Immigration Policy Hypocrisy and A Solution

I cannot help that there is some major hypocrisy involved in the current debate regarding the new Arizona law that allows local enforcement officers to ask for identification in conjunction with a possible law infraction. Thus, if an Arizona officer pulls over a car for speeding, that officer is allowed to ask for formal identification. If that incident results in identifying an illegal alien, they can then take the offender into custody.

As most of us already know, there have been numerous street demonstrations against the law, claiming that the law will result in racial profiling. As the law is now, after modification, a police officer could not randomly ask anyone on the street for proper identification unless there was a another reason to question that person from a law enforcement perspective. While the potential for racial profiling is possible, it was also possible before the law was passed and the governor claims that extensive training to battle racial profiling will be undertaken.

But back to the hypocrisy of the whole situation:

• Why is it okay for the Federal government to demand/require special personal identification be presented by legal American citizens when boarding an airline, entering a Federal building or entering a nuclear power (as required by the Federal Real ID law) but it is not okay, according to the demonstrators, that an Arizona law enforcement officer require identification at a traffic stop or other law enforcement situation?
• Why is it okay for the Federal government to demand identification and proof of health insurance by legal American citizens under the recently based health care reform law but it is not okay, according to the demonstrators, that an Arizona law enforcement officer require identification at a traffic stop or other law enforcement situation?
• Why is it okay, and expected, for legal American citizens living outside of Arizona to present proper identification when involved with a law enforcement situation but it is not okay, according to the demonstrators, that an Arizona law enforcement officer require identification at a traffic stop or other law enforcement situation?

Why are the demonstrators demanding more rights for illegal aliens than they are requiring for legal American citizens? What part of "illegal" is too difficult to understand? If an older white male gets stopped for a traffic violation in Florida (i.e. myself), and I cannot provide proper identification, I am going down to the police station. Should be no different for illegal aliens unless the illegal was pulled aside for no other reason than being Hispanic. That determination is for a judge and trial to work out, it is not a reason to throw out all enforcement of illegal alien activities.

The other hypocrisy is President Obama's and other politicians' response to the law. The President called it "misguided" and other politicians are piling on and siding with the demonstrators. However, the real failure in this situation lies not with the Arizona state government but with the political class in DC and their truly pathetic inability to solve the entire border security problem. That's right, the illegal aliens problem is part of the larger problem of border security.

Our leaky borders resulted in the "Underwear Bomber" almost blowing up a plane over Detroit. Our leaky borders probably resulted in an American citizen traveling to terrorist training sites in Pakistan, re-entering the country, and almost exploding a fire bomb in Times Square last weekend. Thus, between terrorists coming over our borders in addition to poor Mexicans coming across the border for work, our nation's border security problem is a disaster. Thus, the enactment of this Arizona law was a local response to the federal government's inability to get anything done.

And what does Obama want to do in the light of this perilous situation? He wants to put off immigration reform, and by extension border security, until some point in the future. Apparently, Congress and the President do not have the stomach to do anything because of the difficult battle over health care and more importantly, the November elections (do not want to tick off any group even though delay hurts the country). In the meantime, all kinds of people, good and bad, have relatively easy access through our borders.

Here's my solution:

• There are about 90,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq. Obama the candidate promised to bring the troops home. That has not happened, now would be a good time to make good on that promise.
• As we have reported previously, we probably have 120,000 or so troops stationed in Germany, Korea, and Japan that serve no purpose at all. It is time to stop acting like we are in the midst of the Cold War and bring those troops home.
• I have several sources that put our current southern border Border Patrol staffing at 17,000 agents.
• The U.S./Mexican border is about 1960 miles long.
• Between the troops coming home and the current Border Patrol staff, the Federal government could put about 227,000 people on the border.
• Let's assume that the 227,000 people would be staffed with two weeks on duty and one week off in patrolling the border. Thus, every day, two thirds of 227,000, or about 151,000 people, would be available. The troops and agents would be deployed in twelve hour shifts, putting about 75,000 people on the ground at all times.
• 75,000 people to patrol 1960 miles would put one soldier or agent every 150 feet along the border. With their equipment, helicopters, night vision glasses, communications technology, etc., using U.S. troops as a fence along the border would probably cut immigration to nothing.

I would keep this deployment in place for one year. During that year, Step 29 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would be executed to come up with a solution. A diverse panel of experts from various fields and political positions would be implemented which would have the sole goal of doing a detailed and quantified analysis of the situation and come up with several alternative, real solutions. These solutions would be voted on by the American public, not Congress. Whichever alternative won the vote would then be implemented by the political class.

In the mean time, with the southern border locked down, we could see what happens when illegal immigration is contained. Do crops rot on the vine and trees because illegal immigrants are not available to pick the fruits and vegetables? Do unemployed Americans take the jobs of the missing illegal immigrants? Do farm wages go up because of the lack of labor, enhancing the appeal of working in the fields for Americans? No one knows these answers for sure and will not know the answers until we secure the borders.

Sound far fetched? What would my plan do:

• Unlike Obama, it would move us towards a fair, correct strategy sooner rather than later.
• It would involve Americans in the governing of their country, not the do-nothing political class.
• It would get our troops back home, saving the money of deploying troops to foreign lands.
• There may be some international good will generated as we cut back on foreign deployments and stop looking like an imperialistic nation.
• It would start to lock down our borders, curtailing the drugs flowing into the country. This would provide a great opportunity to also address the drug plague in this country since by locking down the borders, drug supplies would dwindle, prices would rise, and addicts may now look for treatment since they cannot afford or find the drugs for their habit. This facet would have to be coordinated with Step 26 which would have its own panel of experts looking into the nation's drug problems and proposing several solutions.

Let's address the real problem here: the Federal government's inability to secure our borders. Street demonstrations will not solve this situation of Federal impotency, only the plans discussed above appear able to get us moving out of the state of hypocrisy into the state of security.

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