A few years ago, we had a huge debate in the US about illegal immigration.
It was a debate about processing the 10-12 million illegals in the US.
It was an issue that had a rational solution in 2007: expand our "guest worker" program and allow millions to work here legally and pay taxes.
It did not pass for a lot of reasons, including the pressure that labor unions put on Dems to oppose a "guest worker" program.
By the way, we have the same problem today! The labor unions have always opposed any effort to bring in guest workers!
This is Pres BO's dilemma. He promised a lot to "los hispanos" but he also took millions of dollars from the labor unions that forced him to violate NAFTA over Mexican trucks!
Today, we face an entirely new debate rooted on border security and an explosion of violence in Arizona and everywhere else along the US-Mexico border!
In case you missed it, killings are a daily tragedy across the border. Worse than that, Phoenix is turning into our version of Cd Juarez:
"An unprecedented wave of Third World-style kidnappings by well-armed drug gangs in Phoenix has stymied city leaders and law enforcement while driving up the city’s crime rate dramatically.
Despite arrests and the dismantlement of at least 20 kidnapping “cells,” the crime wave has turned the city into the “kidnap for ransom capital” of the United States.
Police say the crimes are linked to the local drug trade — the surrounding Valley of the Sun is a national distribution hub for the U.S. drug trade — but others suggest that Mexico’s narcotics war has now fully engulfed the city." (Newsmax)
Wave of Drug Violence Is Creeping Into Arizona From Mexico, Officials Say
We did not have those stories in 2007.
This is why 70% of the citizens of Arizona support the law......including 51% of Dems who understand the violence wave!
This is why poll after poll shows that US voters want their border protected.
In other words, they want the federal government to protect them and their private property from a chaotic US-Mexico border.
We have a whole new political climate in the US.
There won't be immigration reform until Americans are assured that their personal safety and private property are not threatened by a chaotic border!
Sen McCain is right. We need more troops on the border:
