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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Sunday pops: Immigration edition
Sunday, March 27, 2005

Tancredo's common sense: U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., has fired another badly needed warning shot across the West Wing portico. The chairman of the congressional immigration reform caucus wants to know why President Bush is having such a difficult time grasping the serious flaws of his "guest-worker" (i.e., amnesty) program for illegal aliens. Mr. Tancredo rightly reminds that legalizing illegals will only encourage more illegals. "There's another way to deal with illegal aliens already here," he writes in USA Today. "It is called law enforcement." Hear! Hear!

Apologize, Mr. President: The same president who is inviting a flood of new illegal immigrants into this country with his amnesty proposal is deriding an attempt by U.S. citizens to do the job that government apparently won't. Mr. Bush -- who has refused to beef up the number of Border Patrol agents to the congressionally authorized level -- even had the temerity to go as far as saying border patrol volunteers are "vigilantes." A presidential apology is in order. More than 1,000 people have volunteered for the effort along the U.S.-Mexican border beginning next month. We wish them well.

Speaking of temerity: The Mexican government has been complaining loud and long of efforts to curtain the invasion of illegal aliens into this country. It even talks of illegals' "rights" to enter the United States and threatens suing those who try to stop them. Now comes a State Department report that says the Mexican government routinely violates the rights of illegal immigrants crossing its southern border from Central and South America. The Human Rights Practices report says Mexican officials not only engage in extortion but traffic in illegals. Gee, and all we want to do is send illegals home