Will a wall work?

[bd]

New guy says no.........

New border official opposes immigration fence
‘It’s not practical,’ security head says of proposed wall along Mexican line
The Associated Press


Updated: 7:34 p.m. ET June 20, 2006
TUCSON, Ariz. - Two weeks on the job, the new head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday he does not favor building a huge wall along the Mexican border.

“I don’t support, I don’t believe the administration supports a wall,” Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said in Tucson, where he met with patrol officials and agents before embarking on a tour across the Arizona desert.

Asked about proposals in Senate- and House-approved immigration measures to build security walls 380 or 700 miles long, respectively, Basham said, “It doesn’t make sense, it’s not practical.”

As Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano put it, “You build a 50-foot wall, somebody will find a 51-foot ladder,” he said.


Fencing, including so-called smart fencing with imbedded sensors, vehicle barriers and lighting will be part of the infrastructure improvements needed, Basham said. But a layered approach that mixes technology and air operations for observation and responding to illegal crossings will be necessary to control of the border, he said.

“There is not a silver bullet out there, there’s not one answer,” he said.

Basham is touring the Southwest border region for a firsthand look at the challenges the Border Patrol is facing as National Guard troops arrive to begin assisting efforts to control the border.

“You can sit in Washington, D.C., and you can get briefings and you can look at maps and hear from people what the challenges are out here,” Basham said. “But until you get up there and you look and you see what kind of terrain you’re dealing with and the difficulties of it, you really don’t have a true appreciation.”

© 2006 The Associated Press.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13447296/


What do you think?

bd

[NewXD40fun]

I thought the “Wall” was just a euphemism for what is necessary to define our border and prevent illegal infiltration. I think most people think this, but ya never know.



Tom

[NewXD40fun]

G R E A T - N E W S


GOP Plans Hearings on Issue of Immigrants
Field Sessions May Delay Talks on Hill

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

In a move that could bury President Bush's high-profile effort to overhaul immigration law until after the midterm elections, House GOP leaders yesterday announced a series of field hearings during the August recess, pushing off final negotiations on a bill until fall at the earliest.

The announcement was the clearest sign yet that House Republicans have largely given up on passing a broad rewrite of the nation's immigration laws this year. They believe that their get-tough approach -- including building a wall along the border with Mexico and deporting millions of illegal immigrants -- is far more popular with voters than the approach backed by Bush and the Senate, which would create a guest-worker program and allow many illegal immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship.

"I'm not putting any timeline on this thing," Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said after a House meeting on immigration. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)

House GOP leaders said yesterday that several committee chairmen will hold field hearings in congressional districts in the Southwest, the South and other areas where the issue of illegal immigration is especially potent. Those hearings will take place before the start of the formal negotiating process between the House and Senate, which could take months to complete given the complexity of the issue and the competing business, labor and social concerns.

"I'm not putting any timeline on this thing, but I think we need this thing done right," Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said after a House leadership strategy session.

Senate negotiators played down the hearings, noting that informal talks had already started between the House and the Senate. "There's a general recognition that we need a bill," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a key backer of the Senate legislation. "We're going to get together. We're going to sit down and try to work it all out."

Asked whether a deal could be struck with the Senate this fall, in the throes of a difficult reelection season, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) allowed: "I think that's possible. I don't know how likely it is."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino sought to put the House announcement in a positive light, saying the field hearings could "possibly provide an opportunity to air out issues" that she conceded are "complex." But she added: "The president is undeterred in his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform."

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who is leading the fight against the Senate plan, said: "Odds were long that any so-called 'compromise bill' would get to the president's desk this year. . . . The nail was already put in the coffin of the Senate's amnesty plan. These hearings probably lowered it into the grave."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the main authors of the Senate plan, called the announcement "a cynical delaying tactic."

The House move was widely viewed as a slap at Bush, who is seeking a comprehensive immigration bill along the lines of the one approved by the Senate on May 25, which would tighten border controls, establish a guest-worker program for future immigrants and offer most of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal residents a chance to become citizens. The announcement came shortly after Bush left on a trip to Europe.

House Republicans have long frowned upon the president's approach. In December, they passed a bill that would tighten border controls, clamp down on employers who hire undocumented workers, and declare illegal immigrants and those who assist them to be felons. Their position was solidified this month after Republican Brian Bilbray defeated Democrat Francine Busby by running against Bush's immigration plan in a hard-fought special election to replace imprisoned former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.).

Since then, House leaders have dragged their feet on naming negotiators to a House-Senate conference to reconcile the chambers' two bills. The field hearings, which will be conducted through Labor Day, will be held at the discretion of the chairmen of the Judiciary Committee, the Homeland Security Committee, the Government Reform Committee and any other House committee that can demonstrate tangential jurisdiction over immigration, GOP leaders said.

GOP aides said the topics could include the Senate's decision to allow undocumented workers to keep Social Security benefits earned while they worked in the country illegally; the Senate requirement that illegal workers be required to pay taxes on three of their last five years of income to become eligible to apply for citizenship; and the assertion that the Senate plan could allow as many as 100 million new immigrants into the country over the next 20 years.

"We clearly want to solve this problem," said House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "But the House bill is very different than the Senate bill, and I think we want to have a clear understanding of what is in that bill."

The field hearings "will be about forming a credible strategy and a credible plan to secure the borders," said Rep. Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.), the House GOP's chief deputy whip. "That's what the issue is. Once we can accomplish that, we can begin to talk about the rest of the equation, the 12 million illegals here, et cetera."

Hastert added: "Right now, I haven't heard a lot of pressure to have a path to citizenship."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062000926.html

A sure sign that this is a good move is that Ted Kennedy is disappointed, probably because he could lose the illegal alien vote for the Democrats in November.



This could turn out as well as the Harriet Myers debacle! When we Conservatives speak the Republican Congress listens....for the most part, sooner or later, eventually....



Tom

[Mark S.]

How many Gringos do you think would hire on to build a wall at the border in 115 degree heat?

[bd]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

How many Gringos do you think would hire on to build a wall at the border in 115 degree heat?

Maybe we can extend the National Guard's rotations to include some wall building in between Iraq assignments.

bd

[beardman2]

I think a proper wall will decrease a lot of the crossing. Or at least reduce the manpower required to patrol those areas. It will probably push them into ocean crossings. However something has to be done. People are dieing and bad people are getting in. We need to stop the slavery of these people in our country and their treatment as they try to get into ours.

Its time for the president and congress to get their crap together.

[bigun]

Thats why I support a mine field. The National Gaurd is there let the engineers do what they do best, BLOW **** UP. This will have the added benifit of stopping those pesky border incursions by the Mexican Military. Plus they would have to change the name of the smugglers from Coyote's to Wiley Coyote's. Think of the entertainment value, pipe a live feed into CNN and on nights when there's nothing on TV you'd have something to watch. And just so there's no talk of racial biggotry do the same on the Canadian border. Tongue firmly in cheek

[amaverick]

Originally Posted by beardman2

I think a proper wall will decrease a lot of the crossing. Or at least reduce the manpower required to patrol those areas. It will probably push them into ocean crossings. However something has to be done. People are dieing and bad people are getting in. We need to stop the slavery of these people in our country and their treatment as they try to get into ours.

Its time for the president and congress to get their crap together.

Gee, they have only had 5 years to get their $hit together, but....
Today they could not agree on raising the minimum wage to a livable sum or could they even agree in immigration, Republicans fighting with other Republicans, I love it.

[VTJames]

Originally Posted by amaverick

Gee, they have only had 5 years to get their $hit together, but....
Today they could not agree on raising the minimum wage to a livable sum or could they even agree in immigration, Republicans fighting with other Republicans, I love it.

Thank God that the Republicans can count on the Democrats to be so woefully inadequet in everything they do that they can't take advantage of the fact that we've got an unpopular President that's turned his back on the voting base and much of the "Republican Majority" is turning out to be RINOs. That'll give us a chance to get some real Republicans in office this November while the Dems are still trying to formulate a plan.

[KP Ling]

No.

Now what will work:

1) No social benefits for illegals. You can not go to school, draw social security, get free medical care (emergency only, everything else is on the hospital itself), obtain a driver's license.

2) Enact laws exactly like Mexico's: one year in prison and $16,000 in fines before deportation if you are caught in the country illegally. If it is found you are in the country more than one year illegally then you get a minimum of five years in prison and $50,000 or more in fines before you are deported. It's not worth risking losing years of salary to come find a better job when you will be broker than when you left your home country if caught.

3) Businesses who hire illegal aliens lose their business and tax licenses. All of its assets are seized and liquidated to pay for the trials, incarceration, and deportation costs of the illegals they have hired. I think a fine would be excessive after this.

4) Businesses that need ID to do business, such as banks and real estate/rental landlords, and conduct business with people they know to be illegal also lose their business license and pay a per person fine. $1000 sounds reasonable to begin with. For example, a family of 6 shows up to rent one of your apartments and all they have are foreign documents, or more likely they have a driver license #0000001 or a SSN with all zeros and you let them lease an apartment. You lose your business license and pay $6000 dollars in fines. Let an illegal alien open a bank account and that money in the account is seized and you get a fine.

On a side note, I closed out my bank account and moved banks. My old bank has a big poster in their lobby. I speak Spanish and read it. It had a sufficiently friendly looking hispanic woman on it holding up documentation from Mexico. The poster explained, in Spanish, that it did not matter, you could open up an account and they would honor your foreign ID without proof of your legal status. I wish I could so easily commit crime and get ignored or have an entire sector of society (business interests) as my accomplice.