Too Little, Too Late…

Five and a half years.
That’s what its taken George W. Bush to “get serious” about securing the borders.
I didn’t watch the speech on Monday night. I didn’t really need to since I had a pretty good idea what the substance of the message would be. Even still I read the speech online and heard exactly what I expected to hear: a knee-jerk response and a cornerstone issue for the mid-term elections in six months.
I read it and I’m still not impressed. In fact, I’m pretty good and angry.
The President says he’s against amnesty, but makes absolutely no sense in this passage of his speech:

Some in this country argue that the solution is to deport every illegal immigrant and that any proposal short of this amounts to amnesty. I disagree. It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of people, many with deep roots in the United States, and send them across the border. There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant, and a program of mass deportation. That middle ground recognizes that there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years, and has a home, a family, and an otherwise clean record. I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law to pay their taxes to learn English and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I have just described is not amnesty it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.

Pay a meaningful penalty?? What the hell does that mean? Bush says “we’re a nation of laws and we must enforce” those laws, but what good does it do if you’re providing de facto amnesty? He doesn’t want to call it that but amnesty is exactly he’s selling.
The United States already has a guest worker program, thanks. Our friends from India have had no problems whatsoever in taking advantage of that—and they’re all here legally, thanks.
It would appear that Mr. Bush has an uphill battle on this one. House GOP members are also upset with his stance and have had no problems voicing their opinions on the matter. Polling data is up the middle on the President’s speech, sure, but if you’ve already burned up all your political currency within your own party on things that make no sense (see: Social Security reform) then you aren’t going to go very far. That’s the position that Dubya is in right now.
Sending 6,000 troops to the border? That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg, thanks. We’re asking our troops to guard the border when we can’t even enforce the laws of the very land they defend? If I were in uniform, that might seem like a big ol’ slap in the face to me.
I’m a Conservative before I’m a Republican. I’ve made no secrets of that. That’s why this site isn’t called Republican Blogger, thanks. Like many other of my fellow Conservatives, I’m good and mad, too. I’m not yet to the level of fellow blogger La Shawn Barber–who has suggested that George W. Bush could and should be impeached over border security–but I’m getting a little closer to that stance every day.
(NOTE: La Shawn also has some fine commentary on Bush’s immigration speech, as well as a roundup of reactions. If you don’t read her blog, you really ought to check it out.)
It comes down to this: we Conservatives will not see the endgame we want on the issue of illegal immigration. It’s that simple. The only question that remains is whether we’ll choose to take it lying down or not.
I know I won’t.
We ARE a nation of laws and it’s about time this President enforced all of them–and not just the ones he likes.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com