I lived in southern Texas for 3½ years and illegal immigration is a big issue for the border states. Erik Fortman is a native Texan, political journalist, musician, and author whom I got the chance to meet and chat with for several hours one day, after the release of his book 'Webs of Power' (2004). In the entire 5th chapter of his book, he describes the immigration scene very accurately. Not a single President has ever seriously addressed illegal immigration, nor has any legislation succeeded in curbing the influx of illegals. A major reason is because of our limp wristed policies, and ineffective bills.
No other industrialized nation on Earth is as lenient on illegal immigrants as the USA. Documentaries have been on primetime television showing droves of illegals going around fences, and truckloads of people getting across the border, with our Customs and Immigration departments being the only people authorized to stop them, and only able to use limited force, then having to file a mountain of paperwork just to send them back. Meanwhile they keep crossing the border because they know the border itself is hardly protected, and once they get here, many small low paying businesses will employ them and sneak them under the table, and they can get free hospital treatments (who do you think has to pick up their tab?). There needs to be a serious reconsideration of policy here.
Another part of the reason according to The Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, on March 20, 1999 "The corruption of Immigration and Naturalization Service and U.S. Customs Service employees along the Southwest border by drug traffickers is a serious and continuing threat."
NPR's John Burnett ran a report titled 'Corruption at the Gates' September 11th-12th, 2002 "In recent years officers from all three of these agencies INS Border Patrol and Customs have been prosecuted and jailed for allowing illegal drugs and immigrants to cross the border into the United States in return for bribes, sex, and other rewards. Records from the INS and the Customs Service show that both of the agencies combined have an open average of 53 new corruption cases a year...and those are only the most high profile cases."
So we have poor border protection, nearly worthless policies, and now treacherous employees.
Because the government refuses to do anything about this problem, there've been people joined together such as the minutemen militia groups, which are trying to protect our borders against--let's face it--a full scale invasion. There's no soft way to put it. Unfortunately they got publicly blasted by the mayor of Austin, Tx who compared them to the KKK during a speech at one of the hispanic marches against the minutemen in Austin. The crowd behind him exploded in loud cheers upon hearing that. Imagine that, a holder of a prominent American public office putting down patriotic Americans who want to do their part to protect America from all enemies, FOREIGN and domestic.
click on "Immigration Gumballs" below to watch what the long term consequences of all of this is. Ron Paul was one of the only election 2008 candidates to address this issue. As I've said many times, in the coming years many Ron Paul supporters will be saying "I told you so".
Immigration Gumballs