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Incompetent Congress reps and a gullible electorate

By Patrick Osio, Jr./HispanicVista.com

   March 27, 2006

 

  

     Why does a sector of our elected political body insist on stopping the $6 dollar a day worker from entering the US in search of the $6 an hour job as the way to resolve the illegal immigration issue instead of stopping the $6 an hour employer who should be paying $12 (or more) an hour to American citizens and legal residents?

It sounds kind of, well, dumb, doesn’t it? Dumb and really expensive, and too boot, it hasn’t worked.

Every year when Congress puts together next year’s budget, they announce with great fanfare the importance to our sovereignty and security which starts with securing our borders – OK, not borders – border with Mexico. And as is now the practice, every year there is a budget increase.

Take the 2007 budget (Oct 1, 2006 through Sep 30, 2007) the budget is to be $7.8 billion and just to show us they mean business the kicker – and that is a 9.8 percent increase over 2006. Ooh, they mean business.

Except that in 2006 we heard that the budget was to be $6.7 billion which represented a 4.8 percent increase over 2005. And that is nothing the 2003 budget represented a whopping 33 percent increase over the 2002. And on and on it has gone year in and year out.

Asa Hutchinson who headed the INS in 2002, who at the time announced the 33 percent budget increase over the previous year also proudly touted that there had been 500 investigations of companies hiring illegal immigrants “a major increase” since 2001, he boasted.

Kind of disingenuous though – investigations? What about arrests, fines, stopping the practice?

Investigations and enforcement are two very different things. In 2001, 141 companies in the US were fined for hiring illegal immigrants, in 2002, companies fined were 73 – so big deal 500 investigations. It goes into the abyss of political apathy  after that – in 2003, 15 companies were fined. Southern California, home of the largest concentration of illegal immigrants, in 2003, 13 companies were fined but only 1 since then.

Naturally we hear some big name dropping like WalMart, and Tyson Foods – the reason why they make news is not only because of their size, but because they are the exception.

The madness continues – for the 2006 budget, the Congressional ‘stop them at the border’ sector had demanded an increase of 2,000 new Border Patrol officers for each of the next 5 years, so when only 210 were allocated – holy mackerel, they went bananas.

For the 2007 budget an allocation of $458.9 million is made for 1,500 new Border Patrol agents. From the way Congressional reps spend taxpayers money, they may not know how to divide, for the rest of us – that amount represents a cost of $305,933 per agent per year. The 2000 agents they wanted would have been a mere $611.8 million per year going to $1.2+billion in 2007, $1.8+billion in 2008, $2.4+billion in 2009, and $3+billion in 2010.

Presently there are around 11,000 Border Patrol agents, in 5 years that would make it 21,000. Now let’s see – there are 2000 miles along the US-Mexico border that would make it 10.5 agents per mile. That’s provided there are no agents along the US-Canada border.

Why worry? Our dear Congress reps tell us – we’ll build a fence – OK to save the poor taxpayer money let’s only build 700 miles of fencing. That will be a great savings – and look illegal immigrants won’t figure out that they can go around or over the fence thus they will be stopped for a bargain price.

The 2007 budget includes building the missing link of a triple fence along 14 miles from San Diego’s Pacific Ocean running east. The allocation is $30 million – that makes a mile $2.142-million. Assume the price holds and is the same for the 700 miles – that comes to $1.5 billion.

Oh, and by the way, someone forgot to tell crossers that the San Diego fence was there to stop them. It seems that the double fence built in the last part of the 1990s, only acted as a detour. I guess this last link completing 3 parallel fences will fool them this time.

So here is what we wind up with – Congress reps who don’t know the value of money, haven’t the foggiest idea on how to stop illegal immigration, don’t want to really upset business interests, talk tough to get reelected on the one hand and a large segment of very gullible voters on the other.

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Patrick Osio, Jr is Editor of HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com).  Contact at Posiojr@hispanicvista.com   

(The opinions expressed by Patrick Osio, Jr. are solely his and do not necessarily reflect those of HispanicVista.com, editorial board of advisors or it’s contributing writers.)

Patrick Osio, Jr. has written a short but intensive manual on the Mexican perspective on numerous issues between our two countries. The manual is an in depth primer on the culture and protocol for better understanding Mexicans that in turn allows establishing personal and business relationships, and how to avoid the most common faux pas that can ruin relationships and business deals.

The manual is available through Electronic delivery for $9.95 making it possible to download the manual for save on your hard drive, printing its entirety or particular sections while reaping considerable savings over printed copies.