El Paso Times reports: The time has come for the U.S. government to focus on other aspects of immigration besides enforcement, a panel of national security and law- enforcement experts said Tuesday. "While we have made unprecedented investments in security at the border, more enforcement resources alone will not make us more secure," said James W. Zig lar, ex-commissioner of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. The experts said an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants are living in the United States.
"Comprehensive immigration reform will allow law enforcement to focus limited resources on criminals who continue to evade the law, and help re-establish trust between law enforcement and everyone living in our communities," El Paso Chief of Police Greg Allen said.
Stewart Verdery, a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, said Tuesday's conference was timely because Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is scheduled to address the Senate Judiciary Committee today. She is expected to provide details about recent enforcement improvements, as well as the need for broader legislative reforms.
"While the vast majority of those who are here illegally are hard-working residents seeking to support their families, right now we don't have any way of differentiating those who come to work from those who are violent or repeat criminals," Ver dery said.
Allen said El Paso attained its ranking as the second- safest city of its size in the United States by developing close ties with community residents. "We don't want to seek out people only for their immigration status," he said. Ziglar said proposed immigration reform fell victim to partisan politics in 2006, mainly because of concerns over gaps in border security. However, he said, the government has made important strides during the past six years. For example, the annual budget for Customs and Border Protection doubled from $6 billion to $12 billion, and the number of armed Border Patrol agents increased to 20,000, most of them deployed to the southern border.
The federal government also completed 700 miles of border fencing, which incorporated technologies, physical barriers and other structures that helped agents deter illegal immigration. In recent years, the flow of undocumented immigrants has slowed because of increased enforcement and the recession. Further enforcement measures could see diminishing returns, Ziglar said. Border Patrol statistics for the El Paso sector show that apprehensions of undocumented immigrants have dropped by nearly half in recent years.
They aren't experts if they think there are only 12 million ILLEGAL ALIENS in this country. I noticed nothing was said about e-verify which would be a huge deterrant to more illegal immigration with or without any CIR. Why is that? It is as plain as the nose on your face that they want amnesty without any job deterrants to prevent any more from coming. It is an effing joke!
ReplyDeleteOur laws demand deportation of ANY ILLEGAL ALIENS not nit picking about whether or not they have violated any more of our laws after jumping our border. Not going after ALL of them is a slap in the face of the laws of this country and to the American people. There will be no rewarding immigration law breakers with yet another amnesty either. There will be a civil war if that ever happens.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteYou continue to make up your "facts" regardless of the actual facts.
Additionally, we ALL support everify and ask that employers use it. However, you cannot and should not make it a mandatory requirement by law because the system has problems. Anyone in process is excluded and the law prevents anyone in process to NOT be hired. Additionally, if there are any recording errors, until the error is corrected and until the individual is clearly in the system, they are excluded. There is far too much room for error and the people most impacted are latinos. That is the problem.!
Additionally, there is no such thing as "amnesty." That word was made up by the ANTIs to include anyone who is in process of legalization. Those here should have an opportunity and when they apply, get in line for legalization. This should NOT be considered "amnesty."
ReplyDeleteYou have said in the past that you do not support e-verify, period! Don't try to spin it now. E-verify is over 99% accurate and any gliches can be fixed in a short period of time. Why would it affect mostly Latinos? Please, explain.
ReplyDeleteI don't care if you call it legalization, amnesty or a jackpot. It all boils down to the same thing. It will allow immigration lawbreakers to stay in our country. So let's not play with words, ok?
The science of causality is an art of probability. For example, there are few scientists who will say "Smoking will kill you," but it's widely known that smoking will increase your probability of getting cancer or myriad other cardio-respiratory disorders. You might smoke 3 packs a day and live to be 100, but it's far less likely than if you quit smoking, ate right, and excercised.
ReplyDeleteAnthropogenic (people-caused) climate change is no different. We can't predict fully what the effects of dumping gigatons of carbon into our atmosphere will ultimately be because we don't yet fully understand how the climate functions. But just like you can't predict in your twenties whether those two packs a day will kill in your 50s or in your 90s, the correlation between smoking and illness, or the greenhouse gases we release and climate change, is strong enough to suggest that the most prudent option for our health would be to quit. Similarly, if people produce pollution, the prudent option is to stabilize population in the U.S. an in the world at large.
But consider that most of these fossil fuels are from ancient life. We know that the world was significantly warmer in the past, based on evidence of fossil fuels at the polar regions, suggesting that life was once abundant in these frigid extremes. We also know, based on geological evidence, that the atmosphere was much richer in carbon dioxide in those ages, as much as 6 times more carbon, suggesting a correlation between temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. It stands to reason, then, that if the fossil fuels we are burning now are essentially composed of that ancient atmospheric carbon, coverted to organic matter by photosynthesis before being trapped in sediment and fossilized into fossil fuels, then we are basically taking all that stored carbon and putting it back in our atmosphere.
The fact is, we don't really know exactly what this will do to our planet. But we do know, from the fossil evidence, that there is a definite link between carbon dioxide concentration and climate: historically, the more CO2, the higher the average global temperature.
Is this a hypothesis we really want to test?
Dee wrote, "you cannot and should not make it a mandatory requirement by law because the system has problems."
ReplyDeleteThere is no system like this that is not without a few problems. If you insist on perfection nothing will ever happen. If you really supported E- verify, you would want it implemented now across the board for all employers and all employees, both new and current. The checking doesn't have to be done overnight. We just need to begin. Some of the larger companies could have a computer program up and running that would submit all their employees at once electronically. Easily done by any competent programmer. In the meantime the personnel department could make it a routine check before any new employee is hired.
I think the reason some may feel that we will be approaching the point of diminishing returns is because no one has really gotten serious about enforcement. If we applied E-verify across the board as quickly as the employers can respond, confiscate fake IDs and green cards, and give 'em a free ride to the border for fingerprinting, photos and DNA samples before putting them to work on infrastructure for six months we would soon see that we are no where near the point of diminishing returns, especially if the errant employer pays the travel costs to the border.
ReplyDeleteWhat is lacking is a serious effort and the full support of all loyal citizens. Problem solved.
What are "the actual facts" you refer to in your response to anon?
ReplyDeleteSorting out felons from border jumpers is a waste of time and sure to be a victim of diminishing returns. The simple approach is if you are here illegally for any purpose, you will be denied a job and you will be out of here by the most expeditious process we can devise that honors humanity and the rights of the violators if they have any beyond a quick adjudication of each case and a limited amount of time for appeal.
ReplyDeleteDee wrote, "the people most impacted are latinos. That is the problem.!"
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it is from your ethnocentric point of view but why wouldn't they be the ones most impacted -- after all they are the ones who are here in the greatest numbers. But even if half of the 12 million were Canadians, the problem should be approached in the same even handed way.
Ziglar was a failure and is now trying to say that we need reform to paper over his failures. Put the right person in that job and give him the right authority and backing, and the failures would not have occurred.
ReplyDeleteNapo is another failure and she has been doing everything she could to weaken enforcement ever since she took office. Hell, she couldn't even handle her own borders in Arizona with any success. They've got the wrong people on the job and will never achieve success with the present weak-kneed approach. People will keep coming as long as there is another amnesty in the offing no matter what you call it. Let's just agree that an amnesty is any action that permits illegals to stay and work rather than returning home until they can obtain the proper documents. Then we need to see to it that existing visas are fully utilized by those employers who can demonstrate an actual need and who are willing to pay the same rate as they pay for citizen workers and provide full family healthcare coverage for their foreign workers.
ReplyDeleteThe title of this post should be the "failed" experts have spoken, the time for new leadership is NOW!
ReplyDeleteDeep Pessimism : Obama falls like a Coconut - Say good-by to social projects and Immigration Reform ( red hot topic )
ReplyDeleteWalking on a Minefield :
Let's assume that Mr Obama is not reelected. And that a Republican is elected as president : Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or Tom Tancredo. Sarah Palin would be better than the other men mentioned ( she has not shown Racial Hatred like the other Republican guys ). I am thinking of the least harm to America.
What Can Sarah Palin do in social matters as president ??, after Republicans have opposed everything social as "Welfare Queens", "Gifts for Minorities", Socialism, Communism, Nazism and Hitler ... Sarah could be the best and most intelligent person in the world, but what can she do with these legions of "antiSocial Projects" called Republicans ??
That would be the end of "Progressive America", the death of HOPE and the Return to George W. Bush II and the eternal warriors.
Is that impossible ??? ... I don't know but Mr Obama is losing popularity, he went up like a palm tree and now he falls like a coconut.
I guess ( no pontification ) that the gravest problem for America is Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iraq, not only internationally but also domestically. Because the fall of Mr Obama seems to be linked to the West Point speech and decision.
He hasn's satisfied the Right or the Left, the angels or the devils.
If Mr Obama continues like that say Good-Bye to Immigration Reform.
I think that many people from the Extreme Right and Extreme Left would agree with me. Mr Obama is becoming a hostage of the AfPak and Iraq events.
Health Care is the most logical and rational thing in the World. Even a super Republican has to agree that Healthy America is more productive. Health is an important economic issue, there are economic reasons why an Old Person should stay healthy, reasons of the heart, of wisdom, of family union, moral and ethical reasons, etc ...
But look at the Hate and the Mess against Mr Obama, only because of Health Care.
These are not Liberal or Conservative Thoughts. Or ProWar or antiWar thoughts.
It is common sense that Mr Obama would be feeding the flames of hate by throwing the gasoline of Immigration Reform. And that would help his defeat in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
From now on, Mr Obama should walk on eggs, specially in Military Matters and Military Expenses. The best advice to sink America is bomb Pakistan with drones, or invade Pakistan with soldiers. And Great "Pundits" with many Journalistic Prizes and Great Respect and Fame are advising that madness.
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