I held a telephone townhall meeting last week, and had the opportunity to listen to the views of quite a few people from our congressional district. I also responded to questions asked.
The thing most people wanted to talk about was the crisis at our southern border, where thousands of children, mostly unaccompanied by an adult, and mostly teenagers, are flooding into the United States. (And most of the people participating in the telephone townhall don’t like it. In fact, they’re outraged.)
President Obama has been trying to point the finger of blame for this unfolding tragedy on anyone but himself, but in my opinion, the blame is squarely on his shoulders. It is his Administration, after all, that has been attempting to implement the so-called “Dream Act,” allowing minors illegally brought to this country to stay here, despite the fact that the Dream Act is not the law. In fact, he has told his Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder, not to enforce existing laws on immigration.
News of this has gone far and wide, especially to countries south of the United States, and families are sending their children in droves, on a dangerous journey through Mexico, with the final destination being the good ‘ole United States of America (our laws be damned.)
Obama says it’s not his fault. It’s unrest in El Salvador, Honduras, or Guatemala. And that’s certainly part of it, but there’s been unrest in those countries for many years now, and we haven’t seen these numbers of children pouring over our border, ever. And Obama tries to blame Congress, for not passing his so-called comprehensive immigration reform package (i.e. amnesty.)
The fact is that there is a great deal he could do to stem the tide of illegal crossings into the United States, without Congress passing a single piece of new legislation.
First, he could simply tell his Administration, bureaucracy, Justice Department, and border security personnel, to enforce the law. He could send the National Guard to the border. He could reverse his opposition to allowing 730,000 local and state law enforcement officials to assist the 5,000 federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents to secure the border and enforce the law. And he could apply diplomatic pressure on the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, to prevent, or at least discourage, families from sending their children illegally to the United States in the first place.
Instead of doing any of these common-sense things, President Obama is calling on Congress to appropriate $3.7 billion more of your hard-earned tax dollars to take care of these “new Americans.”
No way.