MORE IMMIGRATION MESS: But It’s Not Unsolvable
by John DeGroff
Clash Daily Contributor
What we’re seeing in our country now is what happens when a petulant, community organizer man-child with no real world experience is elected to our highest office without anyone even trying to vet his background. The only thing out of Barack Hussein Obama’s mouth that hasn’t been misleading, or a distortion, or an outright lie was what he said right at the end of his 2008 campaign: “We’re five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
Bad immigration policy will change this country in ways we’ve only just started to realize. By now, most people who are savvy enough to pay attention know that jobs are scarce and the unemployment numbers, especially for minorities (particularly blacks and Latinos) are staggering. So what’s Obama’s solution? Grant amnesty to millions of illegals. That’ll certainly help the job prospects of the unemployed.
It goes without saying….but let’s say it anyhow…that’s not how to solve the problem. Allowing people who shouldn’t be here in the first place to enter the job market makes no sense. And it’s not how past leaders dealt with the same issue.
Now, I’m not going to cite instances of immigration amnesties that were initiated under Reagan and Bush. Those have been discussed ad nauseum by all the liberal talking heads who are just trying to say “Bush (and Reagan) did it to!” No, I want to draw from instances further back in our history in order to make the point.
In 1954 during the Eisenhower administration, there was a government program called “Operation Wetback”. ( That was the actual name of the program…don’t call me a racist.) It had been brought to Ike’s attention that illegal immigration was becoming a problem. A large part of it was brought about by fruit and vegetable growers needing cheep labor, and utilizing illegal recruiting methods at the border to obtain that labor.
A concentrated effort by several federal agencies culminated in 1,078,168 apprehensions of illegals in the first year of the program alone. Thousands were jailed in Texas until deportation, while thousands more were placed on ships and sent to southern Mexico. By the second year of the program, there were only 242, 608 apprehensions.
However, by 1962, “Operation Wetback” was deemed something of a failure due in part to growers still importing illegals and circumventing the law whenever possible. But the numbers speak for themselves, showing what can be accomplished with proper leadership and guidance.
Going further back in history, in 1916, prior to American’s entry in to World War I, the Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa began conducting raids across the border. One particularly brutal raid that resulted in the death of American citizens was in Columbus, New Mexico.
On the orders of President Woodrow Wilson, General John Pershing was sent to the region to deal with the problem. Under Pershing’s command, a young lieutenant with three prototype armored vehicles managed to raid Villa’s camp, and kill three of Villa’s commanders. Villa himself managed to escape. The Americans then strapped the bodies of the three dead Mexican bandits to the hoods of vehicles and drove them back to Pershing’s camp. The young lieutenant in charge of this operation? George S. Patton.
Okay, so my point here in citing the Eisenhower and Patton references is that at one time in our history, we actually had leaders with cajones enough to deal with problems head on rather than play politics.
Now, even before the Republicans get control of the Senate, a test of their leadership and will is going to be shoved in their collective faces.
From the article previous to this in which I proposed a five point plan on dealing with immigration, I received a comment regarding another possible consideration. Any immigrant who comes here illegally and then comes forward to become legal, still has to obey the law in it’s entirety. Fail to do so and they forfeit the right to bring family here.
Another consideration is this. Let’s utilize the applicable parts of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (the RICO act), to deal with illegals. While the act was originally intended to go after the mob, it has been used to define racketeering activity to include:
–any act of bribery, counterfeiting, theft, embezzlement, fraud, (etc., et. al), covered under Federal Criminal Code (Title 18).
–bringing in, aiding or assisting aliens in illegally entering the country, if the act was for financial gain.
Since RICO has been tweaked to broaden it’s reach to include fraud, which illegals engage in to obtain false Social Security numbers and other forms of identification, that alone should provide ground for the federal government to go after illegals. Plus, according to RICO, anyone who is “aiding or assisting aliens…” is also guilty of a crime. Isn’t this enough to go after not only the illegals but also those who hire them, rent to them, and offer any form of assistance?
Whatever happened to the concept of our elected officials, on all levels, actually obeying the law? And does the word “illegal” mean anything, any more? Let’s pray that the Republicans can grow enough backbone to not only take on lawless officials from Obama on down, but to also start Operation Wetback II.
Image: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tats-Unis_pendant_la_Premi%C3%A8re_Guerre_ mondiale
