President Bush's Dog and Pony Show: No Beef just Baloney

By Steve Salvi

May 15, 2006 -- President George Bush announced a plan tonight to send National Guard troops to the US / Mexican border. The President's plan is a last ditch attempt to gain support for his plan to make US citizens of the 12 million plus illegal aliens already in the US. The President marketed his plan as a "middle-of-the-road" solution to the problem of illegal immigration. But what the President is actually selling the public is baloney -- straight from one of the meat packing plants that used to pay American workers $19 an hour but now hire illegals at $9.00 an hour and leave Americans unemployed.

The President has made plenty of promises of enforcement before. But we have all learned that his promises are empty.

Polls indicate overwhelming support for enforcement heavy immigration reform. That's why the president is pretending to be taking enforcement seriously. But his tough talk is just talk. The number of troops he wants to place on the border may be enough to protect it from 9am-5pm but illegals come at night too. Mr. President, where are the guardsmen to cover the second and third shifts? You see -- the Bush plan has holes big enough to drive a truck through, just as Mexican drug lords drive through miles of open border now into the US.

The public wants comprehensive enforcement of its immigration laws rather than taking money out of their already tight budgets to give to anyone who hires a smuggler to get them over the Rio Grande. And that is exactly what is happening now, costs to taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars every year. And to make matters worse, the illegals who do work displace low income Americans who lose their meager savings, cars, and homes, if they have one.

The fact is that President Bush has purposely not enforced the immigration laws and put proud American citizens in church sponsored soup kitchens. And ironically, many churches have contributed to the problem by enabling illegals to establish themselves in a community -- long enough to force American workers out of their jobs. How can an American worker afford to take the same wage as an illegal alien who shares a two or three bedroom house or apartment with 20 other illegal migrants? Illegal aliens don't care about housing codes. Illegals don't blink an eye at establishing a phony identity, and fraudulently applying for housing subsidies too. Most Americans don't do that.

Thanks to President Bush and certain members of the US Senate and House, American wages are now in a rapid race to the bottom. The US Chamber of Commerce and the multi-national corporations couldn't be happier. And labor unions, who you would think would be fighting for America's workers, have been complicit in the destruction -- by their benign neglect -- fence sitting -- and in some cases, like the SEIU, parading with the very illegal aliens who have hurt America's poor.