When a radical Muslim jihadist, trying to blow up a plane over U.S. territory on a recent Christmas Day, failed to properly detonate his bomb, Janet Napolitano told us that government efforts to provide homeland security had been successful at preventing this terrorist attack. In point of fact, a number of red flags were raised to the government’s attention, predicting that this young jihadist would commit a terrorist act, but were ignored and the urgency and importance of the information available was not communicated effectively with the various U.S. intelligence units. Government failed in every way in regard to this terrorist attack. It was dumb luck and the courage of a few passengers on board that particular Christmas Day flight that prevented the tragedy that al-Qaeda had planned for America on that day.
In regard to illegal immigration, Janet Napolitano informs us that, due to her Homeland Security efforts under the Obama Administration over the past two years, illegal border crossings are currently at the lowest levels since the 1970s, and seizures of illegal drugs from illegals crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. and of cash and weapons from illegals crossing from the U.S. back into Mexico have increased. The Obama Administration would have the American people believe that all of their hard work on border security has paid off with favorable statistics confirming the government’s successes in this area. But as it has been said before: In order of magnitude, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
A slightly deeper look at these numbers reveals the spin that the Obama Administration is using to claim credit for what is being sold as improvement in border security. When the U.S. economy was growing and unemployment was at an all-time low, most illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border from Mexico into the U.S. came here to work; most found jobs that helped them earn money to provide for their families.
Because jobs for illegals were plentiful, there was a dramatic surge in the numbers of illegals entering the U.S. illegally during this period. During most of the G. W. Bush presidency, most illegals who found work in the U.S. had their families follow them to America, while those who were unable to find sustainable work returned home.
Towards the end of the Bush final term and during the past two years of the Obama presidency, our economy tanked due to the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, Fannie and Freddie and other Bankster (think mobster) failed fraudulent, high-risk ventures and abuses at the expense of the American people. These high-rollers made trillions of dollars over the last decade by creating and manipulating their extreme-risk investments (think casino gambling) and secured huge profits and bonuses and for their CEOs, staff and shareholders.
When the bubble burst and all the Ponzi schemes disintegrated, the housing market collapsed and all the financial institutions were found to be insolvent. Even after an infusion of trillions of dollars from the Federal Reserve and billions of dollars from the pockets of those who were abused in the process of the financial bubble creation, the American taxpayers, these financial institutions continue to distribute huge bonuses to their management and staff and continue to remain insolvent despite unprecedented and unwarranted public bailouts.
These corrupt financial institutions were permitted by our government to privatize (and pocket) profits from their extreme-risk ventures while socializing their losses (sticking the bill for their bad behavior to the American taxpayer). In previous times, Wall Street and the monster banks provided investment capital and loans to all types of businesses that led to increased economic productivity and significant economic growth and prosperity.
Currently, these banks are holding onto their cash or cautiously investing in Treasury Bills. Most loans are being made to Wall Street firms or being used for the banks’ own investing, once again, in the same risky, non-productive and dangerous financial instruments. Small businesses, the life-blood of the productive American economy, are being denied the credit they need to innovate, grow, expand and create jobs. These banks have also severely restricted and increased the costs to the American people of consumer credit, leading to a dramatic fall in consumer spending. With demand for consumer goods plummeting, businesses, large and small, across the country slowed or were closed leading to our current, persistent high unemployment.
Enormous infusions of cash from the Federal Reserve to Wall Street banks and excessive government spending on pork-barrel projects, Stimulus, TARP and similar spending bills have temporarily propped up the stock market. However, government spending and the Fed’s “quantitative easing” have only made matters worse for the rest of the U.S. economy and the American people, prolonged the Great Recession with our jobless “recovery”, left millions of homeowners, drowning, underwater in their mortgages or facing foreclosure (the new “homeless”), and produced marked inflation that is currently threatening to collapse the dollar. Our government’s skyrocketing deficits and the Fed’s consistent abuse of the dollar will not only lead to continued devaluation of the dollar, but are likely to precipitate a switch from the dollar to another currency as the international currency of exchange and trade.
This ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy has severely limited the number of jobs available for illegal immigrants, most of who had previously come to the U.S. to work. With a scarcity of jobs in a bad economy, I can believe that many illegals that were here to work, if they had no job and no welfare support, would return to their home countries, and that fewer illegals would be motivated to immigrate to the U.S.
While I don’t believe Janet Napolitano has any idea how many illegal aliens cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. each day, I can accept that the number of illegal crossings may be decreased from the Bush years. If the absolute number of illegals crossing into the U.S. each day has really decreased, such a decrease is likely attributable to those seeking work deciding not to cross into the U.S. illegally, discouraged by the lack of jobs.
On the other hand, U.S. Border States report markedly increased illegal border crossings by criminals peddling illicit drugs, human trafficking, and violence. Such an increase in criminals crossing into the U.S. would naturally increase the odds that border patrol agents would intercept a larger number of these criminals.
Napolitano and Obama want to claim credit for decreased illegal border crossings. However, most of the decrease can be accounted for on the basis of policies put in place during the Bush Administration and the lack of jobs in the U.S. for illegals. When Napolitano boasts of increased border patrol seizures of illicit drugs and weapons from criminal illegals, she is unintentionally admitting to the current tidal wave invasion of illegal alien criminals bringing violence and lawlessness into the Border States with them.
The borders are really more porous than ever with a greater percentage of criminal illegal aliens entering the U.S., all because the Obama Administration is not really serious about border security. If the U.S. were truly serious about border security, we would have a fence the length of our southern border. If we really didn’t want illegals to climb the border fence, we would electrify it. If we really didn’t want illegals to cut electricity to or tear down the fence, we would build interval towers along the fence line with remotely operated sniper rifles to pick off any illegals climbing over, through or seeking to damage the fence.
Do we need to militarize our southern border like they have between North and South Korea with soldiers and artillery and drones? How serious are we about border security? Serious enough to do whatever it takes to stop illegal immigration?
If we ever did get truly serious and put into place such measures, it is doubtful that any would-be illegal alien would ever be harmed; once the word gets out that the border is defended by an electrified fence and sniper towers or soldiers, artillery and drones, few would be foolish enough to test these defenses.
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