George Putnam
Friday, July 7, 2006

It is this reporter's opinion that we face a vacuum in leadership at all levels of government. The recent best example of this is a statement by the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. Appearing before a Senate committee, His Honor said that "although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders, New York City's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported. And," he added, "the same holds true for the nation."

The mayor was appearing before a public hearing in which the citizens, at long last, were asked to express their feelings concerning the two bills put forth by the House and the Senate concerning immigration.

The bill passed by the House (H.R. 4437) demanded stern measures including closing our borders. At the heart of 4437 is the question of whether Congress and the Bush administration are serious about controlling the borders and about letting the number and kind of immigrants allowed into this country to be decided in the U.S., not in Mexico.

The Senate Bill, S. 2611, a 795-page bill announcing the president's "temporary guest worker plan," is a carbon copy of the 1986 amnesty. Specifically, 2611 would reward 15-20 million illegal aliens with an amnesty allowing them to take American jobs and become U.S. citizens. S. 2611 would entice millions of foreign workers to illegally enter our nation, crowding housing and schools, taking jobs, depressing wages. It would double LEGAL immigration from 1 to 2 million a year when our present immigration is only 250,000. And it would give out green cards to as many as 70 million foreign workers and dependents over the next 20 years.

In addition to the amnesty beneficiaries, 2611 would allow an estimated 5 million family members currently living abroad to join their newly legalized relatives, for a total of 15 million who will benefit from the bill's amnesty provisions.

Speaking of outrageous legislation, if Senate Bill 2611 becomes law, each year from fiscal years 2007 through 2011, the federal government will hire at least 1,411 new attorneys, adding to the already bloated federal immigration litigation monster – bureaucracy-building at its worst.

All of this adds up to the worst, most expensive bill ever passed by the Senate. And while the vote for amnesty was 62 to 36, only 19 of the 62 senators who voted "yes" are up for re-election in 2006. By placing special interests ahead of the interests of the country, these senators have shown they are unfit for elected office and should be voted out in November.

At this moment Mexico is struggling over who to elect as its president. Looming in the background is NAFTA, which has all but bankrupted the Mexican farmer. NAFTA is partly responsible for the massive economic problems in Mexico, which have left impoverished farmers with no choice but to sneak across our border in order to survive.

The Bush administration, not satisfied with the current economic chaos under NAFTA, wants to establish a free trade area in the Americas. All of which brings us back to a vacuum in leadership and to New York Mayor Bloomberg, who says the economy of the country's largest city in the entire nation would collapse if illegals were deported, and that "increasing our border patrols is either naive and shortsighted or cynical and duplicitous – no wall or army can stop hundreds of thousands of people each year."

The whole issue comes down to common sense:

Close the borders.

Impose severe sanctions against employers of illegals.

Cut off all the freebies, and the illegals will all go home.

The words of wisdom put forth by the mayor of New York should also recall that his school dropout rate is in the mid-30s and that a third of the young students over whom he now presides as their head of education can't find Louisiana on a map and only half are able to identify Mississippi. Those between the ages of 18 and 24 fare even worse with foreign locations; 6 in 10 can't find Iraq.

Yet the mayor says the city and the entire nation would collapse if the illegals were deported. I ask you: Can these billionaires even relate to most of us?

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