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Bush’s border plan draws criticism
WASHINGTON — The capital buzzed today in the wake of President Bush’s announcement that the National Guard would be deployed to keep undesirable elements from entering the United States.
The deployment is part of a major initiative to militarize one of the US’s most vulnerable points of entry, with increases in Border Patrol funding and the aggressive use of security technologies.
“We are launching the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history,” said the president in a speech Monday night. “We will construct high-tech fences in urban corridors, and build new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas. We will employ motion sensors, … infrared cameras… and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings. America has the best technology in the world and we will ensure that the Border Patrol has the technology they need to do their job and secure our border.”
Under Bush’s plan, up to 6,000 National Guard soldiers would be deployed along the “counterclockwise” shoulder of the Beltway to help over-extended Border Patrol agents as they monitor the vulnerable Maryland and Virginia borders. By 2008, high-technology video surveillance systems would be installed around the Beltway, with concentrations along the traditional corporate lobbyist migration routes such as Chevy Chase and Crystal City.
President Bush claimed in his speech that these extreme measures were necessary to stem the uncontrolled flow of corporate influence into the United States. “We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system,” said Bush in his speech. “For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders… Once here, corporate lobbyists live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to eliminate jobs. Corporate lobbying puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, ... it strains state and local budgets ... and brings crime to our communities.”
The announcement is widely seen as a move to mollify critics of the administration as the President’s approval ratings plummet. But some pundits are skeptical.
“This is the same old same old, said ultra conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. “He has chosen to offer a too little, too late, and all-too-expedient gesture of immigration enforcement as a phony bargaining chip to bribe his base into supporting a historically doomed, dangerous, and utterly unmanageable amnesty proposal.”
Malkin pointed out that the plan left significant gaps around the National Capital area through which persistent lobbyists might gain illegal entrance to the country. “The Potomac just sits there unprotected under this plan,” she told CRN. Nothing is planned to keep these lobbyists from just wading upstream past Cabin John. How would you like it if you lived in a nice house in Vienna, Virginia, and all of a sudden you had a parade of wetbucks walking through your yard?”
The plan drew criticism from the left, as well. “I’m all for keeping those people on K Street, where they belong,” said one commenter on the popular liberal blog DailyKos, who identified himself as being from Fairfax, Virginia. “But what about the many African-American residents of DC who come here legally to mow our lawns and clean our swimming pools? Won’t this penalize them unduly?”
In his speech, the President warned against such overzealousness in enforcement of the newly-fortified border. “We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions,” he said, “and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what law school they went to.”
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Immigration?? OOh, i thought he was talking about irrigation! Well then, never mind.
By: By spyder on 2006 05 16
“What’s all this talk I keep hearing about colonic irrigation?”
By: By Roxanne on 2006 05 16
This is the beginning of an excellent plan. Secure the beltway—completely—and then lay about a million rounds of spent uranium on everything in here, starting with K street. [Okay, you can remove all the denizens of the National Zoo, the museums on the National Mall, etc, first.] Then cover the whole radioactive mess over with concrete and abandon for 100,000 years. We’ve rebuilt the Capital before and it may simply be time to do it again.
I live and work here and even though this would ruin my own day, for the good of the Republic (“and the dream that once was Rome”) I fully endorse this plan.
By: By ehj2 on 2006 05 16
Wetbucks. Snort.
By: By Kat on 2006 05 17
“THe Potomac is unguarded”?
The hell?
“lobbyist wetbucks wading through the Potomac”?
Is Malkin not taking her medicine? What the hell is she TALKING about? I have this vision of these guys in business suits wading across a river, holding their briefcases and their expensive italian shoes above their heads…..
By: By beverins on 2006 05 17
One thing I am puzzled here is that, it seems most debates focus on if the tightening border plan would work, whereas no one questions if all illegal immigrants have entered the country by crossing that one southern border. Yes, I understand, there’s probably a significant portion of it; but I doubt it’s the one and only way 12 million illegal immigrants used. I bet another significant portion might have generated from aliens who have entered this country with legal visa status but stay after their visas expired. Then there’s the smuggling across all borders, not just Mexican.
Not to mention the major point in this debate is: is it right to justify for law-breakers? One thing for sure: it doesn’t matter which law school our President went to, he believes he is above the law.
By: By amy on 2006 05 18
Some people won’t care until the wetbucks have flooded all the watering holes in Georgetown.
By: By The Heretik on 2006 05 18
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