conservative critics rightly call an effective amnesty, isn't expansive enough. As the state Minuteman leader, Clifford Alford, put it to local reporters last week, Mr. Richardson has "never done anything to secure the border and he's not doing anything now."

    This year Mr. Richardson began changing his tune. In March, he appeared on Fox News Sunday with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and called for "tough law enforcement, more border guards, a crackdown on illegal smuggling, better detection of those that overstay their visas, stolen/lost passports."

    Last week, after a tour of border areas, Mr. Richardson declared a state of emergency in four counties abutting Mexico, citing growing border-area violence, property damage, drug smuggling and problems with illegals crossing the border. He then invited Chris Simcox, a Minuteman leader, to discuss border control -- something Mr. Bush has not done and probably cannot do, having labeled them "vigilantes" in March -- and called on Mexico to bulldoze Las Chepas, a staging ground for illegals and smugglers.

  The moves are mostly symbolic: All they amount to immediately are a new homeland-security office, minor boosts for law enforcement and a fence to protect livestock in tiny Columbus, N.M. But as political theater, they are significant: They follow Mrs. Clinton's remarks in December that " not think that we have protected our borders or our ports... we can do more and we can do better -- I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants... People have to stop employing illegal immigrants."

    Since then, Mrs. Clinton has turned back toward left-liberal orthodoxy. Last month, she gave a fawning speech to the National Council of La Raza in which she endorsed the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minorities (DREAM) Act, which would guarantee illegals in-state college-tuition rates and also grant amnesty to tens of thousands of illegals who graduate from U.S. high schools. The border-control hawkishness had vanished.

    Mr. Richardson is no stranger to wedge issues, or to finessing policy as Mrs. Clinton did on the borders. He sells himself continuously as a tax-cutting Democrat, a notion the Cato Institute furthered in March when it gave him a "B" on its governors' fiscal-performance test, the best score for a Democrat. (Some local Republicans strenuously disagree with Cato's characterization, and maintain that Mr. Richardson's record on taxes is mediocre.) He now appears to be looking to snag a "border-control" Hispanic Democrat label to help a possible bid for the 2008 presidential election, which is looking stronger every day.

    Look for more Democrats to outflank President Bush on illegals and border control. If Bill Richardson can do it, so can the rest of the pack. Wouldn't it be nice if a few Republican presidential hopefuls would saddle up and join the posse down Mexico way?

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050815-101641-8774r.htm

[CCTAU 3,351]

Gotta pass laws that keep the children of illegal aliens from being US citizens. If you are here illegally and give birth, then that child is here illegally.

Need to have more volunterr citizens patrolling the borders. The govt needs to supply these groups with equipment (night vision, etc) to get the job done. If ole Fox down in Mexico doesn't like it, then he needs to set up his own border patrol.

[Tigermike 3,065]

Gotta pass laws that keep the children of illegal aliens from being US citizens. If you are here illegally and give birth, then that child is here illegally.

174458[/snapback]

We had a thread here a year or so ago and the libs were almost frothing that anyone would even suggest that. Children born here are citizens of this country and the darn repubs better remember that!

[TexasTiger 13,053]

Gotta pass laws that keep the children of illegal aliens from being US citizens. If you are here illegally and give birth, then that child is here illegally.

174458[/snapback]

We had a thread here a year or so ago and the libs were almost frothing that anyone would even suggest that. Children born here are citizens of this country and the darn repubs better remember that!

174469[/snapback]

I thought you guys believed in the strict construction of the Constitution?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[Tigermike 3,065]

Gotta pass laws that keep the children of illegal aliens from being US citizens. If you are here illegally and give birth, then that child is here illegally.

174458[/snapback]

We had a thread here a year or so ago and the libs were almost frothing that anyone would even suggest that. Children born here are citizens of this country and the darn repubs better remember that!

174469[/snapback]

I thought you guys believed in the strict construction of the Constitution?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

174477[/snapback]

And I thought you guys believed in obeying the law? If the parents are here illegally, then it would only be logical that any children born here were also illegal as well. But the three L's, logic, law and liberals, hardly ever coexist.

[TexasTiger 13,053]

Gotta pass laws that keep the children of illegal aliens from being US citizens. If you are here illegally and give birth, then that child is here illegally.

174458[/snapback]

We had a thread here a year or so ago and the libs were almost frothing that anyone would even suggest that. Children born here are citizens of this country and the darn repubs better remember that!

174469[/snapback]

I thought you guys believed in the strict construction of the Constitution?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

174477[/snapback]

And I thought you guys believed in obeying the law? If the parents are here illegally, then it would only be logical that any children born here were also illegal as well. But the three L's, logic, law and liberals, hardly ever coexist.

174516[/snapback]

That's an interesting interpretation to get around the letter of the Constituion. I guess you would legislate from the bench, given the chance.

[Tigermike 3,065]

Gotta pass laws that keep the children of illegal aliens from being US citizens. If you are here illegally and give birth, then that child is here illegally.

174458[/snapback]

We had a thread here a year or so ago and the libs were almost frothing that anyone would even suggest that. Children born here are citizens of this country and the darn repubs better remember that!

174469[/snapback]

I thought you guys believed in the strict construction of the Constitution?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

174477[/snapback]

And I thought you guys believed in obeying the law? If the parents are here illegally, then it would only be logical that any children born here were also illegal as well. But the three L's, logic, law and liberals, hardly ever coexist.

174516[/snapback]

That's an interesting interpretation to get around the letter of the Constituion. I guess you would legislate from the bench, given the chance.

174517[/snapback]

Since the Constitution says it is OK to illegally enter and stay in the United States, why is anyone worrying about it?

[Piglet 0]

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Since the Constitution says it is OK to illegally enter and stay in the United States, why is anyone worrying about it?

Actually the constitution says you're a citizen if you're born here. Doesn't say boo about crossing illegally. I guess that means the illegals are still illegals but those sneaky womblings whose parents are illegals, they get to be citizens unless we amend the Constitution.

Which raises the question, are we therefore supposed to send the adult illegals back where they came from and keep the children in the USA? Who's supposed to raise the newly born citizens? Government orphanages? Adoption? Send them back with their parents and let them come back when they're of age?

[Tigermike 3,065]

Actually the constitution says you're a citizen if you're born here.  Doesn't say boo about crossing illegally.  I guess that means the illegals are still  illegals but those sneaky womblings whose parents are illegals, they get to be citizens unless we amend the Constitution.

Which raises the question, are we therefore supposed to send the adult illegals back where they came from and keep the children in the USA? Who's supposed to raise the newly born citizens? Government orphanages? Adoption? Send them back with their parents and let them come back when they're of age?

174561[/snapback]

I know what the constitution says concerning children born in the US and I know what TT was saying. I am only questioning that I doubt if the constitution would cover illegal immigrants and their off spring. If they are here illegally, then why reward them simply because they know how to procreate. Do any of you think the writers of the constitution intended to reward illegal's with citizenship?

[WarTim 3,457]

Let's just let President Bush continue to "pack" the SC with conservatives. Then, we can RULE all.