http://www.americandaily.com/article/11245

Guest Opinion/Commentary*

We Don’t Need No Stinkin Fence…
By David Tatosian (01/15/06)

From Sumeria to the present, city-states, towns and nations have erected walls and outposts to protect themselves.

Barriers work.

Except, apparently, for the United States of America.

Our 1,951-mile border with Mexico is the only spot, in the entire history of civilization, where a barrier won’t work.

Border Patrol agents taking fire, terrorists and narco terrorists smuggling drugs, arms and munitions, entire cities of strangers illegally entering the country weekly, but we’re told a fence is doomed to failure.

M! ort Kondrake (hoping to reign in the “talk-show claque� (1)) feels tougher enforcement is not the answer. He refers to National Immigration Forum (the folks who helped give us the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride (2)) estimates of average arrest costs along the border increasing from $300 in 1992 to $1,700 in 2002.

So not only should there be no fence, we need to stop making so many arrests.

He also refers to the 11 million illegals in the country and offers Kennedy/McCain as the best solution to the illegal invasion.

Where exactly did the 11 million number come from?

In 2004, estimates of illegal aliens were at 12-15 million. In 2005 Bears Stearns (whose results were based on methodology far superior to any employed by our Census Bureau (3)) put the number of illegals at around 20 millions.

Mendacity from the open borders/business advocates should not be tolerated at any level. A lie is a lie. They should be bludgeoned with the facts till they accept them and adjust themselves accordingly.

And why this obsession with earned legalization/work permit programs that reward illegal aliens for their destructive behavior?

Kondracke opposes a provision in the Kyl-Cornyn bill requiring “workers� to return to their own countries after their six-year work permits expire. He complains the provision would “…disrupt employment patterns and family life... “ for the hapless fugitives.

Of course their lives and families will be disrupted, every day they remain in this country they break the law. Not just secular laws covering theft and forgery, but moral and religious tenets that prohibit theft, covetable actions and bearing false witness.

What sort of good-hearted people steal food from the mouths of children?

Wouldn’t a three part plan comprised of a border fence, strict enforcement of all laws governing the hiring of illegal aliens and a sponsorship program eliminate the chaos and injustice that American citizens currently endure?

A sponsorship program would not only spare fugitives who were accepted to the program that disruption Kondracke is so concerned with, it would also allow individual citizens, some religious groups (barring Islam) and some corporate entities the opportunity to give something back to the illegal alien community they are so enamored with.

First and foremost, the enforcement of the law would begin the slow exodus of illegal aliens from our soil and enable those sponsored by the program to begin the process of assimilation that assures good citizenship. And good citizenship lies at the heart of assimilation.

If, at the end of a reasonable time, the immigrant cannot meet his/her obligations under the program, the sponsor will pay for transportation back to the country of origin.

As for the fence, well, 700 miles of barrier along 1,951 miles of border still leaves us with a 1,200-mile breach.

There’s no reason to! think Mexico and its friends won’t shift focus and people into a less secured area of the border. They did so during the Minuteman Operation this past April. And where good-hearted illegal aliens break in, OTMs, drug runners and criminals follow.

I am thankful a fence is in the Sensenbrenner bill. But this is an election year.

We’ve already seen Napolitano, a democrat whose efforts to impede border control are a matter of public record (4), miraculously transform into a border control advocate almost overnight.

If her transformation results in National Guard troops on the border, does she deserve support? If you’re a republican loyalist probably not. If you’re a border security advocate, probably yes.

Don’t Americans who do right by the country deserve our support?

And assuming the fence is part of the bill Mr. Bush signs off on, how many years before construction starts? Three? Four? Five?

Will the prospect of a fence, and the years it will take to begin the! project, increase or decrease the influx of illegal aliens and terrorists?

The laws need to be enforced with alacrity and enthusiasm.

The law will have to serve as our fence while it simultaneously persuades the recalcitrant of the benefits of sponsorship.