Border Charade - IBD - Investors.com
Security: After letting Mexico's president trash Arizona's immigration law and his immigration enforcement chief say he won't enforce it, the president wants to send a token National Guard contingent to the border.
There's something disingenuous about the president's plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the Arizona border to help the Border Patrol catch illegal aliens.
His director of immigration and customs enforcement, John Morton, has said he might not enforce immigration crimes reported by Arizona officials, though the state's new law merely copies federal law. Morton is director of ICE, not chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was not rebuked by his boss.
Keep in mind that both Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have attacked the Arizona law that both admitted they hadn't read. And when the president and members of his administration applaud Mexican President Felipe Calderon's interference in our internal affairs, we can be forgiven for thinking he is not serious about border security.
As Sen. Jeff Sessions said, Obama's request for Guard deployment would be a good first step if it were "followed with a commitment to vigorous work-site enforcement, full cooperation with state and local law enforcement officials, strong support for completion of the border fence and all other necessary border measures." Instead, we get talk of "comprehensive immigration reform," administration newspeak for amnesty and a new host of likely Democratic voters.
That Obama didn't bother to tell Arizona's embattled and courageous governor about his plans is also noteworthy. His administration is too busy criticizing her enforcement of federal law, which Obama, with Calderon at his side, called a "misdirected effort."
Nor did he consider the need to deploy the Guard before Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was murdered or before Arizona passed its law, protecting its border in a manner the feds failed to do.
It was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who got to make the statement that Obama would request $500 million in funding for border security. Her district borders Mexico, but then so does Republican Gov. Jan Brewer's entire state. Politics, anyone?
Arizona's law has been used by Democrats to stir up their Hispanic base and change the subject from a jobless recovery, our Greece-like mountain of debt and the debacle of health care reform. Arizona needs help, not kabuki theater, as Michelle Malkin has put it.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal immigrants make up 9% of the Arizona population, but they are responsible for 22% of the state's felonies and constitute 11% of its prison population. Arizona is now the kidnapping capital of the United States, and Phoenix has the second-largest kidnapping problem in the world, just behind Mexico City. |
