Gads it hurts to agree with Rick. But on this I do. NAFTA is the right
idea. But are we doing it right? That seems pretty iffy.
rick baird wrote:
facts aren't very convenient for you either.
GHWB signed the initial treaty, but it wasn't ratified in congress
until Clinton made it a centerpiece of his legislative initiatives in
1993, and it was ratified by a dem majority both the house and senate.
I happened to support NAFTA at the time, and it has it's problems, but
it's still a net plus, and wasn't the 'giant sucking sound' Perot
predicted.
The biggest sucking sound is sucking illegals from there to here, less
so businesses from here to there.
On 4/6/07, Terry Richardson <terry-sssc@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Don't confuse the republicans with facts, Wayne, it makes them cranky.
Wayne McAlpine wrote:
NAFTA was signed by Bush 41 in December of 1992, a month before "Bubba"
took office. Sorry to burst your mercantilist bubble.
Paul Nelson wrote:
20 years ago, the borders were closed to trucks. Now, thanks to NAFTA
(thanks, Bubba) they can cross virtually unimpeded. How many people can fit
into a 53 ft. trailer? They're not coming over for free, either.
This is not unlike the Chinese smugglers bringing people into this country
on container ships. The trucks just go back and forth more quickly, and in a
matter of hours are hundreds of miles north of any Border Patrol agents.
These folks are being trucked as far north as Duluth, MN.
Have they caught any truckloads coming into Seattle yet?
Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 708-425-4198
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: cpf0000-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cpf0000-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 6:16 PM
To: Open discussion among iSeries Users
Subject: Re: [CPF0000] OIG Issues Report estimates over 600, 000 Fugitive
aliens in U. S. whereabouts unknown.
chuck.lewis wrote:
That wall did indeed tear families apart. Sure part of it was symbolic and
other things were at work. But it was a huge impediment.
How much of an impediment do you think our current border policies are?
And that's a serious realistic question.
Compared to what it _used_ to be, recent practices are perhaps
nearly totally ineffective. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get
_official_ info on what the current practices are. I suspect that
"National Security" of the Fatherla... uhh... Homeland requires that
we not know what's being done (or _not_ done as the case may be).
A google on [how many illegal immigrants are currently in the USA]
leads to a bunch of guesses. There are various interesting hits:
http://www.thedustininmansociety.org/articles/art2004jun15.html
...which eventually links to...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/15/ldt.00.html
The first is an extract; it's all that's necessary to read. The
second is the transcript of the entire Lou Dobbs program and helps
with some potential background; it's in case there's thought that it
might be too inaccurate. (I'm not exactly certain how accurate it
is. I suspect it's accurate at least to say that enforcement was not
pursued as a strong objective.) Note that the general relevant
subject is around testimony Jun 15 2004 before the House Committee
on Homeland Security on the state of things at that time. Finding
explicit info for anything after that is tricky.
So, what was it like when enforcement was actually funded? ...when
standing orders were a little more than "Sit in one place. All day."?
Somehow, I suspect that a wall is hardly worth talking about and I
don't get all of the talking that happens. Somehow, it seems
unlikely that 20 years ago it was as easy as it was four years ago
to get in. Somehow, I figure that simply letting the Border Patrol
do its actual job could get us on the way back to a normal state of
affairs. And with just a little more funding, the trend could even
be reversed.
AFAIK, we're not talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. It
doesn't require spending money to build detention centers to hold
illegals before busing them back if there are patrols that just keep
turning people around and sending them back across the border. If
fewer get through, there's less need for bed-space, less need for
buses. Savings to help offset costs should follow fairly quickly.
So, what was it like when it somewhat worked? Some got through; some
always will. But it was a relative trickle. No 'wall' needed.
Just _DO_ the job!
Tom Liotta
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