Did you guys read this???!! Wouldn't it be simpler to go after employers?

Question

Lawmakers to spend big on border

Eric Lipton
New York Times
Sept. 26, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - House and Senate negotiators agreed Monday evening to spend $1.2 billion to install hundreds of miles of fence and vehicle barriers along the Mexican border as part of a $34.8 billion spending plan for the Department of Homeland Security for the coming year.

The border security spending is just one of several major policy initiatives that Congressional leaders decided to insert into the annual appropriations bill. Others include a mandate for anti-terrorism steps at high-risk chemical plants nationwide and the reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The biggest increase in spending in the bill, on which the House and Senate are expected to take final action on this week, is in the area of border security and immigration enforcement, which would get a total of $21.3 billion, an 11 percent jump over this year. advertisement




This includes money to hire 1,500 new Border Patrol agents, increasing the force to 14,800, and to add 6,700 detention beds. The $1.2 billion for border security is designated for a traditional fence, vehicle barriers and a so-called virtual fence made up of cameras and sensors. That money could also be used to help build 700 miles of physical fence along a specific stretch of the Mexican border, a construction project that the House has already approved and the Senate is still considering.

"It is a major step down the road on border security," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who is chairman of the Senate panel that oversees the budget bill.

The bill also sets aside $4.34 billion for port security measures, including money for 450 new cargo inspection officers. That is up $600 million over the current year. The bill would also provide $178 million for new radiation screening equipment at domestic ports, among other initiatives.

It's the second major border security development in a week.

Boeing Co. engineers have crafted a plan to line the Mexican border with 1,800 towers equipped with sensors that can spot when illegal immigrants step onto U.S. soil.

Infrared cameras will detect the body heat of intruders, and radar will track vehicles used to smuggle immigrants and drugs into the United States.

On Thursday, Boeing's plan won a key contract, one that could lead to a "virtual fence" along 7,500 miles of the U.S.'s borders with Mexico and Canada.

Department of Homeland Security officials said Thursday that the initial three-year contract was worth $67 million and called for Boeing to build its tower-based system along a 28-mile stretch of the border south of Tucson. But analysts said the project could be expanded and total more than $2.5 billion.

Democrats at the conference committee meeting Monday evening also tried to add about $1 billion in spending for areas including mass transit security, aviation explosives detection research and port security grants.

"I challenge all of us not only to talk the talk on port security but walk the walk," said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the minority leader of the appropriations panel, referring to the much-heralded recent action by Congress on a port security bill that called for a larger amount of grants.

But with the Republicans holding a majority, each of the measures that Democrats proposed were defeated, one after the other, in party-line votes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will continue to exist under the agreement, though some members of Congress had said it was so discredited it should be abolished and rebuilt from scratch.

Under the agreement, the FEMA director would have a higher rank, still reporting to the secretary of homeland security, but serving as the president's chief adviser on emergency management, in a manner similar to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

FEMA would also now oversee Homeland Security agencies that focus on preparing for a disaster, instead of just responding to them, and it would have an extra $30 million to hire up to 250 permanent disaster relief employees.

Congressional negotiators also added a measure to the bill that would allow Americans to buy as much as a 90-day supply of prescription drugs in Canada, where they are less expensive, and then return home with them.

Answer 1

Repeated postings = repeated "reported"

tra la tra la!

Answer 2

I don't see why both shouldn't be done.The laws are already on the books against the hiring of illegals,why not enforce it with zero tolerance.That way you can cover both the non terrorist as well as the potential terrorist.
While I don't feel any imminent threat from the terrorist coming from the normal illegal.There could be a very different scenario too.In the land of what if.A terrorists offered an illegal more money than hes ever seen in his life to help him get across the border,and to carry some weapons/small bombs that the illegal didn't know were weapons.How many people do you think would do it?
Its a no brainer.Thats my worry too.

Answer 3

I m Mexican, and I thought this was kinda stupid. I think that th white boys knew what they deserved and what their rights were according to their government, so I can't blame them for doing what they did. As for the Mexicans, they are hard workers, but they need the work. They don't care what happens as long as they can make money to survive. They daren't report any mistreatent, as it would kinda be a kamikaze effort. Not all immigrants do this, a lot more immigrants are striving for excellence nowadays in order to live a better life than their parents. I am an immigrant myself, and am about to start college soon. I am legal, mind you, a permanent resident.

Answer 4

FEMA in charge of Homeland Security? OMG it's to laugh! And beefing up the border now is so like closing the barn door after the horses done run off, yeeehah! God, it's great to be an American! Definitely worth the price of admission! Seriously, though, I would not want to live anywhere else in the world for we are the greatest country.

Answer 5

Yes, It Would Be Easier To Go After Employers
But
There Is Really No Easy Solution To The Multi-Faceted Problem

Going After The Employers Would Dry Up The Job Market For ILLEGAL ALIENS Coming To Work And Live Here

But What Would The Deterrent Be
To Stop The Criminal Element From Returning To The USA ??
And Those Who Come To Drop Their ANCHORS Here ??

That Deterrent Would Be The Border Security Plans

The Approach Needed To BEGIN To Solve This Dilemna Is
A Combination Of Employer Sanctions
PLUS A Secure Border
Tied Together With Strict Enforcement
And Deportation Policies


See :
Cost 0f 1,891 Mile
Mexican/U.S. Border Fence = 14 Days of Iraq War
Posted by The Watchdog -
August 6th, 2006
VDARE

Below is a sample of homeland security items
in the FY2007 Budget,
their estimated costs,
and the time it takes the Pentagon to burn through
the same amount in Iraq.

* 1,500 new Border Patrol agents:
$459 million ($306,000 per agent)
Iraq spending equivalent: 1.9 days

* Container Security Initiative (CSI)
to pre-screen U.S.-bound cargo
at more than 40 foreign ports:
$139 million
Iraq spending equivalent: 13.9 hours.

* An additional 6,700 Detention Bed Spaces
to replace “catch and release” with a “catch and return” policy:
$410 million.
Iraq spending equivalent: 1.7 days

* An enhanced Worksite Enforcement program
to “send a strong deterrence message to employers
who knowingly hire illegal workers…”:
$41.7 million
Iraq spending equivalent: 4.2 hours

* Border technology to enhance electronic surveillance:
$100 million
Iraq spending equivalent: 10 hours

* 18 additional Fugitive Operations teams (raising the total to 70)
dedicated to catching the estimated 450,000 individuals
who have absconded following their deportation orders:
$30 million
Iraq spending equivalent: 10 hours

* Completion of the San Diego Border Infrastructure System,
including multiple fences and patrol roads:
$30 million
Iraq spending equivalent: 3 hours

And now for the grand finale.
Although this last item is NOT the least costly,
it may yield one of the biggest benefits.

After the first 10 miles of border fence was completed,
arrests of illegal immigrants
trying to cross the San Diego border sector plummeted
from about 25,000 per year to 3,000 per year.
But of course the San Diego fence
pushed the illegal influx eastward,
into the (less hospitable) Arizona desert.

A serious commitment to border security
would require fencing off the entire southern border—
all 1,891 miles of it.
(For comparison,
We have 40,000 miles of Interstate highways
That Are Maintained Annually By Taxpayers)

At $1.7 million per mile
(the cost of the first 10 mile stretch in San Diego),
the entire U.S.-Mexican border could be sealed off
(all 1,891 miles of it)
for $3.3 billion dollars.

Iraq spending equivalent: 13.8 days.

Cost/benefit analysis, anyone?

Answer 6

Wouldn't it be awesome to watch the CEO of Walmart led to jail in handcuffs for hiring illegals, on the nightly news?

And Miller Brewing Company, IHOP, Home Depot, Spring Hill Nursery, Denny's. All of them being led off to jail, trying to duck their heads from the media, as they are arrested for violating the laws of our nation.

Do that three or four times and you would see a

REAL RUN FOR THE BORDER!

Yes Ma'am, we would only see the dust settling for the illegals running to Mexico for cover.

Answer 7

They don't want to appear as though they are trying to hurt the businesses (they are in the corporate pockets). It's easier just to lock the doors, then take away the jobs later. Make sure no one comes in in the interim. They'll find a way back out when they're starving.

Answer 8

Yes and no. It might look that way on paper but they will keep coming to have babies here, employed or not... There are too many that come here and are not employed also.

Answer 9

okay, so what about the people who really do just come as terrorists and not to work? I don't think going after employers would do much huh?

Answer 10

Yes it would be but the illegal aliens are still her. Without jobs

Answer 11

All the laws we need are in place... our elected officials just refuse to enforce them.

VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT !