Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's recent comments on April 8, 2009 about a Mexican invasion are stupid. I wish there was a more appropriate word I could use to describe O'Reilly's claim that the U.S. is being invaded by Mexico. The dictionary definition of the word invasion, in this context is, "The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer." The definition of the word stupid is, "acting in an unintelligent or careless manner." The word stupid applies perfectly to Mr. O'Reilly's assertion of a conquering force from Mexico.
Mr. O'Reilly claims that the need for military action at the U.S. Mexico border is as a result of an Arizona rancher, Rob Krentz who was recently murdered on his property. According to local law enforcement, footprints leading away from the murder scene point to the Mexican border 20 miles away. Although the circumstances surrounding the case are tragic, the incident is still under investigation and the assailant remains at large. To suggest this crime constitutes an invasion, that armed forces are crossing the border in an attempt to conquer the U.S. is comparable to justifying U.S. military force to destroy a foreign country on the pure suspicion that they posses weapons of mass destruction... oh, right.
U.S. border patrol has stated that 99% of all border-crossers are identified as economic migrants -- that means poor people searching for a job -- hardly an armed, invasive force. Mr. O'Reilly claims the border is 1,300 miles long. It is not. It is close to 2,000 miles long. He also claims that the U.S. National Guard will stop the "invaders." They have not. In the last several years the U.S. has tripled the size of the U.S. border patrol, added hundreds of miles of border walls, technology, unmanned drones, sensors, cameras and has actually deployed the National Guard on several occasions. The border remains porous.
It is an uninformed, unintelligent and careless (definition of stupid) assertion for Mr. O'Reilly to make, that we can solve complex issues of migration by adding more U.S. military forces at the border. If Mr. O'Reilly is suggesting the invasion stems from the sheer number of undocumented immigrants coming from Mexico then we should deploy the same suggested force at the border with Canada. The physical border with Canada is twice as long as Mexico and there are an estimated 1 million undocumented Canadians living and working in the U.S.. Isn't that a Canadian invasion? Didn't the 9/11 hijackers gain access to the United States through Canada? Bill O'Reilly is of Irish descent. Should the over 40,000 undocumented Irish immigrants living in the U.S. be subject to military force?
Nearly half of all undocumented immigrants living within the borders of the United States did not, I repeat, did not cross the U.S. Mexico border illegally. O'Reilly's assertion of an invasion from Mexico and subsequent military intervention would leave millions of people undetected; nearly half of all undocumented immigrants, 6 - 7 million people, have over-stayed their visa. They legally entered the U.S. on a travel, student, work, or family visa and never left. Should we consider them invaders too? Should we send the U.S. military to check everyone's expired visa?
O'Reilly compares the U.S.-Mexico border to the Israeli-Palenstinian conflict as well as the border between North and South Korea. Again, a dangerously stupid assertion. We are not at war with Mexico. They are our neighbors, our third largest trading partner and third largest source of oil. Millions of Mexican nationals have family living in the U.S. and vice-versa. They are not our enemy. I fully understand that the border region seems lawless and can be dangerous. Military force is a draconian solution, it's unintelligent and careless. Militarization of the border has not worked and more of the same will not work.
Bill O'Reilly defends his military solution by saying, "All I want to do is problem-solve." The problem is not an invasion of the United States. The problem is poverty, trade policies, economic inequity, U.S. addiction to cheap labor and U.S. addiction to illegal narcotics. The immigration system in the United States is broken and violence at the border is symptomatic of our current, failed strategy. If Mr. O'Reilly was truly concerned about resolving the complex issues of immigration he would act rationally, discuss the issues thoughtfully and advocate for measured and careful action -- the exact opposite of stupid.
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Not that I expect Billo the Clown to say anything even remotely intelligent.
European types, primarily intrigued by gold discoveries way way up north and acting out some illusory sense of entitlement, arrived, overthrew legal authority, and declared independence. They were supported by US Army troops commanded by John C. Fremont.
That invasion, once the blue-coats arrived, looked like many others: groups of people in concerted action applying pressure and seizing points of control for civil authority, communication, and commerce.
Is that what you're seeing in New Jersey? People under a unified command taking control of airports, harbors, radio/tv stations, city halls, etc.? Establishing garrisons to maintain control? That is dire. Round here, in Southern California I see people working and people wanting to work.
Please explain what it is that "looks like and invasion."
You make the case yourself for the only answer when you talk about the border still being porous, even after all the improvements with the wall, more agents, etc. The reason they come here is because a very small number of people make it easy, give them rewards and then promise them amnesty.
What we do need is to remove the rewards & incentives that draw most of the illegal immigrants here. Once we do that (and only once we do that) we will have control over the border with our border patrol. They would no longer be chasing people who only want to get a job, welfare, anchor baby status, free medical, free schooling, housing, food stamps, etc. They would only have to concern themselves with the real bad criminals.
That is why ANY sort of proposed "comprehensive immigration reform" has never worked and will never work. You will be hard pressed to find a single border patrol agent who doesn't agree with me. I know many of them, and being a law enforcement officer myself, I know until the rewards are ALL gone they will continue to come - more and more every year until we stop it.
People, whether they come from Canada, Ireland, China, Mexico, Nicaragua, another US state, etc., leave the places where they were raised, leave their culture and go off to a strange place (where they may have relatives) for jobs, i.e., opportunity. Standard of living, which we tend to measure in terms of public services (such as sanitation and schooling) and access to quality health-care, are attractions, but I claim these are better wherever there is a large middle-class, which this country has had because of the opportunity it offered to earlier immigrants.
To kill off the incentive to immigrate illegally is to kill off the incentive to immigrate at all, and the only way to do this is to explicitly turn the United States into something other than a land of wealth and opportunity.
My understanding of the issue puts it squarely on the idea of profit. Reduce your overhead costs by hiring cheap labor and you increase your profit margin. The U.S. agricultural industry thrives on the undocumented population. Millions (yes millions) of undocumented migrants are recruited and hired to work in our fields and processing factories. The construction and hospitality trades are similar. As long U.S. business profits off the backs of the poor, we will have illegal immigration.
I never meant to imply anything other then that for most illegal immigrants their MAIN goal is jobs.
But - It is a myth that illegal immigrants don't use our social programs at a very high rate. Here is one source (there are many more) http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/welfarerelease.html I know you will probably discount the source as I would discount anything from LaRaza but CIS is just reporting on Census Bureau info so I hope you give it a good look.
I live in WA and here social workers are forbidden from even asking about immigration status. So any illegal who tries will get taxpayer money.
Then no matter where they are anyone of them who has an anchor here (and that numbers in the millions) all get full access to every program. Plus we are then taxed to educate all those kids at over $15,000 per kid per year to over $35,000 per. Our school costs are skyrocketing due to free breakfasts, free lunch, ESL instruction, medical assistance, special tutors, etc
It has to stop and of course that means we take away the jobs too. E-verify works and we can also use the IRS to not allow any business to deduct wages to a SSN with a no match. Problem solved!