December 1, 2006
The chickens from the mid-term elections have come home to roost. As much as both parties tried to ignore the 400-pound gorilla in the room, the illegal immigration issue is now taking center stage in what will be a disastrous first 100 days of the newly convened Congress in January. The House Republicans who crafted real illegal immigration reform a year ago that would crack down on the hiring of and pandering to illegals along with securing the borders have been pushed aside for “San Fran Nan” Pelosi and her cadre of capitulators.
Yet, the Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. Following President Bush to nearly sycophantic heights, even the House Republicans waited until four years into his presidency before they even began to tackle the paramount problem of our time. Given the task of pushing legislation through that would save us from the untold misery of either ignoring the problem or, worse, exacerbating it by granting amnesty to millions of lawbreakers, the Senate took a sharp knife and reopened the wound. Senator Bill Frist, who fashioned himself as a compromiser, in the end compromised much more than legislation in the Senate. He compromised the very future and security of this country. I suspect he heard as much when he returned to Tennessee after the lashing of the elections leading to his decision not to seek the presidency.
Although there were enough conservatives in Congress to stick their fingers in the dam of illegal immigration, they are no longer. Relegated to sit and watch while the special interests of big business and big votes divvy up the spoils of victory, they can do nothing but shake their heads and wonder why they didn't act in time.
In the late ‘80s, Congress granted amnesty to some 2 million illegal aliens. That led to an explosion of illegals coming to America to the tune of between 12 and 20 million more. The net cost of illegal immigration – the combined costs of education, incarceration, medical costs, etc., minus the taxes paid by illegal aliens – is estimated to be anywhere from $45 billion to $60 billion per year . Another explosion like that will devastate this country. Not to mention the crime from unspeakably brutal gangs like MS-13, who have spread their deadly influence to almost every state in the Union . New figures show that 12 Americans are murdered by illegal aliens each day!
“Years of dawdling have worsened our border security and made it harder to fix this broken system,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy told the Washington Times. Leahy will head the Judiciary Committee next year. His solution to fixing this ‘broken system' is to wave the magic wand of amnesty. “We should not let partisan politics and intolerance continue to delay and derail effective reform.” Intolerant. That's what those of us who champion this cause are labeled by politicians who see not waves of illegal immigrants streaming across our borders but potential voters.
Illegal immigration touches practically every major problem we have in this country. The rising cost of healthcare is greatly exacerbated by illegals with no insurance clogging our emergency rooms and, in some cases, causing hospitals to close their doors. They add greatly to the cost of public education. Although they make up about five percent of our population, estimates are they make up anywhere from 17 to 30 percent of the prison population. We also now know that terrorists have infiltrated the illegal alien culture and have been granted passage into this country posing a direct threat to the very survival of America .
Am I intolerant? You bet.