The Border Fence That Never Was

Opponents of this summer's "comprehensive" immigration amnesty knew that President Bush's "promise" to enforce immigration laws after millions of illegal aliens were amnestied was a promise on which we could not rely. We all knew that a "comprehensive" amnesty failed in 1986 -- millions of illegal aliens were immediately amnestied and the enforcement never materialized... obviously. The result was a massive increase in more illegal immigration to the tune of at least 12 million illegal aliens as we sent the message: "sneak in and we'll reward you."

As soon as this summer's amnesty failed, Bush and his open-border friends in Congress immediately began promising that they would start enforcing immigration laws already on the books. They promised to "clamp down on employers" and to "come down on them like a ton of bricks!" As explained in an earlier post, the goal of amnesty-supporters in doing this is to create as much friction and chaos as possible in an effort to discredit the "enforcement only" approach to illegal immigration.

Today, we have seen yet another move by the open-border crowd to discredit immigration law enforcement, this time directed at the pending double-border fence.

Recall that the "Secure Fence Act" was begrudgingly signed into law by President Bush in the Fall of 2006. As authored by current presidential candidate Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the Secure Fence Act authorized the construction of 854 miles of double-border fencing along our southern border. Such a double fence has worked very well along California's southern border where the first double fence created by Hunter dramatically reduced drug and human smuggling. It also dramatically reduced crime.

The problem for Bush & the Dems: the fence will work too well.

So late last night, the Dems and their open-border Republican friends inserted a little language into a 3,500 -page spending bill that pretty much guts the ENTIRE Secure Fence Act altogether. The new language eliminates the requirement that the fence be a double-fence; a scraggly barbed wire fence will now suffice. Additionally, the locations specified for fencing in the Act have been eliminated. Now, the Department of Homeland Security (which is an Executive Branch administrative agency that falls under Bush's control) will have complete authority to decide where to put up fencing.

In other words, the original signed-into-law Act has been completely abandoned. The border fence has been defunded.

The goal of the open-border crowd is to build one of the most porous, useless border fences imaginable with the hope that you will not notice. They want millions of illegal aliens to be able to seek through with ease so that they can say the following a year from now: "see, border fencing doesn't work, but hey, we tried! Let's try an amnesty now."

It's disgusting, but that is the politics of the open-border crowd.

In response, Hunter noted that "Pulling back from the double-fence mandate is a prescription for failure that will only allow more smugglers, criminals and illegal aliens to enter the United States through our land border with Mexico."

But Bush cannot wait to sign the death of the Secure Fence Act into law. We need to make sure we never settle until all 854 miles of the double border fence are constructed.

"I think I see a hole in the Secure Fence Act..."